Imagine my surprise when I arrived in Hagley Gap, Jamaica, to learn that I would be in charge of a squirrelly group of 3-5 years olds for a 4-hr-day/5-day week "Fun Camp" for my 2 weeks volunteering there. I had 2 young Jamaican helpers for my group, both of whom (when they showed up) exercised the usual local discipline methods of yank, yell, scold, shame and hit. Grant you, the kids are so wild - having learned no SELF discipine - that I COULD NOT keep them paying attention, staying in the group and learning WITHOUT these young helpers, whatever their methods, but the biggest challenge, beside trying to understand the VERY thick local patois, was getting other ideas of discipline across to my helpers and to the few parents who also come to help (mostly do their children's work for them.) But at the end of the two weeks, the helpers were doing more encouraging, my group actually managed to behave well one session WITHOUT the helpers' presence, and the kids learned the greeting song I learned at Head Start "...stand up tall and we'll clap for you," (an apparent anomaly as usually individual attention means ridicule or punishment.) I also learned some wonderful songs w/ motion from them, and have a fantasy of turning one into a children's book, complete w/ photos of the area and the kids, called "She looks like a sugar in a plum." The kids are so eager to learn and avidly look at every book I hand out. Also so eager for attention and cuddles - MOST kids up to 7 or 8 suck their thumbs routinely. What they DO have here is a whole mountain community which is close-knit and completely safe, and the beautiful river, where everyone has swum, washed clothes, bathed and gotten their drinking water since a hurricane wiped out the water system 2 years ago. Also one of the most beautiful environments (if you ignore the trash here and there) I have ever seen - with bananas, plantains, guavas, pineapples, coconuts, mangos and peaches growing wild - a real boon in this area of 75% unemployment. The people who DO work (visibly) work incredibly hard - farming on hillsides, mixing concrete by hand, and of course everywhere broken-down vehicles being worked on. The project (Bluemountainproject.org) is wonderful. Minor glitches, as with any all-volunteer programs, but the manager (a 30 y o. American woman w/ a BA in Community Development, who has visited here 12 years and lived here 3) has produced this yearly summer camp, a year-round clinic w/ a reg. nurse, and visiting dentists to come, will be getting Engineers without Borders to replace the bridge on the main road to town, and is getting a helicopter donated to bring in supplies when the road is washed out (and it's terrible in the best conditions) and so someone could be taken to the hospital in Kingston if needed.
There's Dance Hall music and lots of dancing in the square in front of a few raggedy stores at the top of the hill on Fri & St nites, which includes many of the older kids, and one afternoon we had a great impromptu drumming session w/ several of the young men on the tables, pots and pans of the community center - which included one of my 5 yo boys, who will be a great drummer, and of course this very happy person. But in general I never walked (climbed hills) so much or worked so hard in my life. No bad bugs or snakes, and I'm not bothered by the mosquitoes at all, tho some are - and the crickets or cicadas sing and buzz at nite, and there are tiny fire flies! The temp is about 80 during the days w/ probaby 70% humidity - and cooler at nite, tho I understand it gets colder in Jan/Feb. Perfect for me...shorts and tanks all day. I think of living here for awhile - there's so much work to be done with parenting and discipline in the schools, and I could have some goats and chickens, but there'd be so little communication w/ my family except by cellphone and not really a place to visit, especially for my gay son, as Jamaica is known as the homophobic capital of the world (also the murder capital) and two gay rights workers were just brutally murdered recently. But I am strongly drawn and there is possibly a job opening as "Ed. Director."
LOTS of frustration due to cultural issues, mostly time-concept, things happening when they were supposed to (or at all), and the incessant discipline issues. But I've lost another 5# due to the physicality and am brown as a berry (which is a meaningful concept due to the coffee-growing here.)
