Books, Books, and More Books

I would like to publically thank The International Alliance for Children's Literacy for their generous donation of a barrel of books and school supplies. In fact, it was so generous that it was too many books for Westphalia All Age School! I distributed the books around the island to other Peace Corps Volunteers and so their donation has actually helped thousands of children in dozens of schools in many parishes across Jamaica. Big ups to this wonderful organization!

Running water at Westphalia All Age School!

Last month, for the first time in over 30 years, water flowed out of the faucet at Westphalia All Age School. It has been a long and arduous project delayed by governmental red tape, rain, hillside fires, and lack of support but it is finally completed. And just in time too - the rainwater harvesting tank had been running low due to lack of rainfall in the past few months. Students can feel free to wash their hands anytime and can drink some water after a sweaty game of football!

Students enjoy clean drinking water for the first time in over 30 years

The project was started soon after I arrived in Westphalia, in November 2010 with our first planning meeting. After several months of planning and seeking different means of funding we finally found Appropriate Projects (an itinitative of water charity) and with their help and the support of the National Water Commision (NWC) began burying and laying the pipe in May, 2011. I realized that the pipe from Appropriate Projects would not be enough; we would have to source the water from higher up the hill that we had originally thought. So, we lobbied with NWC and after several months, they agreed to assist us. Then with several weeks of waiting for pipe from NWC followed by several weeks of manual labor, we slowly pieced together the pipe. It was successfully installed by December 2011, in time for my trip back to the United States for Christmas. I arrived back in Jamaica in the middle of January. Before even reaching up to my community, I learned the bad news: our pipe had burned. Some young men caught up in the Christmas festivities had lit a fire on the hillside. In order to protect the pipe (from both fire and people) we had buried it at least 6 inches in the ground - except for about 20 lengths - the 20 lengths that burned. We didn't bury those lengths of pipe because the slope on the hillside was so steep and the grass so tall that it would be very difficult work. With the fire having cleared the grass for us, we were back at it again, this time making sure to completely bury every inch. While it was disheartening at the time, I'm actually glad this happened while I was still in the community rather than later when the community would not necessarily have the resources to repair the pipe.

Connecting the pipe was suspensful. The usual team of three (Fitzroy, the NWC representative in the area and myself) met in Cinchonia Botanical Gardens at the top of the mountain to connect the mile of buried PVC pipe to the main. Also as usual we didn't have the right tools, or fittings for the job. With several pieces of PVC, rubber cement, and a fire, we jerry-rigged a connection that allowed the five houses on the old line to still recieve water and to divert some of it to onto the new line to the school. I hopped on my bicycle and plummeted down the hill to the school to watch the water gush out of the pipe. When I arrived I snuck past the teachers, and expectantly turned on the faucet, hoping to surprise them. Nothing. I dashed back up to the place where the line exited the earth and put my ear to it. Nothing. I disconnected it and looked down the pipe. I'm not sure what I was expecting to see, but again, nothing. Great, there's a leak. Who knows where it is? I slumped down in defeat next to the pipe, trying to muster the courage to walk back up to the top of the mountain looking for leaks when - whoooosh! Out came the water! I had actually beat the water down the mountainside! I let out a scream of joy and all the children came running. We had water! Hug and smiles and our thirst was quenched.

Ms. Tati, our school cook now just turns on the faucet to wash the dishes!

Thank you to all those who have helped in our project: NWC, Appropriate Projects, and all the community members who contributed their hard work. I couldn't have done it without you!

School Garden Part 3

Proud farmers display their produce

The school garden was a great success last year. After our harvest of string beans and turnips we planted and reaped lettuce, tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, and carrots. We had such a bountiful harvest that we could not use all of the vegetables at the school. We sent some of the produce to the local shops and market and a lot of it to needy families. The profits from the garden will be used towards seeds and fertilizer for this school year and for the school nutrition program (more to follow). We are looking forward to planting more string beans, carrots, tomato, broccoli, and lettuce within the next month. Our sweet pepper and hot pepper plants are still bearing along with scallion and thyme the key ingredients in every Jamaican dish.

A local shopkeeper sells our tomatoes in his shop and at the market

Summer is gone...Back to School Fun!

