Cycles and Second Chances

The life of a Peace Corps Volunteer is highly cyclic in a myriad of ways. There is a great fluctuation of emotional stability across a range of time, work related cycles involving times of great success followed by by times of infinite boredom; times of prosperity and times of poverty. Yes, all life is cyclic, but a PCV sees and anticipates this cycle in a very concentrated span of 2 (or 3) years. Thinking back, year one is all about testing the waters, year two is about taking the dive. For a volunteer who is the first in a community must see the cycle beyond two years, for her own sanity. Being the first volunteer is like being the first daughter in the family: it’s a lot of bushwhacking, and lot of trial and error. You’re not sure what to do with yourself and your community isn’t sure about your purpose either. The first volunteer must draw boundaries, invite possibilities and trust that the next volunteer can take over from there. Not to say I’m not “making progress” here, being in year two makes it easy to compare mistakes and improve the cycle.

About 11 months ago this year, I was a new volunteer still only 4 months on Island and I volunteered to plan a children’s summer program that the CDC always runs for a few weeks. I hardly knew anyone and they hardly knew me. The entire thing was a chaotic tug of war between multiple parties and was a stressful introduction into Jamaican event planning.

This year, I prepared as well as I could, left for Clarendon to work at the Denbigh Agriculture Show with a bunch of AWESOME people and came back ready for week one of CDC program, Eco Program. The theme of day 1 was, “Respect yourself, respect the environment” day 2 was “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”, 3 was “Trees” 4 was “Games Day” and 5 was a Nature Walk. We has a few very rainy days, but we managed to balance every day with physical activity and learning, and the presence of my dear friend Autumn made everything go much smoother. The kids surprised me with their enthusiasm, especially doing leaf rubbings and watching Planet Earth. Autumn and I had a blast teaching students kickball and The Migration Game, and we only had one major fight for the entire week!

The last day was the one I was most apprehensive about. During planning meetings we had discussed taking the kids for a walk in the bush and roasting Breadfruit for lunch. I left the logistics up to some committee members, outlining what we would need for the day. Once my weeks started though, I hardly checked in on the progress so I was relieved when the day ended not only incident free, but as one of the fondest memories I will have of my community.

The plan was to hike behind Left Hall, the biggest, and highest, district in Beeston Spring, beyond which is farmland with a breathtaking view of the coast. At 700 ft above sea level, there is a cooling breeze almost the entire way. We drove the bus to where the road ends and led our ducklings in a row, along the footpath that serves a good number of farmers on a daily basis. We paused to admire the view, talk about a plant or just drink some water and the children were so engrossed in their surroundings that the familiar negativity of their interactions was relaxingly absent. About an hour into the hike, we came upon a bare hilltop dispersed with several rock walls and the children begged to run up it. On my approval they set off as a mass, spiritedly climbing the emerald hillside. We had a stretch session at the top of the mountain and a long rest.

silly face!

The walk back was relatively uneventful and we were met with a Breadfruit fire on our arrival. Some kids played cards on the blankets in the shade, others wandered around, playing on dead trees and looking at birds. With 5 small Breadfruit, a can of beans and a can of corn, we fed 20 children while the 6 adults enjoyed an added bulla and pear. Rain began to fall as the kids began to finish their plates, the place was swiftly packed and we rolled back down the hill, the happy kind of tired.

This week would not have gone as well if I hadn’t experienced last years debacle. This year I knew to place a high value on good behavior, have everything prepared well beforehand, how to utilize my community members and what should be expected from Jamaican children. Sometimes the cycle is tiresome and daunting, and stability seems far away, but if not for the cycle, I would not have gotten a second chance to have such a successful week. Here’s hoping next week is just as great!

Denbigh Ag Show

Every year Jamaica has an Agriculture Show in Denbigh, Clarendon. It is a huge fair that lasts for 4 days and showcases livestock, ag companies and the various government and NGO related to agriculture and the environment. Most notably my time there was quality time spent with quality people. The Peace Corps participated by holding the “Kids Corner” of the Jamaica Organic Agriculture Green Village for three days (I was gone 4 1/2). My table involved a poem of a banana named Barry becoming compost. We made a poster out of cut out paper, sticks, leaves and dirt and the pieces of the poems had to match with the picture.

Some community members even got to spend the day!

For those who don’t know ^> this is Evrick

As exhausting as that long weekend was, it was rejuvenating. I met a number of new fellow PCV’s, and their energy and insights centered me. As an almost complete group, we were invited to stay at the home of the Custos, the Queen’s representative for the Parish of Clarendon. Every day I would leave the Denbigh grounds caked in sweat, dust and smoke and end up in a beautiful home with a hot shower, delicious food and wonderful company. A huge shoutout to the Shagoury’s for their unbelievable hospitality and Marie for coordinating it all and sharing her paradise with us.