On my last day I was told I could give a parenting talk at the local 7th Day Adv. church and went at 1:45 to be told to come back at 3:30-4....so I used the time to walk upupupup (another 1500' elev)(the lower community at about 4500') to a whole community area I was previously unaware of.......a little more primative or ghetto-like....a little scarey to just set out walking without knowing anyone.......but I managed to get up to the first of the four preschools (called "basic school" here and funded by the govt) to see what things looked like there. If I returned to Hagley Gap, THAT is where I'd be working. (My fear of heights coming vitally into play here.) Then walked back down to wait more than an hour more for the "afternoon service" and then to give my parenting talk to what turned out mostly to be grandparents and young people....so I switched the talk to "care for the children in our midst." The response was really wonderful, the two pastors were very enlightened men who really care about their "flock" - wanted to know what to do about the single mothers, fatherless children, etc etc. I was very moved and I guess they were too. Really a wonderful experience; unforgettable. I will miss the children, especially.
And then in the morning I started off a 8 am on what turned out to be a 12 hour journey by car and cancelled fights, and 1/2 hr. between 2 flights in the dreadful Miami airport and eventually again by jitney to my homestay in Guatemala, in the midst of a cold rainstorm and to bed by 8:30.
And now the adjustment (very difficult) to Spanish, and this lovely town, and whatever it holds.
There's Dance Hall music and lots of dancing in the square in front of a few raggedy stores at the top of the hill on Fri & St nites, which includes many of the older kids, and one afternoon we had a great impromptu drumming session w/ several of the young men on the tables, pots and pans of the community center - which included one of my 5 yo boys, who will be a great drummer, and of course this very happy person. But in general I never walked (climbed hills) so much or worked so hard in my life. No bad bugs or snakes, and I'm not bothered by the mosquitoes at all, tho some are - and the crickets or cicadas sing and buzz at nite, and there are tiny fire flies! The temp is about 80 during the days w/ probaby 70% humidity - and cooler at nite, tho I understand it gets colder in Jan/Feb. Perfect for me...shorts and tanks all day. I think of living here for awhile - there's so much work to be done with parenting and discipline in the schools, and I could have some goats and chickens, but there'd be so little communication w/ my family except by cellphone and not really a place to visit, especially for my gay son, as Jamaica is known as the homophobic capital of the world (also the murder capital) and two gay rights workers were just brutally murdered recently. But I am strongly drawn and there is possibly a job opening as "Ed. Director."
LOTS of frustration due to cultural issues, mostly time-concept, things happening when they were supposed to (or at all), and the incessant discipline issues. But I've lost another 5# due to the physicality and am brown as a berry (which is a meaningful concept due to the coffee-growing here.)
On my last day I was told I could give a parenting talk at the local 7th Day Adv. church and went at 1:45 to be told to come back at 3:30-4....so I used the time to walk upupupup (another 1500' elev)(the lower community at about 4500') to a whole community area I was previously unaware of.......a little more primative or ghetto-like....a little scarey to just set out walking without knowing anyone.......but I managed to get up to the first of the four preschools (called "basic school" here and funded by the govt) to see what things looked like there. If I returned to Hagley Gap, THAT is where I'd be working. (My fear of heights coming vitally into play here.) Then walked back down to wait more than an hour more for the "afternoon service" and then to give my parenting talk to what turned out mostly to be grandparents and young people....so I switched the talk to "care for the children in our midst." The response was really wonderful, the two pastors were very enlightened men who really care about their "flock" - wanted to know what to do about the single mothers, fatherless children, etc etc. I was very moved and I guess they were too. Really a wonderful experience; unforgettable. I will miss the children, especially.
And then in the morning I started off a 8 am on what turned out to be a 12 hour journey by car and cancelled fights, and 1/2 hr. between 2 flights in the dreadful Miami airport and eventually again by jitney to my homestay in Guatemala, in the midst of a cold rainstorm and to bed by 8:30.
And now the adjustment (very difficult) to Spanish, and this lovely town, and whatever it holds.
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