Lessons Learned

In my mind, the recycling project has three main audiences: Students, Shopkeepers/Business owners and the wider public of the community. Knowing that most ideas are the most successful seeds if planted in children, I started with the school-wide bottle collecting competition. Students are competing by grade to see which class can collect the most bottles, and the winning class will be determined at a celebratory recycling Fun Day on May 22nd. The class will win the price the bottles are sold for and many classes are already planning field trips to the beach.

This tactic already feels successful; Beeston Spring has never looked cleaner as the kids comb from hill to gully, from yard to shop searching for bottles. The adults and teens of the community have been watching the school picknie going at it, some perplexed and some satisfied- and I fill them in when they ask: “Wuh yuh mek mi picknie dem do?”.

The next audience to tackle then, my mind assumes, would be the shopkeepers. So I organized a date with my friend at Plastic Recyclers of Jamaica and he agreed to come have a business discussion with our shopkeepers regarding bottle exchange rates, practices and overall recycling education. I made invitations and hand delivered them to most every shopkeeper in the community, explaining the who, what, when and why and answering questions/ educating. I got phone numbers from every person I talked to so that I could send them a reminder text message and I scheduled the meeting tactfully, in the morning, before many of the shops open.

My mind felt good, everyone seemed interested and most people asked questions. Everyone gave me their cell number. I sent a reminder text the evening before the meeting with no problems and in the morning I woke early to sweep the veranda of the meeting place. Meeting time was ten and I sent a second reminder text at 10:30 when not a soul had shown up… no big deal, it’s Jamaica time… 10:35…10:45…11am…still no one. Plastic Recyclers Man (PRM) arrives ten after eleven and my mind is worried, embarrassed and livid- this is the part where I wish I was better at hiding my feelings. Showing disappointment so poignant and being (almost) 24 years old is kind of like that year when you were 7 and you thought for sure you were getting a pony for your birthday. Eliciting “you’re too young to understand reality” responses which, are of course, condescending in nature and not particularly uplifting.

Everyone has this experience, especially in the Peace Corps, call it a coincidence, Murphy’s Law, the nature of development work, whatever. Chances are if you want to make a difference there will be a moment while you do it that you think “WHY do I even bother?” It’s during those times that a supportive project team is imperative. With the arrival of PRM my project team became twice as helpful.

I was in no mood to be a happy and supportive community member at this point, but I knew the only other option was to actually go to every shop and talk to them individually. PRM  brought several sandwich bags of shredded bottles and a football jersey to draw the line between the raw and final products, and to explain his role in the process. After going to the first shop, I realized that perhaps this was even a more effective method as community members were around while we gave our shpiel and were so informed of the project and its benefits. I watched PRM give his rap, and had it memorized by the end of the day, and he left me with a shredded bag of bottles. Now I have ammo for the PTA meeting today where I get to explain to everyone “Wuh mi mek ee picknie dem do.” and more importantly, WHY.

So it turns out that seemingly major failures can, in actuality, become a generally regarded success. A lesson learned, life, thanks again.

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answer to last post’s question:

“Today Is A Happy Mango Day”

After feeling the cool breeze from the steely dark rain clouds moving slowly around the perimeter of Beeston Spring, I went outside to take some pictures of a brightly contrasted mango tree in the yard. Circling to the back I came upon him fervently collecting the fruits under the tallest common mango saying “I never came out this morning, I could have carried these to mummy!” As we collected from the ground, they fell from the canopy, some half eaten by birds, some perfectly intact. Silence, ruffled feathers, thump, silence, silence, thump and a bright yellow streak falls by my periphery. It may not have rained water, but it seems to be raining mango. He bends in the tall grass with an armful of the sweet, warm fruit: “Today is a happy mango day” he says excitedly to no one in particular.

~The red leaves in the above tree are “springing”, they are new and they will mature to the same green on the left side.

 

* Who can find the second Ball Plate in the breadfruit tree?*

Picture Updates

I should post some pictures since I went away two weekends ago and other stuff has happened…

The Yard, School, Sunsets and Bonfires VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

A Cure For The Common Cold

I think one of the most amusing things that we as Peace Corps Volunteers deal with in Jamaica is a complete lack of respect for germ theory. Not that hygiene is particularly disregarded, but superstition is more of a reality. Can we as Americans politely point out that getting stuck in the rain will not make us sick? Of course, but that won’t stop every community member you pass in a light rain urge you to walk faster to home lest you get sick. It also will not stop any community member who got stuck in the same rain to declare the next day that the rain wet them up and they are sick today. I have yet to figure out if this is purely psychosomatic or a medical anomaly but either way, it happens.