Aspiration, Pessimism, Inspiration- Starting Year Two

It’s been almost 16 months since I landed in Jamaica and I’ve got 14 months of service under my belt, which has finally returned to the third hole instead of the first: A sign that my stress eating days are over.
I have been trying to write this “one year down” post for over a month- I’ve got two discarded drafts that were started but never finished. Why has this been so difficult to write about?
For one thing, post returned to us our “Aspiration Statements”, the essays we wrote in response to our invitation to PC Jamaica. Mine is typically eloquent and idealistic, drawing lines between troubles and solutions, confidently speaking to my plethora of qualities, denouncing life in the classroom, strongly announcing my need for a challenge… and re, re, re.
Those two discarded drafts are an attempt to compare and critically contrast that statement with how I feel now. The first attempt ended in tears, the second with a frustrated slam of my laptop. I mourned my waning idealism, the loss of which I have often declared, would leave me purposeless and useless. I scoffed at my polite descriptions of how I’d handle the challenges of Peace Corps life and my pride in being an effective communicator.
It is still easy for me to get caught up in this depressing belief that I’ve lost my idealism and I’m cutting myself some slack because the pain of this realization throbs much like the first broken heart that teen-dom brings. But I’ve realized that while I was proud of my idealism, it’s not a realistic thing to hold on to in the field of community development. Idealism fosters ignorance, which will never bring organized betterment to anyone.
What one should always maintain, no matter what, is passion. At a young age, idealism can fuel passion, but it is not a limitless resource, this fuel. Sooner or later the thirst for challenge and experience will introduce the all powerful hand of reality. I always thought that to handle the difficulties of reality, to remain positive and hopeful, one must remain idealistically certain that “betta mus’ come” but that’s not true at all. It’s all about passionate realism my friends.
Additionally, I mistook a loss of idealism as synonymous with an increase in negativity. Yes, I have been more cynical lately. But I’ve also been down in the dumps, climbed out of the honeymoon phase and taken off my rose colored glasses. I will not mourn the loss of my positivity yet for negativity is not my natural state and I will (hopefully) never be a naturally negative person.
Finally, in community development it’s hard not to see the apathy of your peers or community members personally. It’s hard to remember that others’ apathy is not your failure. And it’s hard to separate your own positivity with other people’s negativity and then separate that further down: “are they just negative people or are they culturally taught to be negative?” We as Americans are generally taught to be positive and hopeful at a young age but that is unfortunately not the case everywhere in the world- people often don’t feel empowered enough to believe that they can make a difference in their own lives. As a good friend reminded me, “we can only create opportunity for people, what they do with that opportunity is their own initiative." And it has to be. Forcing something into nothing is exhausting and mentally taxing, why try pushing the door open when others are leaning nonchalantly against it on the other side with no regards to your effort? All you can do is show them the door, open it and walk through it yourself.
So I’m medicating my cynicism with a dose of home, and it seems to be working already because as I sat on the plane, 60 minutes outside NY, I was inspired to finally write this blog.

Hitting the Wall

It’s mid service, and I think a good chunk of Peace Corps Jamaica, Group 83 is feeling what I’ve been calling the “mid service blues”.

For me, it’s the combination of many, many things.

1) I’m on the descending side of a relatively successful project and, looking up for air, I realize how very much more there is to do here. Also having been here for a year, my idealism about the future is also waning. I feel weak with the inability to convey my knowledge to everyone all at once, I feel exhausted knowing that I can invite everyone I know to a meeting and 3 people will show, I am tired of the things that I don’t understand and unsure of the things I do. I’ve been in this relationship with Jamaica for a year now, and we’re at the point where I see her flaws just as well, if not better, than I see her attributes. Best practices are only such when practiced, I will not push when someone else is pushing back.

2) I LIVE ON AN ISLAND. I could get into all the ways that serving in Jamaica is different from serving in another country more remote, but I’ll stick with this for now: I’m not in Africa, surrounded on three sides by other countries, I’m surrounded on all sides by an ocean. Yet I still must travel several hours, take days off, and make accommodations ($ I don’t have) to visit a new place.

3) I just got internet, which is SO great in most regards, but it makes the future easier to see, the present easier to follow and the past a photo album just waiting to make you incapacitated with homesickness.

4) I keep thinking to myself, I hope people are actually easier to deal with back home. But I might also be fabricating this falsely polite and concerned society of people who get along out of a jaded memory of my past as a college student at a forestry school.

These are the reasons I am choosing to disclose, I have to remember that this blog is public, but suffice it to say, I feel hung-over and uninspired. Runners like my mother and my sister would say, I’ve hit “The Wall” and I agree. I actually very much feel like this clip from “Run Fat Boy Run” (I highly recommend watching the whole movie, very funny)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kmzJcC_HN4

So now I have to make myself see through that first brick. What is beckoning me forward?
Well, Mid Service conference is in a week. This is a time when Peace Corps staff puts all of group 83 in a hotel and organizes workshops about subjects such as community development, organizational management, project writing, youth motivation, technology as a tool, funny cultural story time, fails and success discussions and of course some good old fashioned friend time.

After Mid Service conference I’ll be going home for a probably whirlwind visit with family, friends and the countryside I miss so much.

I suppose I have a whole crew of people waving me on through that brick space, telling me to take a deep breath and limp forward. Nothing worth having ever comes easy, I can take that advice from my mother: the marathon runner, my father: the successful doctor and several friends in Jamaica, raising children and working until midnight.

Even if I accomplish nothing else here, I am still running the race and I still intend to finish.

Painting a Path

For the recycling fun day, I had requested a donation of paint from Sandals EarthGuard*, the colors of which now reside on 6 recycling bins set around the community.

A rich red, pale yellow and blue and a deep green.

A day later, that paint was used to re-paint the community welcome sign.

In the past few weeks, these colors have popped up throughout the community:

the artists gate;

the new shop;

And 3 R bar

In the smog that is the politics of community development, in the exhaustion that is motivating the apathetic, in all of the negativity that can come from the masses of this country, this paint to me if proof of good intentions. Well allocated resources passed on by word of mouth and kinship, not politics.

After the fun day, parents came up to me asking (in the demanding fashion second nature to Jamaicans) where the rest of the prizes are and give my child one now, please and thanks. I have to patiently explain that prizes were for exemplary students and winning classes and I get frustrated looks in return.

Persons who have benefitted from the paint have simply stated to me: “we need more!”

I think that this poses an interesting comparison of the effectiveness of donations and community help. A toy is coveted, protected and creates selfish “wanting”. But something like paint, which is only as useful as a person is creative, is passed along until it runs out.

This has prompted me to wonder at my community members- “If you had three pints of paint, what would you do with it?” 

 

*Sandals EarthGuard is the environmental conscience of the Sandals Resorts*

A Metaphor and a Poem

I was in the bakery yesterday and had a small metaphorical epiphany… I had an epiphany due to a metaphor.

It’s a pretty typical bakery set up: long counter opposite the door displaying baked goods, register on one end and you wait for your order on the other. There are a few tables with chairs attached and at either wall to the right or left there are two booths to sit in. The booths to the left don’t fit quite perfectly (to American standards) and the end of the booth allows about a one grown man width between it and the cashiers window. About three people can stand in this narrow hall, shifting after every order to allow the previous customer to proceed down the counter. Now here is where the metaphor points out a quintessential difference between Jamaican and American culture.

Imagine that the time is hot. You have three black plastic bags full of pumpkin, cho-cho, yam and other pretty heavy produce. You’re sweating in a stream down your face, back and chest- nothing new, it’s Jamaica. You walk into the bakery and even though the air conditioning is on, you still sweat. The line is long, almost to the door. You rest your bags on the floor (and people stare because that’s gross here) and rest until your turn. Now you’re next and the woman in front of you has decided to order 17 lbs of bread.

As an American, you see the space between the booth and the register and think, Well, I’ll stand beside the booth and wait for this woman to come out of the cramped space between the wood and hard plastic before I step up to the register myself. It makes sense to us. Americans like their personal space and they respect the sanctity of the line. We also see no correlation between the space between each person on that line and the speed with which it moves. (fit 5 people on a line 20 feet long. It moves just as fast if those same 5 people are standing on a line 10 feet long)

This is the part when you remember (if you haven't realized it already) you’re not in America. From pre school days, American children are taught to walk in a line. It’s a perfected art for us. Jamaican children are taught no such thing and most lines here loosely resemble a mob. At the bakery, Jamaicans want three people standing in that cramped space, even if you’re carrying shopping bags and wearing a backpack, no matter how certain you are that you will be helped next. If I stand next to the booth, 8/10 times the person behind encourages me to move up into the space EVEN THOUGH I’ll still have to scooch out of the way of the previous customer as she moves down the counter, my body running sweat into my eyes, my arms hefting several grocery bags.

Here, my friends, is my metaphor for Jamaica. If you think it’ll be easy, it won’t. If you think it will be orderly, it won’t. If you think things would feel less cramped and chaotic if it was done a different way well, I have news for you bucko- no one cares what you think! So get on “line” and be assertive like every other person here!

 

On that note, I wrote a poem:

When it Rains on Laundry Day

When it rains on laundry day
I do not fuss or pout
Cuz I must admit, the first time round
the suds did not come out.
I dunked and squeezed and dunked and squeezed
Washing them by hand
Until I saw the rain clouds
then I knew that I could stand
So thank you mother nature
for doing what I cannot
For rinsing my panties my jeans and my shirts
Of all of the suds, which got rid of the dirt
And now I implore, before I grow old
Don't rain every day or my clothes dem will mold!

“Salem School Recycles!” Fun Day

Pictures paint 1,000 words- Here they are…

 

 

 

 

                  “Prepping"

Grade 3, the “Hot Steppaz” sang their “reduce, reuse, recycle" song

Probably asking them something like “How long does a bottle take to decay?”

Lining up to paint bins!

Our story made the news too! Starts about 10 minutes into the broadcast! Thanks CVM, Sandals Earth Guard, Sandals Foundation and Plastic Recyclers of Jamaica!

http://www.cvmtv.com/videos_1.php?id=1275&section=watch

Next day: May 23, Labour Day

^ This man also painted the words on the recycle bins (I did the symbols)

I painted the small words at the bottom