So I suppose we haven't posted recently but that doesn't mean that life isn't exciting here, in fact it may mean that life is too exciting. There are many events that have happened in the last month. First up was a tree planting and training that I organized for 4H. We had a Jamaican Forestry Officer come into the office and train the clubbites on how to properly plant trees, tree biology and a the importance of trees in the environment. In fact the training was longer than I anticipated, I thought he would just tell them to make sure and take the plastic bag off before putting the seedling in the ground and leave, but he actually did a great job of teaching about the entire ecology of trees. It was at that point that I began to realize that tree biology is generally left out of the Jamaican curriculum. None of the kids at the training had ever heard of xylem or phloem tubes and as I've gone around planting the seedlings provided by the forestry department at 8 schools since the training I've yet to run into a kid who'd heard those words before. I really enjoy planting trees with kids and am thinking of trying to do a mass planting in the spring. The Jamaican Forestry Department has a goal of having the national tree, the blue mahoe, and the national flower, lignum vitae, in every school yard. This way kids can see firsthand these national treasures. Forestry told me that in the spring I could get a bunch of seedlings for the lignum vitae and the blue mahoe so I'm gonna see how many schools I can get them planted in, throughout St. Elizabeth. The lignum vitae has a dual role, as it is the national flower that blooms on a tree, but also it is the favorite flower for honey production. Hives placed near a lignum vitae tree produce a light and rich honey that gets the best prices in the local and export market. If I could only get more schools interested in apiculture...

In the beginning of November the St. Helena Women's Group was invited to a 'Green Globe 21' workshop in Montego Bay. It was a whole host of hoteliers, USAID people, and green companies based in the Caribbean. It focused on protecting the environment while promoting tourism as well as community based tourism, which is where the women's group came in. They are up for a grant that would build a workshop in their rural community to weave baskets, store finished goods, dry raw thatch and various other business tasks.

I took this picture of Ms.Dell doing her live weaving demonstrations during the workshop breaks. I actually learned to weave too, because I was bored waiting around for the conference breaks where I was supposed to hob-nob with hotel people and get them interested in placing orders with the women's group. Learning to weave was definitely the best part of the workshop for me, but I did manage to get them 3 different leads on orders. It's all for large scale production of things like tissue box covers, baskets with company logos and soap holders, hotel stuff. That said, it could prove to be the constant income that the group needs to take their business seriously. We'll see.

Finally I have some pictures of out recently completed 'Computer Repair and Maintenance' class that Khaled and I held at the 4H office throughout October and November. These pictures are from a session that we did in collaboration with the Japanese Oversea Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV). During this class the participants learned to take apart a computer and put it together again. I have to say that I learned a lot from these sessions and that the JOCV did an outstanding job demonstrating how computer hardware works and is connected. Funnily many people don't know that there are other volunteers on island. The Peace Corps has a large contingent but the Japanese have about 50 and are growing. Also there are Canadian volunteers and British volunteers, but they tend to have very specific jobs and aren't able to do the same kind of outreach that PCVs and JOCVs can. I'll let Khaled give you the details of the class and it's finale in the next blog update, which I promise won't be a month from now!

For the last 5 years Peace Corps Jamaica has had Dr. Suchet Loois as Country Director. He is a native Haitian who worked as a professor in Alabama for many years. Yes, he's a smart man with a funny accent.

The time has come for him to retire so PCJ is getting a new country director. Last weekend we were invited to Suchet's going away party. It was a low key shindig with lots of speeches and tears. The best part for us was that at the end they served REAL ice cream!! Kae and I were so psyched we had to take this picture.

We also got to see Froggy's (peace corps bus driver) kids doing the 'willy bounce' and other Jamaican dances. They are super cute. Don't they look like twins?

The willy bounce was very popular when we arrived in Jamaica. But Jamaicans 'set de tren' so it didn't stay popular for too long. Now the big song, and it's associated dance, is the dutty whine. This involves much head swinging and butt jiggling. Definitely a dance for girls, not guys.

The real excitement of last weekend was our fifth anniversary!! Earlier this year we won a raffle with the prize of a weekend for two to Ocho Rios Couples, an all inclusive resort. We spent last Saturday and Sunday there and we had a great time. We ate lots of rich food, breakfast in bed, swimming in the coral reef and lounging in the jacuzzi. It was really nice, but it was kind of strange in some ways. It was weird to be around all those drunken Americans. They made jokes and things that we didn't understand, it really made us realize how far we are from that culture, even when we seem so close sometimes.

Sorry there are no pics from Couples. We don't have a camera and the one we usually borrow was occupied. Hopefully we'll get it back soon so I can take pictures of this week's tree planting training. 50 seedlings to be planted all across the parish!!

Khaled has again succeeded in overflowing the 'washing' machine such that he has to squeegee out the living room, pushing water around with a duct tape device and cleaning the floors better than our mop, which you wring out with your hands. We have a rare weekend at home as our parish wardens meeting was cancelled due to heavy rain. I really appreciate these few days I have here at my house. It's funny that we came to peace corps to get away from the idea of a daily grind, especially for Khaled who used to have a 80 mile commute every morning, from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Somehow we ended up commuting as much as ever. I take one 40 minute taxi every morning and he takes two, making his peace corps commute actually longer, time wise, than his commute in the states.

That said, I do like riding in our local taxis because its an excellent place to catch up on gossip, or 'passa passa' as Jamaicans would say. I recently learned, while smalled up in a taxi with 7 other people (not counting the driver), that two of the illegal or 'robot' taxis in our community mashed up.

Given that the physical area serviced by Schoolfield taxis ( the ones we take to come home daily) is equivalent to the size of a large suburb and takes 30 minutes to drive from end to end, on the good main road, you would think that there would be more than 1 legal taxi on it. But no.

On the Schoolfield route there are 4-5 taxis. The drivers are known by everyone on this mountainside, so well that I often find children playing taxi fighting over who gets to be Bashment and who has to be Ras (Bashment is preferred as he is a fun stuttering drunk who drives notoriously fast, but Ras is a young rasta often with an air of despair about him). So coming up with Bashment last week we came across an accident. What do you know but it was the two other regular taximen on the route, Delroy and Bobby, who got into the crash. There was much bemoaning of this event as everyone know that the cops just took away Ras's car because he didn't have his permit paper properly stamped. That left us with 1 functional taxi in a community of 1,000 people without cars. Can you imagine that in the states?

Not only do these people not have cars but many of them have shops to stock with all the accoutrements of Jamaican life. This includes flats of bully beef, tin mackerel, chubby soda, sweetened condensed milk, bags of flour, rice, sugar, packages of tang, soup mix, coconut milk powder, etc. All these things have to be bought in Santa Cruz, the nearest town, and taxied up to the bush for distribution amongst little old ladies and little kids hoping for a free sweetie.

Maybe that means the likkle pickney will have to sit on the bag of rice instead of on my lap next time. Lets hope Bashment realizes his importance to us at this time and stops drinking dragon stout before 2:00pm.

Also, passa-passa has it that bling-bling fi ya phone nah work if yuh get ee wet, so don't waste your fifty dollars on it. Ya hear?