Yesterday was the second full week of school. School let out early on Friday afternoon, as usual. I stayed later to let students swap library books. They were excited because they get to take two books on the weekends. However, after library time was long gone I was surprised to see a group of students still hovering in the school yard, debating the differences between sharks and dolphins. This is a Friday afternoon! Don't you want to go home throw off your school uniforms and have some fun? I guess I shouldn't have been. Jamaican children love school. In Westphalia at least children would much rather be in school than at home. Summer was boring and they are so happy to be back in school again. The teachers tell me it's because they have too many chores to do at home. I'm not sure what it is but Shhh! don't tell them they're not supposed to like it!

At the end of last year I asked my students if they wanted to continue reading classes over the summer, expecting them to say no. Another surprise: yes miss! How many days a week would you like to have them? Everyday miss! But you wouldn't want to have it all day, just for about an hour or so? All day miss! We compromised with reading class Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday mornings and swimming lessons at the river on Fridays when most children help their parents on the farm. Swimming lessons were large and sometimes more fun than swimming. Reading classes were small but successful. Between November and July one student improved by 3 grade levels, two students improved 2 grade levels, and 8 students improved 1 grade level. Most of them are still below grade level, but hopefully that will change this year!

Mondays, Saturdays, and some Sundays were dedicated to water work days with a core group of men in the community laying water pipe to the school. Thanks to Appropriate Projects my fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Daniel McDonald's parents Judy and Doug McDonald, the National Water Commission, and community members the pipe has nearly reached the school (only 20 lengths to go!). Work days were frustrating at times due to lack of support, but we have successfully carried, dug trenches for, joined, laid, and buried over 150 20' lengths of pipe.

I also had several visitors this summer, and hurricane Irene was not one of them! My friends and fellow Peace Corps Volunteers Sammi Travis and Patrick Marti came on a river day. Two new Peace Corps Volunteers Sarah Marshall and Crystal Aeppli came and helped Fitzroy and I weed out the garden and carry two inch pipe on their shoulders - what great sports. Thank you guys!

Mom and Dad enjoying Jamaica's natural beauty.

Finally, my PARENTS came to visit me in Jamaica. Which was BIG NEWS in Westphalia. My parents kept asking "When can we come visit?" My community kept asking "When are mommy and daddy going to come look for you?" and I was the major stone in the road keeping these two groups from meeting each other. They come very different worlds and I, living somewhere between the two, was afraid I would be mortified by their interactions. However these two forces were bigger than me, and they arrived mid-July. My fears were misplaced. My parents were wonderfully flexible. They stayed in Westphalia for a few days and took bucket baths like pros! My community members were very welcoming opening up their hearts and homes and sending them on their way with freshly ground coffee. I had wild dreams about us riding bikes through the mountains for two days but when one of the valves on the tubes sprung a leak we had to content ourselves with a rusty old truck ride. At one point during the ride, Dad looked down through the holes in the rusted out bottom of the truck to see a fire below his seat. Luckily, our driver was a mechanic and after whacking the battery with a wrench a few times it was as good as new. I am used to drivers moonlighting as a mechanics but my parents were remarkably cool about it as well. We had several more adventures far from the traditional all-inclusive Jamaican vacation including touring a bammy factory and swimming in one of Jamaica's many "blue holes" which are gorgeous clear blue water usually with a waterfall as a backdrop. We topped it off with the highlight of my summer - turtles. We helped 148 baby turtles hatch and watched a mother lay another 100 something eggs. I got to swim out to sea with the babies until they tucked their flippers into their sides and drifted out with the current.

There were literally HANDFULLS of turtles. They are so determined and independent from birth - they know exactly where the ocean is and head straight for it. As we say in Jamaica "Dem no business wit nobody."

Fitzroy, my community counterpart and right hand man for our water project and school garden, and I also got to do some traveling including visiting his daughter in Trinityville, St. Thomas and going to the yearly Jamaican Agriculture show in Denbigh, Clarendon. All in all, it was an enjoyable summer and I'm excited for school to be back in session again!

Den den, Fitzroy and I pretending riding Jamaica's newly reinstated train at Denbigh.

Labor Day

Pipes donated by Appropriate Projects were buried to provide clean water to the school.





Parents paint the school yard walls in Westphalia All Age School's colors: green and gold.

May 23rd was Jamaica's Labor Day. Labor Day in Jamaica is not a random day off like in America, it is a day of labor for the community. Parents and children from all over the district flocked to the school on Monday to paint, clean, and lay pipe. The school looks so much brighter now, thanks to everyone's hard work!

Students, present and past, working together to help their school.

