Author: mcmeeshi

Personal blog: jeddandmichelle.com Travel site: intentionaltravelers.com
* Life Updates, * Michelle Thoughts, * Peace Corps

A Peek at Our New Home

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Feel free to click on the thumbnail images above and it should open up a page with the caption on it.

We finally learned our site placements last week and were whisked off to “site orientation” with our supervisors for the past four days. Jedd and I will be living in a rural area outside of Savanna-la-Mar, on the southwest coast in Westmoreland parish. I’ll be working at a rural school doing literacy pull-out sessions with students who have fallen behind (among other things). And Jedd will be working in a brand new community resource center in Savanna-la-Mar (a.k.a. Sav) starting up their internet cafe, computer training, and youth programs (among other things). We feel so blessed to be living in the basement apartment of a beautiful rural home with two amazing host parents. I’ve included a few pictures for now but wanted to save the rest until we’ve really made the place our own.

Our internet situation at site is up in the air. We are currently in Kingston for one last week of training and then Swearing In on May 18, and we do have internet access here. After that, we are not sure when we’ll be able to get consistent internet at work or at home.

* Michelle Thoughts, * Peace Corps, Videos

Site Placement and Video Part 2

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This video is the second installment from Hub Training for the education volunteers. It’s a quick recap of the past five weeks.

We also have exciting news… We have finally found out our site placement for the next two years! We will be living in Westmoreland parish in a small town outside of Savanna-la-Mar. Jedd will be working at a newly developing organization with youth, a short taxi ride from our home. And I will be working with the primary school in our town. Our housing is a flat on the first floor of a house owned by a couple in their fifties. Tomorrow our supervisors will take us to the site for a four-day orientation, so we’ll know a lot more in the coming days! Our big swearing in ceremony to become official volunteers is May 18.

* Michelle Thoughts, * Peace Corps, Videos

PCJ Education Sector Volunteers

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Today is our last day of “Hub training” where the eleven of us education volunteers have been meeting for the past five weeks. We have successfully completed our practicum assignments, which involved tutoring two primary school students in literacy over a period of two weeks, as well as other education and patois language-related assignments. We’ve heard from a number of presenters, including several from various branches of Jamaica’s Ministry of Education, and we’ve even toured some important sites to the country’s education system on our field trips. As the Jamaicans say, we’re “ready fi touch di road” (sort of like: “ready to hit the road running”). They often tell us that although five weeks is not enough to prepare us for everything, we are prepared enough to begin our work and go until our next training in September (Early Service Conference). We’ve also learned a lot outside the classroom, namely with our wonderful host families who feed, house, and watch out for us while we’ve been here. We will be leaving our host families on Sunday afternoon and heading back to Kingston where we’ll (finally!!) find out our site placements for the next two years.

A 5th grade class on break tells me all about what they’re learning in school

I’ve been working on several videos lately but in an effort to get something posted quickly and have it not be too lengthy, the first video (posted above) is simply some interviews of the education trainees who have spent the last five weeks with me. Hopefully you’ll get a taste for the diversity of volunteers who are in my group as well as some idea of what it’s like to be an education trainee. The next video will include more of the sites and activities we’ve experienced in our time at Hub training. Until then…

-M

* Life Updates, * Michelle Thoughts, * Peace Corps

Rise and Shine: A Morning in the Life of a Trainee

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This was going to be “A Day in the Life” post, however, just covering the morning hours seems to be plenty for one post. The following is a description of an average training day at my Hub:

One Morning

It’s a Monday morning. I wake up around 5:45am as the sun is just beginning to glow through my windows and illuminate the pastel green walls in my bedroom. My earplugs have fallen out at some point during the night, so I do a quick sweep of the linen sheets to feel them out. The temperature has been much more agreeable now that we’re further up in the mountains of Jamaica, so I had switched my fan off late in the evening. I roll out of bed and my bare feet guide me across the tile floor, out my back bedroom door (the front bedroom door leads to the patio/entrance of the house). A quick zigzag down the hallway brings me to my own private bathroom which my host family has reserved for me; it is nearly the size of my bedroom but painted pastel pink. (I’ve already used the facility twice during the night because of how much water and juice I’m ingesting, and yet I still have to go again! TMI?) Continue reading “Rise and Shine: A Morning in the Life of a Trainee” →

* Life Updates, * Michelle Thoughts, * Peace Corps, Videos

Volunteer Shadowing

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Our most recent adventure has been shadowing a current volunteer. We each went out on public transportation to various sites around the island, spending Monday afternoon through Wednesday morning with our volunteer. I got to visit Carline, another education volunteer who is located in a small town outside of Ocho Rios. She’s came with the group before ours, so she’s been at her site since September.