Waking up this morning I looked up and saw a brown spot on the mosquito net. At first I thought it was the ring to the net, or some such thing, even a moth, that would've been alright. I slipped on my glasses and looked again. With reality in focus I came to understand that it was a 2 inch long roach. Not only that but it was on the INSIDE of the net, dangling above Khaled's sleeping midsection!! It appeared to be having trouble moving around on the net, it's legs were sticking to the net material. I woke Khaled and we discussed our predicament.

Since it was located on the ceiling part of the net there was no way to squish it between two shoes, because we couldn't get a shoe over the top part of the net. Besides, that would be a big mess to clean off the net. We also feared trying to dislodge it and then squash it, as that plan would involve the roach landing on the bed and we would end up with roach goo on our sheets. Finally Khaled had a moment of brilliance. He went and got a long large graduated cylinder that we use for our 'Science on Wheels' experiments. He stuck the open end over the roach and tapped the net until the roach fell into the cylinder, which he promptly covered with a flip-flop. The roach didn't move much, or really try to get away, maybe it was old. Khaled then took his roach container outside to the sweet potato field and dumped it out while I fried breadfruit for breakfast. That was my morning.

Transportation in rural Jamaica is not a simple matter. On some routes the taxis are few and far between or they are all 'robots' (illegal) taxis so they don't run when cops are out on the road, which happens in spurts. Taxis don't just transport people, they often transport goods as well. Say you are in a main town, and want to send some medicine to your mom who lives in a small community, then you would buy the meds and bring them to a taxi that runs into your mom's area for him to deliver for you. For this service you pay at least what you would pay to transport yourself. The benefit is you don't have to pay to go there and come back.

Given all this, taximen have access to the majority of people in the community, including young women and children. It's a common joke here that a taximan has pickney in every district along his route. But it's not really a joke, as many of them do.

This morning I was running a little late, so when I saw a taxi coming up towards my district I rushed to the road to get in. He picked me up but said he had to 'drop something' before going to Santa Cruz. Cool, whatever. He puts the bag to be dropped in my lap, and I sneaked a peak. It contains juice, formula and pampers. It's a baby mama bag.

He picks up a old lady next, but she needs to stop at the post office before leaving town to pick up her pension check. Next is a young man who needs us to go into his yard so he can get a bag. All this time we are traveling in the opposite direction of where I'm trying to get to. Two last passengers are picked up and at last we start down the mountain, smalled up 4 adults plus a baby in the backseat.

The driver stops about a quarter of the way to Santa Cruz, to 'drop' something. A woman with an infant comes out of the house, but she does not look happy. Her hair is a mess with a comb sticking out of it, her shirt and skirt are tight and dirty and the infant looks positively sticky. She starts to yell at him about how long it took, baby nah have no pampas, nah have no feedin, how come yah nah send no cash money fi 'im, etc. A fight ensues and the taximan throws the bag in a rainpuddle then turns and walks away.

All of us in the taxi pretend like nothing happened. Like a man screaming at the mother of his child and throwing away the things for the child in front of the screeching infant is a normal occurrence. Perhaps that's the problem, it is normal.

Being a mother in Jamaica tends to be a humiliating experience. As men make women pregnant but are often with a next woman by the time the baby is born, the baby's mother has to beg and bargain with additional sex to get the things required to care for her baby. With such a high unemployment rate, many women will sleep with taximen because they think, 'at least this one has money for the pickney'. Taximen often have many women, and babies, without caring for them all, or just providing free transportation.

I'm not saying all taximen are like this, there are some very nice people out there, but I've known a number of them that leave much to be desired in the ethics department. That said, I've learned here that what American's consider sexually ethical isn't universal (obviously) and that society can function with a marriage rate of 20% or less. All of this is often juxtaposed on top of people being 'Christian', a term which has become more ambiguous in my mind since arriving here. I know for a fact that the taximan in reference is a 'Christian', he goes to church with some of my co-workers. I also know that wasn't the only baby mama bag he had to drop off today.

Throughout the year Khaled and I have harbored these fantastic fantasies of an entire summer off. We somehow got it into our heads (at least in my head) that when the school year finished we would have lots more time for resting, going on vacation and afternoon football games with the kids around here. Unfortunately none of this has materialized.

My summer started with the planning of 4-H's largest fundraiser of the year, Seafood Jamboree, as well as grant writing workshops with the women's group, the community club and 4-H itself. Then there were the peanut committee meetings (don't ask). Khaled managed to get himself a new job right at the end of June, so his time is taken up by trying to implement GIS and databasing with interns more interested in chatting on Hi5 (Jamaica's favorite IM service). Finally we helped with group 77 (Peace Corps Trainees) training, by doing small business, IT, VAC and many other TLA (three letter acronym) group presentations, all of which were in the Kingston area.

So last week, to combat the summer overload, we stole away for a mini-vacation. We traveled up to the parish of Portland to Great Huts, where we stayed over New Years, for a little R&R.

This time we stayed in the newly built 'Sea Grape', a bamboo hut on the edge of a cliff, overlooking Boston Bay. Great Huts has a nice outdoors atmosphere. Our toilet was just sitting in the woods, outside the hut, along with our shower and a standpipe to wash hands. No cover or anything. We made the mistake of leaving a roll of toilet paper out there and in the morning it was soaked from the midnight tropical rain. Here is Khaled in front of the bed, which was a strange half-moon shape with a thin foam mattress. We were later told that 'Sea Grape' is a work in progress

We spent a lot of time just hanging out in the water, swinging in hammocks, and sunbathing. Here is the view out the middle door, with a path to the edge of the cliff.

Throughout the week we ate a lot of jerk chicken, as Jamaica's famous jerk chicken originated at Boston bay, where there many great jerk stands. You can just walk to the end of the Great Huts entrance road and get excellent jerk chicken, roasted breadfruit, festival and fish soup, all for cheap prices. We really enjoyed ourselves with some much needed downtime. I even turned my phone off the second day because it kept ringing, and upon answering I would hear the voice of someone I already told I was on vacation...

After looking through the pictures I realized the only one of me is this one, where you can see my legs and feet as I put on after-bite. The room had a bed of pebbles for a floor so in the morning as we sat reading in the 'living' area, ants would come up through the rocks and bite our feet, as evidenced by the picture of me desperately trying to counteract the ant venom.

So now we're back at work. I'm preparing some computer classes for the fall and also a great tree planting in October, which is when Jamaica celebrates arbor day.

Two weekends ago Khaled and I had the priveledge of hosting two group 77 trainees, Cate and Katie, for the weekend. We had a ton of fun just chillin' out in the mountains and partying at night.

Since both ladies are training in Portmore they really appreciated our mountian air and the cool climate we enjoy here in Malvern. Katie really liked how we don't have 'grills', or bars, on our house. This is relatively unusual in Jamaica and especially for a volunteer, but none of our neighbors have grills so why should we? It would just make us stand out. Still, its nice to sit on the veranda and not feel like you're in prison.

On Saturday night our good friend Jermaine took us out on the town. He was really psyched because he had one a free night at an all-inclusive and had rented a car to go there. He got the car the night before the trip so he took us out, and we lived it up!