These idiosyncrasies are entertaining and sometimes perplexing when one is in good health (picking ones nose in public here is a commonplace, going barefoot inside will cause your auntie to make you wear your slippers or you’ll catch cold) but I got an insiders look this past week when I actually did catch a cold.

It was the typical sneezing, snotting, earplugged head cold that ends with coughing, a headache you just can’t shake and that same damned ear showing no signs of easing up on the pressure. In Jamaica they would say that you “kech a flu” the minute they hear you sneeze- in American we all know means you’re practically dying of fever and sore joints and can’t leave your bed, not the case here. I will proclaim that I may have had lyme disease, scarlet fever, whooping cough, strep and two cases of shingles but I have never had the flu, bronchitis or pneumonia so… there’s a point in there somewhere.

There is something to be said of the common cold in the tropics. It really does suck. The humidity is everywhere, the heat makes you feel like your head is in a oven wrapped in pillows- then the rain comes, the air pressure changes, your headspace struggles to keep up and you’re in bed with chills and a cup of tea. So having experienced this on day one, I attempted to relinquish my American belief that “im not really that sick” and did nothing but sleep and read for the next 48 hours. You know the resolve it takes to wake up for work and decide in the hour you need to get ready if you should call in for a sick day? Peace Corps volunteers don’t have that pressure because there is not a single Jamaican that would even question if you actually are sick, or sick enough to not be doing what you need to do. I even started proclaiming over the phone or through my gate at inquirers “I have a flu, I can’t be out in the night dew”, not because it’s the truth but it’s their truth so it still works. 

I can’t possibly tell you which cultures’ tactic is better. While I find the basic disregard for proven science frustrating at all times here, I do appreciate the leniency and sympathy people have for illness- it is healthier and less stressful. I think being sick in a new place is always less comfortable than being sick in a climate controlled environment while dad plays piano and mom makes you lipton soup with extra noodles. Thankfully though, my new place has a fan, people who love me and cock soup, an acceptable alternative in all categories.

Thinking of Home

Since I’ve been in Jamaica, there have been at least three distinct tragedies of mass violence against the civilian population of the United States of America. And I’ve been gone for 12 months.

Since I’ve been in Jamaica, there has not been a single attack by a citizen on a random group of citizens here. Murders, homicides and the typical violence that Jamaica is known for have of course occurred, with a few particularly effed up outliers, but these occurrences have never made me personally feel unsafe. I stay away from violent men, gang related business and drug related situations. I am obviously not a part of the collective population, even the general domestic dispute is avoided in front of me.

But yesterday, a PCF (peace corps friend) with internet called me in case I hadn’t heard about the bombs that had exploded at the Boston Marathon. I hadn’t, of course- I live in an internet-less bubble of Jamaican culture and hadn’t heard the radio since early morning. But my heart stopped and tears filled my eyes as I remembered cheering on my mother at that exact marathon around 7 years ago. My mother and my baby sister are avid runners and my sister runs cross country for Tufts University in Boston. Shit, shit, shit.

A call to my mother calmed my fears, Sis is ok, but she was at the marathon, at mile 24, cheering on a friend. I realized with extreme guilt that my family had had a very stressful and emotional day as their youngest daughter negotiated the panic stricken streets of Boston, unsure of exactly what had happened but knowing that travel the two miles to the finish line was no longer on the to-do list. I wished I’d been there, or at least been aware of the tragedy sooner.

This is not an event that many here can empathize with. Nothing like September 11th, the Columbine shootings or any of the other screwed up things that happen in America happens in Jamaica. Bad people are just not on the side of God here, it’s sad but it’s a truth. And it’s a difficult logic to argue without opening up a whole new can of worms.

Laying in bed last night I was seized with the fear of it happening again, taking my loved one. I’m out of the loop and all I know is that it was a citizen attack on other citizens. Do they know who it is? Has he been caught yet? I won’t know until I reach the internet later today. But in my mind, a psychopath who would murder a crowd of marathon runners, is still at large, and my baby sister is still in the city.

Have you even been to a marathon, dear reader? Well, it’s kind of like being at a street party full of goodwill towards man. It’s one of the most uplifting, motivated and inspiring  events you can attend. The Boston Marathon even more-so, since there is a qualifying time to even run it. No one wants anyone else to fail, everyone is proud of complete strangers and the support system is unanimous. I remember the energy and I don’t need to see the news clips to imagine the complete physical and psychological devastation that ensued.