The video gives a quick look at her apartment, her literacy work at the local school, the beautiful nature in her community, and some of her friends. The last clip is a pair of student rehearsing a really cool poem that they will perform at Festival. (Please excuse the technical glitch at the beginning! And the audio was a little challenging so I put in a few subtitles.) Overall, I had a great time with Carline, gaining valuable advice and a real life look at a volunteer’s home and work. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back and visit at some point! -M

* Michelle Thoughts, * Peace Corps

Pon Di Road an Easter

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(Translation: On the road and Easter)

Jedd was able to travel from the Youth Development training town (a.k.a. "Hub") to visit me for the long weekend in my hub where the Education volunteers stay. Here we are in our Easter church outfits.

Week One at Hub

Easter in Jamaica is a national holiday, meaning most folks get at least Good Friday and Easter Monday off from their travails, and the schools get up to two weeks off. We have moved to the next phase of our training program, “Hub” training, and we are currently in our second set of home-stays in these new communities. Since Jedd and I are in different sectors, we’re living in separate Hub communities for these five weeks. But fortunately, Peace Corps has arranged for married couples who are separated during Hub to be able to visit each other a couple times on weekends. So we took advantage of the long Easter weekend, and Jedd braved public transit for the first time! Continue reading “Pon Di Road an Easter” →

* Michelle Thoughts, * Peace Corps, Videos

Community-Based Training (Part One)

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This video is a quick look at what our lives have looked like the past couple weeks. After Staging in Atlanta, we flew to Kingston where we were warmly welcomed and did our first two days of orientation. Then, we moved into our first home-stay community in a small town outside of Kingston where we have been enjoying home cooking, fresh juice, and life lessons from our host mother and sister. On week days we are in training sessions with the other trainees, learning about the local language and culture, safety and security, Peace Corps policies, and overviewing issues related to our project sectors.

Some random things we’ve learned and experienced so far:

  • Steel drums actually come from Trinidad and Tobago
  • It is not culturally acceptable to eat on the street, walking or sitting (jury is still out on why this is so)
  • Jamaicans hold big social parties nine days after a death called a Nine Night and anyone can attend
  • “Howdy come from outta door.” Greetings are more important than saying Thank You here, and it is the person coming from “outside” (whether entering a room or a foreigner entering a neighborhood) who must be the one to offer the greeting
  • Morning jogs must wrap up before 7:30am or else you’ll get too hot
  • The ice cream truck plays the same song here
  • Sometimes girls will ask to touch your hair
* Michelle Thoughts, * Peace Corps

Making Headlines

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Jamaican Observer article about our Peace Corps group: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Peace-Corps-celebrates-50-years-of-service-to-Jamaica_11106257

Don’t ask me why I was selected for this picture but upon our arrival to Jamaica last week, the Jamaican press covered Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary of being in Jamaica. Our entire group attended the ceremony, and now we’re in the paper!

We’ll try to post another video in a few days. In the meantime, I’ve made some small updates to the mailing instructions on our Peace Corps Info page (tab above). Since we’re moving around a lot during training, we’ve been told that it will be easiest to wait until we go to our permanent site in May to get packages. But it’s not a hard and fast rule.

Until next time … -M

* Jedd Thoughts, * Peace Corps

Here We Are!

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Nexus Group Performing at the 50th anniversary celebration of Peace Corps in Jamaica

After a long couple of days of travel and no sleep (we were awake for about 36 hours), we have finally arrived in Jamaica!

Highlights:
– It’s been great meeting and making new friends (both fellow volunteers and staff)
– Training and support has been overwhelming and very much appreciated
– Impressive and highly competent Jamaican and American Staff
– Fun trying new food
– The warmth from the island from the people and the weather is comforting
– Feel encouraged that this really is where we are suppose to be
– Amazing welcome and 50th anniversary celebration of Peace Corps in Jamaica (inspiring speeches and a beautiful cultural performance by the Nexus group (singing and dancing))

We are excited to head to our first round of homestays tomorrow and look forward to the rest of training. Will have more to share soon, but we just wanted you to know that we arrived safe, we are enjoying the training, and can’t believe we are finally here. Don’t know when the next time we will post but will do so when we can.
Till next time, “Bless up yourself”.

-J

* Michelle Thoughts, * Peace Corps

Crossing the waters

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We arrived in Atlanta safe and sound on Monday night. We met the first of our fellow Peace Corps trainees at the airport and caught a ride to the hotel together. There were a group of other trainees hanging out in the lobby and at breakfast Tuesday morning, so little by little we met our new “government issued friends” (as they say). No one seems to have slept very well here, and both Jedd and I are battling a minor cold. But despite that, we are really excited to finally be in the midst of what we’ve been waiting for all this time, and everyone we’ve met has been awesome! Staging, a very basic orientation and paperwork session, took place today for about 6 hours, and we were both pretty impressed by how well the information was delivered and everything was coordinated.

The following is a quick video we threw together of our last few days for a glimpse at our lives before arriving in Jamaica: packing, farewell parties, travel, and our first Peace Corps activity. Enjoy!

And (mostly for our parents) here are two links to articles/blogs where we were recently featured for joining Peace Corps:
Peace Corps Day… in the Gonzaga Bulletin
New Volunteer Profile on the West Coast Peace Corps Recruitment Office blog