Courtney and Joshua help stretch two gallons of paint to cover all the walls

Carnival

Carnival Paraders take a break after several hours of walking in the hot Kingston sun.

Just before attending mid-service conference I got to witness Jamaica’s carnival. Carnival is a Caribbean tradition which originally started in Trinidad and Tobago and involves scantily clad men and women dancing in drunken orgies to ward off duppies or evil spirits. Needless to say it was quite and experience. It was different from most Jamaican parties in a few key ways 1) it was during the day 2) it was moving (a parade) and 3) people were dancing the whole time. It was like a giant conga line all throughout Kingston! I went with a busload of people from my community, most of them men in their early twenties (or to steal a term from Taylor, a fellow volunteer, the idle bwois). Up until the trip I’d had a hard time interacting with them. I’m mostly friends with the kids (15 and below) and the grandparents (40 and up). The kids are still innocent, fun, and up for anything and the grandparents are mature enough to carry on a decent conversation. When I'm talking to women my age the conversation usually peters out after I ask how their children are. If the men don't try to hit on me, the conversation usually stops right after hello.

Going out with the idle bwois was a real bonding experience. We caught the parade in New Kingston, near to the Peace Corps Jamaica head office, an area I am very familiar with. For the first time, I was showing Jamaicans around Jamaica, a wonderful feeling! I kept them from getting lost and they saved me from a creepy clown who talked in a high pitched squeaky voice. Of course the majority of our interactions since that day have been us saying the same greetings as always but in the creepy clown voice. The conversation isn't exactly gushing forth, but hey, a bridge was crossed and I don’t feel so uncomfortable walking through the square anymore.

Rejuvenation!

The past few months (January – March) were very difficult for me. I just got back from our mid-service (yes its been a year!) conference where we talked about the volunteer life cycle and the one year slump. Most volunteers have a difficult time right around the one year mark. It was definitely a slump but I’m pleased to announce I’m on the way up and out! The biggest contributing factor was my recent trip to the U.S. for Easter. Thank you, thank you, thank you to my family for listening to me complain and giving me so many pep talks. I am energized and ready to dig into the second year of service! It should be noted that most of my community says foreign was good to me, that I’m glowing now, and also that I look so fat and pretty (a major compliment in Jamaica).

I was really trying not to go home for the full two years in order to totally immerse myself if something different, but I didn’t make it. I managed to explain to my community that no, I don’t have money my family is paying for the ticket (sorry Mom and Dad you might get begged big-time when you get here) but I still heard a lot of ridiculous requests. Foreign is a magical land where geese lay golden eggs and ipods grow on trees. So I was SUPPOSED to carry back several computers, three pairs of shoes, a blackberry, pizza, a variety of gourmet cheeses, pounds of broccoli seed and a few mp3 players. I ended up bringing 100 lbs of used books that students from Loomis Elementary School generously donated and some soaps and candles that we had gotten at one time or another and never used. It was tricky, but I think I managed to walk the fine line between every parent in the district asking me to pay their child’s school fees and insulting someone close to me because I didn’t “carry something back for them (do please do).” The Jamaican pleading “do” and “come now” are so hard to say no to!

Grades 6-9 pose for a class picture with their new books on Literacy Day 2011

Bringing the books to the school was a major feat which involved a car, one airplane, three taxis, two buses, and 17 hours of travel time. It also included me getting stranded in downtown Kingston (yeah the dangerous part of the island) after dark and two very kind strangers, angels really, each carrying a 50 lb box of books about 7 blocks for me. To celebrate, we organized a last minute Literacy Day 2011 celebration yesterday which was held, you guessed it, today! As a procrastinator, Jamaican planning is just my style! It was a huge success. All the students are SUPER excited about the new books and better still SUPER excited about reading. The principal and I had to forcibly herd the children out of the library appeasing them with promises that they could check a book out on Thursday once they have been organized.

Reading, books, and more reading!

Everything is looking up. We’re going to build shelves for the books, move the library into a bigger room, and put in a computer with reading games. Our garden is looking fantastic (who knew everything could grow so much in three weeks?!) and students are EATING VEGETABLES EVERY DAY and even taking some home for the rest of their family. Also, even though the National Water Commission is full of false promises and bureaucracy it looks like not all hope is gone for the community water project after all. Hopefully, more on that is to come. Until then, our eyes are wide and dreamy and we look fat and pretty!