After a year of false starts, the mural project at the Discovery Bay Marine Lab started up again – and this time with paint! Starting with a long weekend in late August, Taylor and I dabbed away at one of the outside walls of the Invasive Species lab to the melodious tunes of dancehall. Given [...]

It pison! Me nah wan fi eat dat fish. Mi kyaan bother wi dat fish, there’s no market. It one lab fish. Mi eat it you know, but mi know it one lab fish. It not dangerous, right? Mi eat it already! It taste nice. These were among the many things we heard last week [...]

Currently eating: GUINEP! Remember them? (I’d take a picture, but they’re just finished…) Season is just starting up and I am very happy about this development. Made notebooks with the paper ladies at the center today. Water has been out in the community for a few days and things are sloooow. Boston School was cut [...]

Jamaica is a country with myriad produce; tropical fruits of all shapes and sizes, bountiful vegetable options all year long, and many people with several fruit trees in their own yard. In fact, sometimes there is too much fruit. When a tree is ready to bear, it bears with abandon, dropping fruit by the bucket-full. [...]

One of the most enjoyable projects for me right now is bead making with Nature’s Handmade Paper (I’m a sucker for the artsy craftsy!) Towards the end of last year I taught the ladies how to make beads from magazine paper. They loved the results and started thinking of making a separate line of jewelry [...]

Chris’mus breeze a come! And none too soon. Now when friends back home complain about the snow and ice, I can shiver along in agreement at the chill in the Caribbean air. It’s nippy down here. Really! …It qualifies as sweatshirt weather when it dips below 75F. Blankets are needed at night. For real. I [...]

Sorry for the long silence, it has been a busy few weeks. We had rain, tropical storms, extended power outages – we even had an earthquake! Well, a little one. Anyway. Not really all that dramatic in Fairy Hill, just internet, power, and phone outages and some flooding. So two weeks ago now Group 81 [...]

NATURE by H.D. Carberry We have neither Summer nor Winter Neither Autumn nor Spring. We have instead the days When the gold sun shines on the high green canefields - Magnificently. The days when the rain beats like bullets on the roofs And there is no sound but the swish of water in the gullies [...]

Typical day. PLAN: meet with the Gender and Development subcommittee in Kingston. REALITY: stay home to clean up the mess from a leak in the ceiling and wait for it to be patched up. The best laid plans… It’s been a good few weeks though. The week before last we had our five day Peer [...]

The rumblings in my brain say there will be a big post later in the week. For today, just pictures. Some foods I like in Jamaica: Ok. Time to make dinner. ALSO Big ups to RJ and FiveThirtyEight – now officially partnered with the New York Times!

As is usually the case, the Jamaica CherylLauren adventure was short, intense, and a lot of fun! After a 3+ hour ride experiencing summer rain in the mountains (landslides, and hydroplaning on the curvy roads without side rails, and generally getting used to the idea of driving on the left side of the road), Mom [...]

Sad week for Peace Corps Jamaica. In the last several days, three volunteers from the Environment Sector of group 81 early terminated (ET) their service. They left, respectively, for safety, family, and work/general PC dissatisfaction reasons. Two came as a surprise, the third was just a sad conclusion to a long fight deciding whether or [...]

JULY: a month of rain. That’s the quick version. Given my lack of posting recently though, I’ll elaborate! Despite the weather, July hosted many events, projects, celebrations, and adventures. Here are a couple of pictures from Jerk Fest (courtesy of Jerry). This day, perhaps a blessing in disguise, really clinched the idea that we as [...]

Laundry hangin in all kinds of strange places in my little apartment these last few weeks! New bug seeking shelter in here every day. Nuff rain! Not that nothin a gwaan fi mi, but I’m a likkle tired tonight, so will make due with a mostly picture post. Jerry’s jerk chicken! Some of the crew [...]

Sipping slow on my coffee this morning, luxuriating in my lack of mosquito bites (thank you Neville for helping me with the net!). The week ahead will be another busy one, and I’m looking forward to the unexpected directions each day always takes. I have learned that you always need to be prepared to do [...]

So for once Jamaica has made it into CNN and the BBC! …unfortunately not for very pleasant reasons though. Just wanted to send out a quick update and reassurance. For those of you who have been keeping up with international news lately, Jamaica has been dealing with some civil unrest revolving around an extradition request [...]

After the hustle and bustle of training and field activities, and the two month build up to where we would ultimately be placed for our two years in Jamaica, I finally feel like my feet are touching the ground. The ground, you may be interested to know, is in Fairy Hill, Portland! Yeah, from Rainbow [...]

During the course of training we have come to discover that in Jamaica proverbs are used as little bursts of philosophy interjected into everyday speak. A lot of the phrases are similar to things that we use in the states; “If yu go a tumpafoot dance, yuh fi dance a tumpafoot,” is the equivalent of, [...]

Wha gwaan? It’s been a busy few weeks! I don’t have a ton of time, but here are a few highlights: 3 weeks in Hellshire (right on the beach!) with host family. Ate some tasty Jamaican food like Chicken Foot Soup, Curry Goat, Pig Tail, Ackee and Saltfish. yum. Right now starting a 6 week [...]