There is not a single cliché that can calm my nerves today. “All things happen for a reason” “God is good” “The world is good and people are bad.” I don’t truly believe any of that. I honestly believe that people are good, but I think our lifestyles are poison. People become unhinged and mentally unstable because of a disconnect with reality, and America seems to be all about disconnecting with reality and building a bubble of ideal perfection molded by the cacophony of cultural sound-waves that can mess with even the stoniest of minds. I’m not going to go off on my own beliefs in the inherent therapy of nature, and I can’t write anything even resembling succinct re: the state of our country. So I won’t. But, unlike on September 11th 2001, I am old enough to feel that my own bubble of perfection has been pierced by evil. This story is too close to home, and I’m too far away.

My thoughts are with the victims and attendees of the Boston Marathon, may you find peace of mind in time.

The Relativity of Productivity

I’m on a roll. With projects, with Peace Corps life, with ideas of life to come, almost everything. A project has dropped into my lap that could actually have a lasting impact on my community (whaaa?!) and I’m taking as many big man strides as I can to make sure that it’s sustainable.

Last week my days were full of brainstorming, proposal writing and sending e-mails in order to spread the word, get feedback and maintain organization as I attempt to turn Beeston Spring into a community that recycles (the first, apparently, in the country). I also wrote all but one proposal to claim the Best Community Competition funding for 2009 and started a 50 slide powerpoint for this years’ competition judging.

This week I hosted two new Peace Corps trainees in my home from Monday until Wednesday morning. I greatly enjoyed their company and I was glad that I actually have projects to talk to them about. It’s true what they say, you don’t truly appreciate your place as a volunteer until you share your experience with a newbie. I can cook uniquely tropical vegetables like cho-cho and yam, I balance my budget, walk between destinations with complete confidence, chat with community members effectively and many other things that were quite intimidating in my first month. After my very productive week last week and my busy first part of this week, mi feel tiyad an mi nuh waan tink bout ee nuh more.

Maybe the things I did throughout my last week would have taken a single day from an office with internet in the developed world. But here things take much longer, as is to be expected. I will never take for granted again the ease and speed with which work gets done when emails are sent, answered and replied to in a 12 hour period. I will also never take for granted the work ethic of Americans again. While it may be slowly killing some people, it’s so much more effective. Not to condone stress, but Jamaicans are practically allergic to the feeling. They physically react to it much faster than the average American, and try getting a Jamaican to work or attend a meeting if they have the sniffles (aka “the flu” here) HAHA no sah, nuttin a go so. And so, sometimes after periods of serious productivity, I pause, realize the speed at which my counterparts are working and instead of being inspired to work more, I feel inspired to sit and wait for them to catch up. Ahhh how the relativity of productivity varies in this country.

I spent three hours at Salem Primary and Junior High School today and I’m feeling quite spent. On Fridays I teach the 7th and 8th grade applied agriculture and I work with the first and second grades on enviracy. Today I had an additional agenda: to spread the word about the recycling project. And so, I went from grade 9 to grade 1 explaining the ground rules of the next few weeks for them.

On a Friday.

That was understaffed.

(…so classes were sharing teachers, teachers were switching grades and almost no one was in a seat). I suppose I’ll explain the project to you now too:

A few months ago the Sandals Foundation’s environmental coordinator told me that she had 6 old bleach bins that she wanted to donate to Beeston Spring to collect recyclables. While this is an admirable idea, it would never work unless an extensive educational campaign was launched, and what better way to do that than through the school? And so, I contacted a new company in St. Elizabeth- Plastic Recyclers of Jamaica- which collects bottles from communities and crushes them to sell to recycling companies in Foreign. After getting the info we needed, we began to empty out the abandoned building turned bottle storage building and filling them into huge 5’x5’x5’ bags. Plastic Recyclers picks up the bags for free and actually pays JD$4 per lb.

So I am now simultaneously working on the school-wide and community-wide education campaign. At the school, every grade will be competing to collect the most bottles (by lb) until May 22nd, when we will hold an after school “Beeston Spring Recycles! Fun Day”. The final weigh in and prizes will occur and then the students will paint their hand prints on the donated bins, which will then be placed in most of the districts in the community. The winning class will receive the worth of the final white bag once it is filled up to do whatever they want with (~JD$800 if they do it right). Needless to say, by the time the lunch bell rang, grade 5 and grade 6 had already collected more than three 26 gallon bags of bottles.

Meanwhile, I’ll be canvassing the shop keepers and other community spaces to educate them and invite them to a meeting where white bags can be handed out to those interested and questions can be answered by reps of Plastic Recyclers.

As I’m typing I’m wondering if I should just have explained this after May 22nd so that if it’s a complete failure I don’t have to write about it. But I just wrote way too much to delete and hey, failures are teaching tools too- a so ee go.

