Getting Started

Finally the questions have been answered! For too long I’ve been telling everyone that I don’t really know exactly where I’m going or what I’m doing. No more! This last Thursday our training group finally received our site assignments and set off in all directions across the island on Friday. I’m stationed in the town of Redlight, twenty-five minutes up a twisted mountain rode above Kingston. The two weeks leading up to my final move here was spent living in a small community called Hellshire, located in the parish of St. Catherine, about forty-five minutes to the east of Kingston. My host family, the Bailey’s, was amazing and stuffed me full of dumplings, yams, fish and chicken. There were always members of the family coming and going from the house. It took me a few days to figure out who really lived there. I did wash by hand, took care of the children and helped out with the cooking the meals. Oh how domestic I've become! Gender roles are pretty dominant here and it is mostly expected that women stay home and tend to those things, but Mr. and Mrs. Bailey were a delightful surprise in the way they ran their household. Walking into the kitchen and being greeted by both of them, washing and peeling carrots side by side, brightened my day more than once. Outside of their house, I ran into a few challenges being a woman in a patriarchal society. Women are not permitted into bars, are only addressed after the men have been greeted and are constantly harassed on the street corners by the ever-present group of ganja boys. On that note: I don't think I went more than a half hour in Hellshire without smelling that silly lettuce. Unfortunately, the myth of Jamaica having spliffs growing off trees is not that far off, but it’s just an accepted part of the culture and really doesn’t have much influence on day-to-day life. So now I’m starting my first of two stays with my permanent host family, with another week back in Hellshire between them and a few days back in the capital at the end of training for swearing in. I’ve been keeping busy trying to get a head start on future project options. I’ve been assigned as a health promoter for the communities of Middleton, Redlight and Irish Town and will be assisting with disease prevention and IT education at the local primary school’s learning center. My assigned counterpart for the job is a social worker that has grown up in Irish Town and is one of the most respected and known women in the community. I’m also working on teaming up with the Jamaica AIDS Support organization and involving myself with some of the restructuring and documenting they have planned for the next year. I would be able to assist with reaching out to some of the more taboo target groups with testing centers and group counseling and a little bit of travel to create uniformity among the other branches of their organization. Very very excited to already have something like this lined up. Most volunteers sit around for the first four months twittling their thumbs waiting for a project they really want to jump into. I finally know now that I get to do exactly what I was hoping to do here and live in a paradise valley right outside of the city, exactly where I wanted to be! Check out my house! : bmcn.blogspirit.com . . . I’m in the red/orange one! :) :)