Then on Sunday the girls came over and we played around and baked brownies. Cassanique took Cate and Katie to the shop, here she is leading the way. I think she only took them in the hopes of getting some sweeties (hard candy). On Monday they came to work with me for a half day to see what I do at 4-H, which isn't a whole lot at this time of year. Finally we all headed into Kingston, they went back to training in Portmore and we went on vacation in Portland.

Last Saturday Khaled and I went to Denbigh Agricultural Show. This annual event that takes place in Clarendon, a parish east of St. Elizabeth, and is always fun and full of stuff to see. At Denbigh each of Jamaica's 14 parishes get to strut their stuff by showcasing local fruits, vegetables and foods. This picture shows a display in the St. James booth. At the bottom, looking kind of like limes, is actually June plum surrounded by big 'Tommy Atkins' mangoes, sugarcane, pineapple, coconut, watermelon and a whole host of other Jamaican foods. To the right is ackee, Jamaica's national food, with a red shell, yellow inside and black seeds. I'm not big on ackee as it is kind of oily and served with saltfish. I really cant deal with fish here in Jamaica becausee it always has lots of bones! Blech! Especially saltfish because, as it's name implies, its very salty and oily, so when it's mixed with oily ackee it my stomach revolts. The picture below shows a ackee a little clearer. This is another display at denbigh, but its from St. Elizabeth, you can tell because of the garden egg (eggplant) in the middle. These only grow on the southcoast where the climate is drier. I really love eggplant and they grow a nice round variety in Jamaica that makes great eggplant Parmesan (if you can find the Parmesan).

At Denbigh we also saw a marching band, which was unusual. I saw one kid playing the bass drum with his hand, that must've hurt! Khaled got some great information on maps that he needs for the Parish Council, where he is working now. Overall it was a pretty good time, even if we couldn't stay long becausee we had to get back before nightfall.

Here is Khaled with his new guitar! He bought it from a volunteer who was finished with service and going back to the states. It's really a very nice instrument and he has been playing his pants off. He's learned all kinds of new songs that he'll probably play this weekend when we host some PC trainees for 'shadowing' . They will stay with us for the next few nights and go to work with us on Monday. Thanks to our buds Shane and Kae for letting us steal their Denbigh pics, because we were to lazy to take our own!

I'm sure I've mentioned how important looking good is here in Jamaica. Even when people just go to the local shop, they change out of their 'yaad' clothes. This weekend I bought two shirts, one for me and one for Khaled, to work in. Mine is white with pintucks along the front and his is a blue bush jacket. Perhaps I should've bought mine a little larger, but tight clothes are popular here, and there weren't any larger sizes.

Jamaican culture has a way of rapidly inflating and deflating your ego, so as to keep you on your toes. I wore my new shirt with a tan skirt and white and tan shoes to work yesterday (it is extremely important to match your shoes to your outfit) and received many compliments both in my office and 'pon da road'. Men love to scream and pssst you from a distance or get right in your face and start rubbing your hands. Yesterday I got everything from 'I've loved you all along, come with me' to 'brownin' you need one Jamaican man' and beyond. Thankfully I've passed the point of exceptionally crude references within my community. At this point I only get the really gross stuff when I'm away from site or if the person is crazy (literally).

So I came home, getting another compliment from my favorite taxi man, and stepped out of the car at the end of our lane. A woman I know was there, on her way to the shop. She usually sits on her veranda and I've only ever said hello to her as I pass so I thought it was strange that she started a conversation with me. We talked about her pickney, how dem nah in school right now, how them make trouble, etc. Then she says 'You've put on a lot of weight'. I just stood there, I didn't know what to say. Eventually she says 'you look nice and fat now', so I say 'maybe your thinking of the other Peace Corps (as we are often confused with our predecessors)' but she insists its me. Then she says 'Maybe you pregnant'

What!! No I assured her, I'm not pregnant, and my scale even says I've lost weight since entering Peace Corps. Finally she says maybe its my clothes (aka the cute white shirt that has garnered comments all day). I leave it there, not wanting to go any further. Given that 24 hours have passed I'm sure the entire neighborhood thinks I'm pregnant now. I better really lose some weight just to show I'm not.

Whats interesting is how badly Jamaican women want me to be pregnant. This is the second reference to my non-existent pregnancy this week! The first came from the Peace Corps nurse, when I called to get clearance to go to the doctor because I've been feeling nauseous a lot and have runny belly. This could have to do with my rainwater, bad chicken, stress, not sleeping enough, or whatever. But the first thing she says is, 'I think you might be pregnant', with a little glee in her voice. I let her down gently, and again requested doctor clearance so I can get some pills to kill whatever parasite is living in my intestines.

In the end, it all comes down to be careful what you ask for. I decided to dress to fit in, wear appropriate clothing and look nice like a Jamaican woman. I could've easily just dressed like a scruffy American and gotten away with it (many volunteers do), but I want to adapt. Apparently I've adapted too well, to the point where I now receive the subtle Big Ups and put downs that are a part of everyday life for a Jamaican woman.

The Monday before last, Science On Wheels, that forlorn venture of the Malvern Science Resource Centre, had another shot at a blaze of glory. Caitlin got the keys to the Science Wagon and we drove it half-way across the island to provide science education to a group of kids attending a summer camp run by our friends and fellow PCVs', Chad and Jamie James. The James live up in Woodford, where we had the Poker Tournament (if you've been following this blog you'd remember) and the camp was being held at their Homework and Literacy Learning Centre. Woodford overlooks Kingston, but I seriously doubt that even 2% of the people that have lived in or visited Kingston have ever been to Woodford. In science we call that the 'Ninety-Eight Percent Test' and if data falls in that 2% group, it's considered insignificant. This is the primary cause of the dispute that fringe, lunatic groups have with science. Sadly, they typically constitute less that 2% of the population. So, in summary, less that 2% of the population of Kingston has been to Woodford, therefore Kingston is insignificant, a.k.a. it constitutes a fringe lunatic group. These are not my words, this is Science. [Editor's Note : To those of you that may be concerned, this is in fact the Famous Socratic Implicational Fallacy. No, he didn't use Kingston as his subject, but this particular method of trying to create a false implication was something early Greek Thinkers disproved. So Kingstonians, according to the Ancient Greek Thinkers (AGTs), you are indeed, significant.]

As you may know, Caitlin worked the Seafood Jamboree late into Sunday night and somewhat into Monday morning. From there, she napped for about 5 hours and then drove the Science Wagon to Woodford. Strangely, although she was tired, she was considerable more sober than some people on the road. Seriously, people, it's a Monday morning, you should be drinking coffee. Anyway, we did make it to Papine and then up into the mountains to Woodford without incident. Probably, it was the stop at Juici Patti for a breakfast of Hominy Porridge and Fried Dumplings that saved us. That was my idea.

It has been some time since either of us has done Science On Wheels, but as soon as those kids trooped in, we fell right into the rhythm of 'Hearing and Sound' like old pros. We chose the Hearing lesson to present because it has the most (and coolest) experiments. But before running the experiments, Caitlin took half the group and I the other and we did worksheets and the computer presentation. I don't know how the worksheets went, but the children Jamie and Chad work with are really sweet. I love teaching to schoolkids from smaller, rural areas. They are attentive and bright, their attitudes are in the right place and they are respectful. These kids were no different. Sure, they were a little rowdy, but then it is Summer Camp. They especially liked the 'We are a Nerve' exercise, which is basically my nerdified version of Chinese Whispers, in which each kid represents a neuron and the electro-chemical signal they send is a whispered word into the "dendrite" (ear) of their neighboring neuron, until it reaches the temporal lobe kid who states what he or she hears. It's fun, really, try it with your neighbors.

After the computer animations and worksheets, we sent the kids on snack break and assembled our motley collection of mostly homemade experiments. Caitlin was beginning to fade (working at an all-day and night event then driving for 6 hours, in Jamaica, will do that to you), so I largely ran the experiment end of things. We did a number of activities, blowing on the bottles with differing levels of water, strumming the strings of a guitar, snapping a rubber band, etc. But the usual winners won again. The eardrum experiment, where I put rice on a drum and then have kids shout at it with a funnel horn was a massive crowd pleaser, as was listen to heartbeats and coughs with the stethoscope. All in all, quite a good time. I think I imparted the basic concepts of sound (as a result of vibration), pitch (smaller things, higher pitch, as reverse), and the basic method of hearing (sound waves striking something make it vibrate).

We spent the night in cool Woodford with Chad and Jamie. It was fun, we ate burritos, watched soap operas and talked about Peace Corps (the golden triad of Volunteer interaction was thus achieved). We are happy to count ourselves amongst that

Of the many great American pop culture exports I've seen mimicked in Jamaica, Rising Star is number one, followed closely by the Golden Nugget. Rising Star is equivalent to American Idol and last years winners were Chris Marten and Noddy Virtue. Now they spend their days traveling the Island singing a mix of reggae and Brian Adams best of the 80's at various parties, sessions and events. So when I saw they were booked for 4-H's Seafood Jamboree I knew it was going to be a true Jamaican show.

Seafood Jamboree was put on by St. Elizabeth parish and Westmoreland parish 4-H clubs. It was held in Westmoreland at a primary school which sits on the ocean. When we pulled in there on our kickin' bus that the Santa Cruz community club chartered it was amazing. Literally the back yard of the school is the ocean. There is a large field, where 4-H held the jamboree, and the beach. Westmoreland has some beautiful unspoiled coastline with reefs, small inlets and turquoise ocean. Most of the best parts, in my opinion, are further east towards St. Elizabeth where not many hotels have built. Certainly no public school in the States would sit on such prime real estate.

After so much planning in work it was great to see the event go so well. I worked the 4-H booth and we sold cakes to support the Shrewsbery community club that I've worked with before. One of the guys from the Santa Cruz club won the 'Crazy Dress' competition and got a prize of $5,000 (about US $80) . I think he deseved to win because he sprayed himself with spray paint and let one of his friends cut off large chunks of his hair with a single blade Bic. That really is crazy.

The first time I saw a crazy dress competition I couldn't understand why everyone looked like hobos. I was picturing that people would wear the most outlandish thing they could find, like a spacesuit made from tinfoil or an pirate costume. Instead everyone dresses like a 'mad man', someone who lives on the streets and is mentally disturbed. Then they walk gibbering around on stage while the crowd decides if they are the winners. Some people really go for it and do outlandish things but most people throw on an old dress or cut up a plastic garbage bag (desperately needed to actually collect trash at such an event, but...) and wear it as a skirt. I felt proud that the guy from Santa Cruz club used old potato sacks as his pants, crazy and enviro friendly!

As the day, and night, wore on people were starting to flood the place with the usual hangers on outside the gates, screaming that they should get in free because Noddy and Chris weren't gonna show up anyway. These events are notorious for having the headliner show up at 4:00am, when everyone's already gone home. If you drive around the Island you are likely to see the same artist headlined for events in three different parishes in one night.

But they made it in record time!! They were singing their standards by 10:30 to a full house. It was a great show, even if they did run out of beer AND jerk chicken.

I really have to hand it to my boss Ms. Richards, she did a great job organizing the entertainment and it really made the whole day worth it, as far as fundraising goes. I hope to have some pictures from Seafood Jamboree if I can get them off my friend's phone. Maybe you'll see little kidsin a 'dutty wine' contest.

Stay tuned for 'Science on Wheels goes to Woodford'!

No I'm not early terminating. I have been thinking lately though, since I ride alone in taxis more frequently now that Caitlin is at the 4H, and I am working with the St. Elizabeth Parish Council, about all the different ways people say good-bye when they leave the taxi. From my perspective, it seems that women really stick to the 'Bye' and 'Good-bye', but guys have a whole slew of phraseology for parting. I've been trying these out on my drivas, who usually give me a blank stare and an 'okay', but here is a brief anthology of my experience thus far.

The standard 'Aalright' ("Alright") : This is a very common method of both greeting and farewell. Non-committal, it can be used with strangers, acquaintance and friend alike. 'Okey' ("Okay") : See 'Alright'. 'Yes' : (See 'Okey') More typically used with strangers and passing acquaintances. 'Layta' ("Later") : A common one used after spending any amount of time with someone, conversing or not. 'Likkle more' ("Little more"): similar to 'Latar', it has implications of perhaps knowing a little patois. 'Likkle bit' ("Little bit"): I'm not quite sure, but I think this implies that you'll see the person again soon. Although I've certainly used it as a more permanent farewell. 'Easy nuh' ("Easy now"): My guess, at least how I use it, is "Take it easy", I don't hear this one often, so of course, I use it a lot. And my newest favorite 'Give Tanks!' ("Give Thanks!") [Which Caitlin wryly suggested I could add "an' bullets! Pop! Pop!", which isn't very funny]: Of course this means "Give Thanks to God", but since everything is Christian, there is no more or less religious significance to this farewell. I particularly like to follow this one with 'Ya hear?'.

Many farewells can also be suffixed with 'Ya hear?', except 'Aalright', 'Okey', and 'Yes', which would just sound weird followed by 'Ya hear?'.

Here is a older picture of Sonia's baby Tana. Sonia is one of the women in the St. Helena Women's Group partnership and a good friend of Caitlin. I took this picture back in May. Ain't she cute?

Give tanks! Ya hear?

-Khaled

Working at 4-H has given me a greater insight into Jamaican life than working with the Malvern Science Resource Centre ever did. This could be because the MSRC consisted of Khaled, me and Monica. We didn't have any money and relatively few community connections. We being American coupled with the fact that Monica is a 'returned resident' kind of kept us separated from the population of Malvern at large.

So the 4-H has been pretty enlightening. First is the fact that I am contributing to existing programs, programs that were initiated by Jamaicans. I realize that may sound strange but with the MSRC that just wasn't happening. Next is the actual work environment. I work with regular Jamaicans who have lived here all their lives. They have a very different view from the 'returning residents' that I've known. 4-H recently took on some "summer workers". This is a kind of strange concept as we already have an overcrowded office, only one computer and most of our programs/meetings aren't held in the summer because school isn't in session. That said 4-H has close ties to the National Youth Service program that trains high school graduates and gives them intern style jobs for 6 months. Jermaine, my baousty friend, started out as a NYS and his enthusiasm was so great that he keeps on coming to work, even though we got a new NYS already.

So the other day the new 'summer workers' were talking to me and Keisha ( 4-H secretary with some excellent accounting skills that keep us out of the red) about a girl they both knew.

Keisha- "you mean Taneisha, she mi uncle baby motha'

Ms. Elliot- "the fat one"

Keisha - "what dark and nappy hair?"

Ms. Elliot-"no, no, the brown one wid red weave"

At first this rolled over me and I was wondering "do I know this Taneisha? I know 'nuff Taneishas but not one with a red hair weave, but maybe she's changed it since I last saw her?" Then I started to think about the description overall. I tried to picture how it would go in the States...

Keisha- "you mean Taneisha, I'm related to her"

Ms. Elliot- " the pretty one with a plump face"

Keisha- "with dark skin, kind of unruly hair?"

Ms. Elliot- "no, no, with lighter skin and reddish hair"

All this to determine if we know the same person! I realize that the way Jamaicans describe people would make an American cringe. First, calling someone fat is no big deal here. Of course if she's fat, you call her fat. And if she's too fat to small up in the taxi's back seat, the driva says 'come nah fatty, yah too big fi fit'. This isn't offensive to women, perhaps because they are still sexually attractive even if they are big.

When you see someone, how would you describe them? I realize here they can't say "she has brown hair and brown eyes" because that's everyone. It's easier to describe someone when there is a range of hair and eye color. But Jamaican's rarely use height as an indicator. Even though I'm really tall for a woman here they don't tend to call me tall, except when we're in a taxi and my legs are 'too tall' to sit forward. But tall can mean many things, for instance my hair is tall (meaning long). People do use weight as a describer, as well as skin tone. I couldn't tell the difference at first, but they see lots of shades. Someone who is black is very dark, brown is what we think of as black in the States, light brown is more a Latino color and white is light but still darker than me. That said I get called brownie a lot, but I used to be called whitey more but maybe my tan got better.

Anyway, I also want to give a BIG UP to GROUP 77!! They arrived last weekend looking shellshocked and shockingly white but excited and happy! We are so happy to have them, lets hope they get some interesting sites where we can visit.

Pictures

1. Kingston Drummers play at welcome dinner for Group 77

2. Khaled and I at the Welcome Dinner. We got all dressed up! Khaled looks nice in his Jamaican graduation shirt I bought him at Maxie's.

3. Khaled pickpockets Kaelyn during a safety skit for trainees at UWI.

4. Bus ride to the airport to meet group 77. It felt like training all over again!

So perhaps some people are wondering, 'where did their cat get that weird name?' Blame it on the guinep fruit. This was one of the first new fruits I ate in Jamaica, as it was peak season when we first arrived. It has an interesting flavor, sweet with a kind of sour tinge. Here are some guineps I bought today, the first ones I've seen this year. They are just coming back into season now, which made me think OH MY GOD!! I've been here for a year already!

The guinep looks a little like a lime on the outside, but the skin isn't so waxy. Inside it is peach color, kind of gelatinous, like a leechee nut. That is the edible part. Then is the large white pit. Honestly there isn't much to eat on a guinep. You just peel off the skin, stick it in your mouth and suck the pulp part until it's just seed, which you dash 'way. Here is kitty guinep nibbling on the fruits. She didn't seem to like her namesake very much flavor wise, but she did bat around that stray one in the back for awhile.

It's been very hot here recently, even up in Malvern where it is normally much cooler, due to elevation, than the rest of Jamaica. Of course I work in Santa Cruz, which is know throughout Jamaica as 'hot as hell'. Literally. This is mainly because it is below sea level. I find it strange that I've now worked in two places that are below sea level. New Orleans and Santa Cruz. Of course New Orleans was far superior, if only because you have more than one lunch option. In Santa its chicken, rice and pea. That is the standard Jamaican dish, sometimes you can get the chicken baked, not fried, and that is a real treat. But you have to watch out because when you ask for it baked they are likely to try and give you chicken back, which is all bone. Jamaicans like to eat chicken bones. I was horrified at first and remember screaming, rudely, 'ewww we don't even feed chicken bones to dogs in the states'. But here everyone eats them, even little children. Many people don't want the breast because it has too much meat! Skinny women seem especially fond of chicken bones and there are big debates at work over whether bones are really a nutritionally necessary. You can guess where I stand on that.

Well I had some visitors yesterday! I haven't seen the girls in a long time because they have moved into a new house and don't come this way to go home from school anymore. Yesterday I picked them up from school and we went to register Cassanique at Munro Prep. Munro Prep is a very good school, it is probably the best school I've worked at. I'm always amazed at the difference in knowledge when I go there. The kids are so smart, and they aren't shy like the public schools. With smaller classrooms, young energetic teachers and real teaching equipment, it is an excellent opportunity for a child. I would really like to send Cassanique there next year. She will be entering fourth grade and getting towards a crucial time when her future is decided. I'm sure I've mentioned the GSAT before. This is a test given to all children in grade 6. It determines where you go to high school, also IF you get to go to high school, or if you go to all-age. All-age ends at grade 9, and most children don't matriculate on from that point. They are simply finished with school.

So we are trying to raise funds for Cassanique to go to Munro Prep, where she can do well and when she takes the GSAT she can get into a good high school. There is really no other future for children in this country. Two of her older siblings have already gone to all-age and they are only functionally literate. Let me know if you would like to help. We appreciate your support.

Shrewsbury is a little community in northern St. Elizabeth. They have one of the few active 4-H Community Clubs, largely due to their extremely ambitious and motivated leader, Ms. Anderson. She was looking for a project for the clubbites, who are all women. So I brought the 'trash into cash' project where you use plastic bags as crochet 'thread' and make pretty bags, mats, etc. I really like this project because I find that a lot of middle age women already have crochet skills but they feel that the thread and needles are expensive. So instead you use the ubiquitous Jamaican scandal bag (just a black plastic bag). When you go to the supermarket they wrap everything in scandal bags. Even your toilet paper gets its own scandal, inside a larger scandal of course. Here you can see me showing one of the ladies how to cut the bag. You just cut off the top handle section and the bottom part so you get a tube. Then you cut the bag into one long strip. This strip is used as the thread. Some of the women took to this project very quickly. Here is one lady who started to make a mat right away. The largest complaint is that the plastic doesn't move nicely. It is kind of sticky and doesn't have the give that normal thread has. But it's free!! So that's a pretty good trade off. This is the last shot of Guinep's babies. This is brownin and duo. Duo went to Shane and Kae's house last weekend. Khaled had to put him in a box, take him on two taxis, one minibus and a city bus to get him to Portmore for his final home. He made it and now he's living the sweltering life, where the daily temperature surpasses 95 F and when you come home from work in the afternoon the house temp hovers around 110 F. Whoooo!! And they say Santa Cruz is hot as hell. Portmore must be some level of hell, it is way tooo hot. That's mostly because it was built as a scheme and all the trees were cut down.

Looking at this pic I think, ooohhh those babies were so cute. I miss them, but I don't miss the kitty pee on the floor or the price of buying all the extra cat food. I hope they have a good life. Bye-bye Guinep's babies!

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever know when devotions have ended. Devotions start every meeting, transaction, etc. This usually involves at least a prayer and usually a song. I have learned a few songs, especially the most popular one "we are together again, just praisin' the lord". This is how all 4H meetings start, how community meetings start, and how school starts. Typically devotions take about 10 minutes, although I recently sat through an hour long devotion at a island-wide staff meeting. We sang songs I had never heard before, and then when everyone thought it was done 3 or 4 ladies in the back started a 3rd verse and we were all mumbling along to that verse too. I was told later that this devotion took much longer because two staff members were gunned down last month and this was the first time the group had come together since their deaths. This brings me to a point that I only realized recently. Before I left the US one of the big political debates was about prayer in school. People wanted to be able to pray openly on school property, from what I could gather. Now I live in Jamaica where people pray all the time, day and night. I get into cars and we don't leave the parking lot without a prayer (not true in a taxi, where you don't leave the parking lot without a Guinness). Yet still two people I work with get gunned down on company property, people get killed for all kinds of perceived slights. Somehow the constant prayer doesn't lead to a more peaceful society.

But I digress. Here we are at June quarterly meetings. Khaled said, "why am I always wearing that shirt in pictures". That's because when you are in the Peace Corps you don't have money to buy new shirts.

You know it's mango season when...Someone brings you a huge bag of mangos just so they don't have to try and eat them all. These mangos are courtesy of Napallo and Reina, who practically have a mango farm in their back yard. They also have a huge variety of papaya trees, so much that Napallo created a delicious papaya crisp recipe. These are common, or blackie, mangos. They are relatively small and are kind of stringy but are extremely sweet. Jamaicans tend to use them more to make drinks than to eat them outright.

Finally we have an extremely large lizard who visited our living room last night. He posed nicely for Khaled as he stood on a chair to get this close up. In reality he was probable just blinded by the flash. Those daddy long legs must have made a delicious dinner.

On Wednesday of last week Jermaine, Jason and I went to Ginger Hill All-Age school to do a 4H presentation for their boys day. We decided to talk about the 4H and then do a recycled paper demonstration. It was pretty fun, even though it rained towards the end. We had to have the kids line up to do the ironing part because they were so excited about the whole thing.

I had never been to Ginger Hill before, as it is in the northern part of St. Elizabeth parish, very close to Cockpit Country, whose motto is 'me no sen, yu no cum', which essentially means 'stay out'. But its not really like that these days, we even have a peace corps volunteer in Accompong, which is a maroon town. Maroons were runaway slaves that ran to the wilderness areas of the island to escape the Spanish, then first fought the British to a stalemate and won their independence and then later cooperated with the same British when they tried to capture their own runaway slaves. I guess they didn't like immigration either.

Anyway, Ginger Hill is known for its pineapple (just called 'pine' here) so all the way up Jermaine was so excited because he knew we would get free pine. They did not disappoint. Not only did we get whole pine but they served us a pine and ginger drink with lunch that was awesome. All the way back Jason and Jermaine were complaining how their bellies hurt from drinking 20 cups of the pine drink.

Here we are with our recycled paper, that's Jason second from the end in the cool glasses with the Ginger Hill boys. He and Jermaine had to run crowd control during the demo. There was a lot going on there. People from HEART, the vocational tech school, were doing welding demonstrations. A man was there from Boy Scouts and there was even a lecture on hygeine.

Here I am with some completed paper. The hardest part about making recycled paper is that you have to convince the kids not to poke it after it's laid out. Squishy-ness can be so tempting.

At the top is a pic of Ginger Hill, you can see the mountainous cockpit country in the background and a field of pine in the foreground. It is truly a beautiful place.

This weekend was the Calabash Literary Festival in Treasure Beach. This was a long awaited event for most PCVs because there isn't much of a literary culture here. I was working with the Women's group for most of the day, selling baskets and making sure the accounts were in order. Here's Ms. Hazett, me and Sania. Ms. Hazett is wearing the white headscarf, holding one of the calabash that she made, which was bought at the festival. The day went pretty well for them.

There were a lot of Peace Corps volunteers at the festival and some of them participated in open mike, where they read poetry. Our friend Stacy read a poem she wrote about learning to eat mango in Jamaica. Apparently it was a titillating event.

Here's some of the girls. Next to me in black is Lys, she works with the Treasure Beach women's group, they make star candle lights and various other crafts. She and I collaborate a lot on events for the women. In green is Jenny, she's the president of VAC (volunteer advisory committee), and I'm the secretary. Then it's Nan in blue stripes and Sarah on the end. Sarah went to school in Vermont so when it gets really hot, like now, we always dream about snow together.

Khaled and I bought a couple books, which we haven't done in a while because books are soooo expensive here. It's ridiculous the prices of books (or perhaps I just can't afford them on the pittance we're paid). With our purchase we got a free calendar. The guy who checked us out says 'don't forget your free calendar' and points to a small rack of calendars. Khaled picks up one and its all about ganja and the different types of ganja. I said 'you can't put that in our house, we have little kids over all the time' to which he replies 'but it's free!' and the checkout guy says 'yeah mon, real nice calendar'. But then we found out that he wasn't restricted to the calendars with big ganja plants, but could have his pick of the whole rack, so what do you think he zoomed in for? The math calendar! He's so cute. He was all excited, explaining the math puzzles to the weaving ladies.

Here he is with Darius and Maggie, our two guests during the festival. This is a heated political discussion over cinnamon rolls at breakfast. All that running around at calabash gave him a cold so he's staying inside drinking tea this afternoon. It looks like it might rain, so I must go as lightning has been known to go through phone connections and fry computers into oblivion. So long for now.

No its not the wine. On Friday, after a long day of traveling around St. Elizabeth judging SEP schools, I was supposed to meet Khaled. I thought this meant to meet him in Portmore, with our friends as I was coming in late and everyone else would be done with meetings/ work by then. I asked the nice ladies from JET to drop me in Portmore on their way back to Kingston, so I could get a free ride and not take public(!). As we pull into Naggo Head (scary taxi stand in Portmore, right outside a garrison community) I get a call from Khaled, he's in Kingston, with everyone else, having drinks at Christopher's. WHAT!! Now I'm stuck in Naggo Head on a Friday night in the rain. I can't go to S&K's house, only a taxi away, because they are in Kingston with the keys. I can't get on the bus I usually would to get to new Kingston because it's not running at this time. I wander around Naggo Head in the rain, allowing the harassment roll off me like the raindrops. A bus pulls up 'afwey treee' screams the ducta. Excellent, Half-way tree, the hub of Kingston, I really shouldn't go there in the dark, but I have no other choice. The bus leaks a foul smelling substance onto my shirt from the ceiling, half motor oil, half bag juice. The bus driver is definitely on something, as evidenced by his getting out of the bus at a red light and walking around, screaming at other motorists before jumping back in as the light turns green. We finally reach but he won't take us into the square, so we get off about 5 blocks away and all walk in the rain. I follow the crowd, because lets face it, I have no idea where to go next. I see a likely bus, one I know will take me to new Kingston, but it won't stop for me so I trudge on, asking one nice looking elderly lady after another " do you know where to get a bus to New Kingston?" but no one knows. People only know their buses, on their route. I'm close to tears as I round a corner to yet another gross cat call and hear a taximan say, "New Kingston". YEAH!! J$50 and I'm home free. So you see, this picture isn't about wine at all.

Everything is winding down here at the schools. Primary school lets out in a few weeks and so a lot of the programs we've been working with for the year are finishing. Last Friday was the final judging for 'Schools Environment Program' which you may remember me mentioning before as we held a World Wetlands Day competition through SEP in Febuary. This time we went to the schools to see how the kids did in 4 categories (greening, waste management, club and research) over the school year. First was greening your school, for this category St. Albans school did a bunch of stuff like labeling their trees and planting flowers in recycled tires, called tire pots. This is a great activity for an environmental club. You just get old tires from your local mechanic, they usually give them to us for free, then you fill them with dirt and organic compost and plant seeds. Voila! a pretty hedge. This was very effective at St. Albans because they have an unprotected dropoff on their parking area that is a definite hazard. Now its harder to roll your car into oblivion because of the tire pots. My favorite part of their presentation was when they showed us how one clubbite's father, a farmer, came to the school and helped them plant banana trees. This is an unusual amount of parental involvement and I have to give them props.

Next category is research and the kids at Sandy Bank did not one but THREE topics of research this year; wetland animals, drought management and endemic birds. Here they are doing a play on endemic birds and how to protect them to keep Jamaica beautiful. What impressed me the most about Sandy Bank is how the students have a lot of knowledge. At some schools the kids don't know why they did the activities they did, but at Sandy Bank they know why and they can tell you other things they could have done too. For example, they grew an organic garden and used drip irrigation lines that were donated, but they knew how to make drip irrigation systems from recycled soda bottles as well.

Last stop was Newcombe Valley where they had a good compost heap going and had done some neat greening. They circumposed some croton plants and replanted them near the entrance to the school. They also had a seedbed going with pak chow and sweet pepper, which will grow this summer in the schoolyard so that the school has extra income for the fall. Some schools do this to make money as the amount given by the ministry is pretty paltry. They use the school grounds as a farm during the summer ( when no one is there to trample to crops) and sell the stuff to the community to earn money for lightbulbs, toilet paper, essentials that get overlooked during the year when they don't have enough cash to even buy chalk.

We've been traveling some more. Our friend Michelle just ET'd (early termination, i.e she left peace corps) so we went to Portmore to have a going away thing for her. We also went to Inverness this Saturday, which is way up in the hills almost in the center of the island, for Lauren's birthday party. I hope to get some pics from that event, especially when we learned about the flammable properties of white rum.This weekend is Calabash Literary Festival in Treasure Beach so people will be coming to stay with us for that event. Until then...

Motherhood at its finest ;-)

Well, its been a while! Now that 4H National Achievment Day is over (St. Elizabeth placed first overall!! Big up St. Bess!), I've been working more with the St. Helena Women's Group. We brought their order to Appleton Rum Estate last week, although it was a month overdue. Thats okay because they loved the baskets, aren't they beautiful! We also took a trip to Negril last weekend with our buds Shane and Kae. We stayed with our friend Renee who lives in a resort like place. Here is the view out her backdoor!! I have to admit that this view is even better than the view out my backdoor, mainly because there is the promise of swimming in this one. We had a great time lounging around, snorkeling and eating good food. Of course we got the requisite sunburn to prove it ;-)

This week we've been working on getting Khaled's SPA project together and that meant moving a photocopier and a trip to Kingston to purchase the laminator for the school supplies. I've been working on the 4H Junior leaders meeting, where I made up a 4H 20 questions game. I bet you didn't know that 4H Jamaica began in 1940, and neither did I before this week. Plus getting St. Elizabeth schools ready for 'Schools Environment Program' judging which will be held next week, so look out for some good pics from that.

We've also been playing with the newest additions to our home, Guenip's Kittens!! She had 4 likkle bebe when we were at IST and they are the cutest ever! They look just like her, with spots on their heads, white bodies and colorful tails. Shane and Kae already picked out theirs. Here's Kae with likkle Squeaker! He made the most noise of all of them, so of course she picked that one.

So we came back from our week away with sleepy eyes and heavy feet. We were pooped! We traveled all around and had a great time, but by Friday we were pretty finished, but we had to work really hard because Friday was 4H National Achievement Day, so we didn't get back to our house until 11:00pm. Thankfully my supervisor drove us up because no taxis run at that time of night. We didn't have the camera so I'm gonna wait to give you the trip details until Shane and Kae send me the pics they took. Instead I give you some of the good stuff from Easter break. Here we are at YS Falls. Thats Shane, Kaelyn and Caitlin. We had a great time and the falls were beautiful. Shane even dared the rope swing, but the rest of us weren't interested in rope burned thighs. Here's Khaled on the Jitney. When you arrive at YS Falls you pay at the door, in a little gift shop area. They you get on a Jitney, a tractor pulled haycart that's been fitted with seats. This reminded me of when my parents used to take us to a Halloween haunted house as kids and you rode in this haywagon through the dark up to the haunted house. All along the route were people with scary chainsaws and witches with long fingers to stick through the bars of the haywagon, eeeee!! Thankfully the YS jitney is not so scary, the biggest hazard is a stray cow in the wagon path. The ride is beautiful as you see the rolling plains of the Santa Cruz valley with Cockpit country as backdrop. We even saw some horses with young foals. Then you arrive at the falls area and you can walk the paths up and around, try out the rope swing or swim in the river fed pool at the bottom. It was great and we got to hang out with a family of rastas in the river. The women were wearing full length sarongs and kirchiefs around their hair. Interesting. On Easter Monday we went to St. Alban's First Mr. and Miss. St. Alban's Talent Contest and Fair. We took the girls along, after waiting forever for them to get ready. The fair was fun, although I was hoping they'd have some rides or a bounce-about. The talent contest was funny and fun, although the youth next door were trying to gear up for a session, so it was really hard to hear anything. The contestants were all kids under 16 and the loud music was distressing to a number of their performances. But they did carry through and the crowd was impressed and behind them. Here is Cassenique (who would NOT enter the contest) showing off her talent of staying photogenic when surprised by a camera. Till we get more photos...

-Caitlin & Khaled

The Jamaican education model involves alot of rote memorization and repitition. For instance, we frequently work with grade 6 students and it is common to have them read aloud, in unison, whatever you put on the board. They give answers in unison, read books in unison, and basically act like little robots in the classroom. This even has a name here 'chalk and talk'. A teacher will write things on the board that students copy (often incorrectly) into their notebooks or read aloud. This is an enormous problem as it hides the children with literacy problems, slows down the bright children, creates indecipherable homework and makes everyone medicore, at best. Poochie often brings home vocabulary that she's supposed to look up in a dictionary, when I look at it about half of the words aren't words. It took me a long time to figure out that she was copying them wrong from the board. Much to our consternation, the only thing that isn't required rote memorization is the TIMES TABLES! Every American child is required to learn the times tables, but in Jamaica, with all the chalk and talk, kids don't have to know the times tables. In fact you CAN'T buy a notebook in this country that doesn't have a cheat sheet of the times table on the back cover. A standard issue notebook has all Jamaica's famous leaders and the times table on the back. So when I was in the States recently, I picked up a pack of multiplication flashcards. Here's Khaled with the girls, trying to get across the 9 times table. We love this one because of 09.18.27.36.45.54.63.72.81.90. We showed them how this works, like a mirror and everything. No luck. We will just have to keep trying. Around the table, clockwise, are Khaled, Kadeem, Sashika, Cassanique, and Poochie. Poochie has just taken her GSAT, so now we have to see if she gets into high school, any high school, or if she will be sent to an All-Age, where you don't go past grade 9. If that isn't a stressful situation for a 12 year old, I don't know what is.