Plastic Recyclers of Jamaica came to Beeston Spring last week to collect the bagged up bottles. Here’s what the pickup process looked like:

Weighing…

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On Perceptions of Family

My dog has decided that the best place for her to poop is directly under my laundry line.

It’s Saturday which means that my day will consist of housework, laundry, blogging and hopefully napping, to explain the previous comment. Without the internet I have no outlet with which to declare the random thoughts that breeze into my mind in the form of Facebook Statuses (stati?), and in the solitude of these Saturday afternoons, that commentary often becomes a blog topic. Don’t worry I’m not about to go into any sort of detail about my dog’s feces.

Since I’ve moved, the dynamic of my daily routine has changed significantly. While daily life is certainly not difficult by Peace Corps standards, I find that much more of my time is spent cleaning- especially sweeping the vast tile floors in my oversized house. I spend a good deal of time considering going to the Spring for drinking water and then just boiling my own tank water instead, and I’ve been waging a war as epic as the Lord of the Rings Trilogy with various species of ants. The other night I entered my house to find the floor literally crawling with the big red ants that bite like fire. When the night gets cool or it is about to rain, these ants are notorious for coming into the house for shelter. Too bad for these guys I’d laid down a strategic and preemptive strike of ants powder, and most of them seized to death before causing much harm. See a picture of the aftermath below.

On a less violent note, being IN the community now has afforded me a new perspective on Beeston Spring that I’ve been greatly enjoying. I wish I had been here while doing my Participatory Analysis of the community (PC acronym # 1bajillion- PACA), I am seeing a much clearer community schedule, gender roles and relationships. Most importantly this American stranger is truly appreciating that this is more than a space of land where people live- this is a family. Now, many New Yorkers who have met Jamaican immigrants are often struck by the differences in family values between the two cultures. It’s not rare for a grandmother to raise a grandchild while the mother moves to Foreign, for aunts to raise nieces or nephews, cousins to raise cousins etc. This, to me, is beautiful (though perhaps might encourage teenage pregnancy- mothers often help raise their daughter’s children without question). What I’m talking about is an even broader idea of family.

Yes, a good majority of the people in this community are related by blood or marriage. But if you are an elder in Beeston Spring, you literally know everyone, and you know who they belong to. Even my boyfriend and his peers- in the 20-30 year age range, have watched every single one of my students at the primary school grow up (also because many of the students are their children, nieces and nephews). Likewise, many of my community partners in the 40-60 age range watched my boyfriend and his friends grow from infancy. So this creates a community of people who have all known each other for years or decades. It creates bonds as tight as family, and bad mind like only families can foster. Everyone knows who gets along with who, and if you’re a good person, you are rewarded with trust and food.

I come from a country where what you earn is sacred, and to ask someone for money is a bold move and I live in a place now where money is fluid and rare. If a community member needs J$1,000 for something important and a friend happens to have it in his pocket, it’s very often relinquished without question. Please keep in mind that in America, as individuals with bachelors degrees we can make about $10-12 an hour at a low tier job. That’s about J$1,000-1,200 - which a Jamaican will make in a day doing hard labour like laying foundation.

For a while this generosity baffled me, until it sunk in that people here are truly “bredren” (kind of like ‘brothers from another mother’). Wouldn’t you give your brother or sister the shirt off your back if they needed it? Wouldn’t you buy your best friend a meal if they were broke? “A so it go” in Beeston Spring, which is why bartering with food is a common practice. Evrick walked into my house with a yam bigger than my face yesterday- the day before it was a bag of ackie. Why? He passed a friend digging yam; he happened to hear a neighbor mention that her ackie tree is bearing. These people know he will pay them back in friendship, until he has something material that he can offer in return.

I am trying now, to not feel “a way” when someone close to me asks for money. My stingy culture frowns upon even asking a stranger for bus fare, but here I’m trying to not furrow my brow when a community member asks me for something reasonable. I am not giving handouts by any means and I don’t really give to anyone outside of my own yard, but the fact that I get a steady paycheck automatically makes me 100% more stable than most six person families in my community. I feel guilty about that. And I feel guilty about the pressure I feel to return home so that I can get a better education and make enough money to enjoy first world luxuries like traveling, car and pet ownership and internet.

When people ask me if I’m bringing Evrick back to Foreign, the response in my mind is always, “would he even like it there?”

Food for thought I suppose.

Anyway my steady paycheck afforded me the chance to go to Oracabesa last weekend for a Peace Corps event. I took some pretty great pictures: