Good times and bad times

Tami and Grace (It's Jamaican tradition to flour someone on their birthday!)

Wap’m? (What’s happenin’?) Figured it was about time to write another post to you all and let you know what I’ve been up to. Fi chru (it’s true).

Lately, I have been pretty unfocused on work and feeling like I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. This is a pretty common problem for Peace Corps Volunteers because we are often placed in job situations where we are left to figure out what to do and how to it for ourselves. As a 21 year old who has had hardly any life/work experience, this task of creating something out of nothing has been daunting and overwhelming at times. But hopefully that is about to change (or at least get a little better). My supervisor and I are figuring out a way for me to spend more time in the community and slightly less time in the office. I’m aiming to do some literacy tutoring for a group of 16-18 year olds who are at a grade level reading capacity and also do some life skills training with them. I also want to begin facilitating more HIV/AIDS sensitization sessions (giving information and having open discussions about HIV/AIDS) in school and community settings. It’s going to get a few more weeks to get my schedule figured out, but things are looking up. In the meantime I have been doing some reading up on topics like World AIDS Day and literacy tools/ teaching strategies to prepare for what will hopefully be in store for me soon.

Before I came to Jamaica, I thought my main challenges would be: Integration into the culture, isolation, loneliness, and harassment. Those did not turn out to be my main challenges AT ALL! The things I have been challenged by most have been: Communication breakdowns, loss of control and routines, and battling my own negativity. I have had a few rough weeks here and there and I have not always been easy on myself when I should have been, but in the end I always emerge from my short-stinted funks stronger and more dedicated to staying here and fighting the good fight.

But I have had help along the way. For example, this weekend I went to visit my best friend Tami who lives in Negril. First let me tell you a little bit about Tami because I will probably be referring to her in many future posts. Tami is a 24 year old social worker from Portland, Oregon who is beautiful, funny, and kind. She has packed so much life experience into her few years in this world and is an ever-inspiring young woman. We became friends almost immediately (probably because we share the same warped sense of humor) and have gone through the best and worst of times together since this whole adventure began. This weekend, after my particularly bad work week, Tami gave me a much-needed pep talk and wrote me a beautiful note. She told me to stay strong, to keep my faith in the world, and shared a quote from Barak Obama --which any of you can appreciate no matter what your political affiliation—that said, “Should you take the path of service, should you choose to take up one of these causes as your own, know that you will experience frustrations and failures. But I hope you’ll remember, during those times of doubt and frustration, that there is nothing niave about your impulse to change this world.”
Tami is an amazing friend and her friendship and support has brought light and hope to my whole experience here. Love you, Tami! Thanks for being my person and I’m proud that I am yours too!



Other than the usual ups and downs not too much else is new. Jamaica is still hot. I’m starting to cook ACTUAL meals for myself! They are mostly Jamaican foods like callilou (collard greens), rice and peas (rice and red beans), and cock soup (chicken soup). But every once in awhile I will cook spaghetti, an omelet, or a sandwich wrap of some kind. If you know me at all you know that I loathe cooking of any kind, so this new development is all very big news. Feel free to send me recipes, because I am running low on ideas and don’t have any cook books handy!

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Common nuisances:
Dogs engaging in some kind of deranged fight club outside my house at 3am every morning.
A blind (or just plain stupid) rooster cock-a-doodle-doo-ing at 1, 2,3,4,5,6, and 7am in every morning.
Fairly constant attention and verbal harassment from Jamaican men (and we are not talking Jamaica’s most eligible bachelors here).
At least twice daily electrical and water outages.
Bugs, bugs, and more bugs.

Common joys:
Coming home from a sweaty walk up the hill and jumping in a cold shower.
Having my own cute little space to call my own.
Encounters with kind strangers everywhere I go.
Talking walks in the cool morning and taking in the gorgeous scenery surrounding me.
Sipping blue mountain coffee while I read before work.
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Are you all excited about the election? I sent my absentee ballot home with my mom for her to mail. I can’t wait to see how it all plays out. REMEMBER TO GET OUT AND VOTE! You have no excuse not to. It’s not like in Jamaica where there are gang shoot outs and murders on Election Day. Yeah. So get out there and have your say!

Likl mor (See you later),
GRACE