On a lighter note, we had yet another night time visitor. At least we can classify this one, its a BANANA SLUG! This guy was hanging out above our lightbulb for a few hours, just lazily eating moths. At least it was kinda cute, and its comforting to at least know what it is. We also had a big roach last night, but Khaled got him. I allow most things to live, but roaches cross the line. Our banana slug showed up one eveling and was gone by morning. Far more polite than a roach, who will just go hang out in my wheat cracker box.

So we have to travel first to Kingston, then to Portmore, then to Ocho Rios, then back to Portmore, then to Runaway Bay (St. Ann), then to Lionel Town (Clarendon) then to Denbigh (Clarendon also) all starting tommorrow and I couldn't bear the thought of leaving uno (aka yall), without a post in between. We'll be gone just a touch over a week. Anways. Since last we posted, we've had, not one, but TWO visitors to our part of the mountain. Which gave me TWO opportunity to bake tasty non-Jamaican desserts. This exciting development brings to a grand total FOUR people who have spent the night at our place. Nuff fun man.

The weekend before last, our peace corps friend from Manchester stopped by for a couple days. She got to meet the girls and go to our Supervisior's sister's party. It was pretty fun, since a little over half the people at the party were kids. Now, Caitlin and I are usually surrounded by pickney, but usually it's in a school or school-like setting, at the party we had the chance to just hang and play dominoes and deadly, high-speed games of catch (not since grammer school have I seen a tennis ball achieve such fatal velocities). I also got to make a first run at baking puff pastry on a Caribbean Island. Seemed to work out. The recipe is super easy as is the baking. The only area of difficultly with the first run was trying to get the pudding (I admit that under duress I made instant pudding) into the shells. I came up with a brilliant contraption that involved a straw, a rubber band and a plastic bag. See, I cut the straw to make it pointy. Anyway, after filling two shells, extraordinarily slowly, Caitlin declared my feat of engineering, "crap", so we had to scrap it and resort to the much less imaginative, but still rather fun 'stuffing the pudding in with a spoon through a small hole made with a ratchet [small knife]' method. I'd like to say it was a very Peace Corps solution, but I distinctly recall that this is how we got the pudding into the last eclairs we made while still in the States. Maybe minus the ratchet. Anyway, our friend from Manchester didn't seem to mind how the pudding got into the pastry, so I guess we did okay. Here she is with Caitlin. We had a great time and hope she comes to visit again. Three days later our good friends from St. Catherine, Shane and Kaelyn, came to visit and stayed for Easter. Although we did have a few things to do, like help out the St. Elizabeth Technical High School 4H Environmental Challengers prepare for Nationals, we did lots of fun stuff too. Shane and I got decidedly beaten in multiple rounds of Canasta. We went to YS Falls. We watched DVDs on their laptop (our TV, the singular item seperating us from "weird white people" into the "cool people we'd like to hang out with" categories, especially in the minds of the local kids, is now broken. It is beyond the scope of my repair skills. I even got out the multimeter. It's all up to Cliff now. He's the local 'fix electronics' man, also generally called a 'technician'. Apparently, he's willing to do things like repair electrical line for a shot of white rum. While I have great hopes for the repair of our TV, Caitlin has begun to consider our purchasing options). However, joy of joys, I got to attempt more desserts. Caitlin opened with a salvo of quite good biscottis (orange flavoured with pecans). As a casual return, I repeated my sinfully successful eclairs, this time with a less-than successful soy-milk based pudding. To add to the confusion we had to make banana muffins so the girls wouldn't instanteously devour all our newly baked goods. Finally, Caitlin pushed the envelope and made Cinnamon Rolls, not the Jamaican variety which are basically hardough bread with sugar and coconut (called a Sugar Bun, and quite tasty if your not craving a Cinnamon Roll), but geninune brown sugar and cinnamon with fat raisian cinnamon buns. In a final shock to our systems, I made a going away breakfast of a Dutch baby (aka puff pancake) with a banana's foster topping. We were very wicked peace corps. Naturally, since I was so busy eating all of Caitlin's desserts, I neglected to take any pictures of her incredible creations. You can see the unfoldings of the 'dessert melodrama' if you go back a few posts to the one where I got a package from my parents. An insidious little book, simply entitled 'Desserts', was the catalyst for our descent into sweethood. We did do more than eat candy though. The girls have now added three more peace corps names to their growing list of what they consider funny and unusual peace corps names (most amusing to Casenique was the fact that Caitlin and Kaelyn sound almost the same, which generated eighteen hour long episodes of sing-songing the two names together, seriously, when the kid left she was doing it, and when I saw her again the next day, she was still doing it). Myrna, the girls' mother and our good friend and neighbour, got to meet both Shane and Kaelyn and Maggie. She is always very excited when she can introduce us and our funny names to other people as "My friend Caitlin" or "My new friend Maggie" or "My good friend Shane". We really enjoyed having another couple out here though. While I think being single in the Peace Corps is alot harder in some ways then serving as a married couple, there are certainly different challenges. It's good to compare notes with another couple and realise your not entirely crazy. Due to our cool climate (and our stunning good looks) we do expect to see our friends from South St. Catherine visiting us again (It 'ot dung deso, me tell yah true) and they're always welcome, assuming we're here.

Naturally, we did have one other guest of note.

More when we get back.

-Khaled

Last Thursday, April 6, was 4H Parish Achievement Day so we were in a whirl on Wednesday to get everything ready for the Trash into Cash competition that the Santa Cruz Community Club was entering with the briquette press. The press has been complete for almost two weeks but of course everyone had to wait until the last second to actually make a briquette. This plus the fact that no one bothered to bring in any garbage for use in the press made the whole ordeal stressful. Here Jason and Khaled are pressing out the garbage slush, which consisted mainly of old newspaper, lawn scraps and fishbones. Apparently the fish bones are to make it stick, kind of like glue (according to Khaled). I thought it just made it that much stinkier. Here's your gratuitous muscle shot. You have to press pretty hard to get the briquette to solidify. We eventually managed to make one briq before it started to rain really hard, so we had to stop and hope the one would suffice for the competition. Dun - Dun nah! Here's our first briq!! Now we just have to burn it and see if we have a good recipe. Jason won the St. Elizabeth Trash to Cash top prize, so now he gets to go to National's at the end of April. We have a great idea to use the briqs to roast breadfruit and sell them to make money for the community club at Nationals. The women of the club had entered to food prep and cake baking competition at the parish level, so they are interested in roasting breadfruit to sell. This is also an excellent demonstration of how the briqs can be used as many people use charcoal in thier outdoors kitchens to roast breadfruit, so instead of chopping down trees to make charcoal the club can sell these briqs made of paper trash.

On another note, when living in a house with slatted windows and without screens, don't be surprised if something like this makes a visit to your living room in the eveling. We debated what it was, not enough legs for a spider, but it didn't fly either. Let's hope it doesn't become a repeat guest!