Greetings: “Wah Gwan?” means – “What’s going on”? Jamaica – Week 1

As we learn Patois, we will give you one word or one phrase in each of our postings.  Are-right? (all right?) …OK, so that’s 2 new words already.

We left San Diego a week ago today – Sunday. One of our major Peace Corps goals (from now on you’ll see we just say “PC”) is to integrate

 -- Boy Oh Boy, have we integrated! We are now living in the community of Portmore, about half-hour out of Kingston, with our host-mom and her family, and it feels like home.

Johnny cakes, Fried Plantain, Ackee and Saltfish

By the way, we have decided that we will not be posting many pictures of our Jamaica family and PC friends just so that we respect their privacy, but…hopefully we will be doing such a good job of describing our new friends and family that you’ll get to understand how much they have become, in only 1 week, our community too.

Our host mom, let’s call her “Mudda” which is what she asked us to call her, has a wonderful small house in town directly across from our training site where we are meeting for PC training every day. Our mudda is the warmest and most welcoming person…and she is a fantastic Jamaican cook; she’s also teaching us some of her secrets about spices and seasoning. We have a bedroom and our own bath. Our mudda is the center of the community, and all day folks stop by the front gate to say ‘maunin’ (good morning) - a good response would be to say… “Me guud maan” which means “I’m doing good”. In the evening families gather on the street – kids playing a kind of dodge ball, and parents sit for ‘chattin’ about life.  Our house has 2 others – a young man who works as the Harbor Pilot Boat driver and we get to use his mobile phone’s hotspot for internet connection, and a woman who helps our mom with her chores. We have felt so loved and protected and it’s kind of fun to call somebody mudda in a foreign country.

(Here are a couple of pictures at the Two Sisters Caves - legend is that two sisters who escaped as slaves, killed themselves here rather than return to their master)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The air in the morning is quiet and not too hot here; from 10 in the morning till about two in the afternoon the air is still and very hot. In the afternoon the wind from the coast picks up and blows a nice cool breeze through our bedroom and on through our door which cools the rest of the house. The nights are amazingly refreshing; however, we have to shut the windows because of the mosquitoes - they seem to like us quite a bit. J

We are part of a group of 30 new PC Volunteers, officially called “Group 85” – yes, we are the 85^th PC group to serve in Jamaica since 1962 (PC was established in 1961 by JFK).  Half of us will work in Education and the others in Environment related projects.  Most of us are young single folks and recently graduated from college. We have 1 other married-couple; and we are the oldest (chronologically) but we enjoy how we are accepted by our colleagues as equals too.

After a full day in Miami for Staging where we were able to meet all of our new closest and dearest friends…or as the Peace Corps calls them, “Government Issued Friends”, we got our 4:30 AM wakeup call and flew to Kingston on Tuesday morning. That afternoon we gathered at the PC Headquarters for a formal welcome by the PC Jamaica Director and staff, officials from the US Embassy, and local elected officials – the Kingston Gleaner newspaper even covered the ceremony.

 

The Gleaner newspaper covered our arrival
 



Our training is intense. We meet in an open air church building with a couple of fans to keep the air flowing. The material is comprehensive and very well presented. The first couple of days seemed overwhelming to many of us, but amazingly we’re settled into the routine already – even getting homework done on time…everyone is really committed for sure.

We’re eatin’ Jamaican – our mom made goat head soup (it’s supposed to make you smarter – we wondered if goat hoof soup would make you a faster runner – lol), and already we’ve had curries, chicken, fish, coconut jellies, and lots of delicious new fruits. Here’s a breakfast (which Steve helped cook) – Johnny Cakes, Ackee and Salt Fish, and Fried Plantains. Most meals also include Callalou – the green vegetable similar to some of our familiar US greens, but much tastier.
 

Steve's first "trimmin" - the barber's name is "Raza" (pronounced "razor")

On Friday our neighbors invited a couple of us PCTs (Trainees) to a “Nine Night” celebration preparing for the funeral of a community member. The whole street is closed off. There’s great lively praise music (in English and Patois), dancing, games, food and drink too. Steve got his ‘grandpa’ fix by carrying around a 5-year old girl who started out sleeping on his shoulder, but woke up around 11 PM and was dancing up a storm in the street.  We left at midnight, but the celebration goes on till sunrise.

 ...at the beach

Kingston Harbor

This weekend brought us some down time. After we finished our homework, we spent some time on the beach – it’s a 15 minute walk down a dirt path. The water is blue/green and almost warm as a bath. We even saw a couple of sting rays. So…we’re now ready for Sunday dinner at home and a bit of TV. As internet access is sketchy, we’ll try to keep you all updated ‘a likkle bit’ at a time. So, until you hear from us, or we hear from you …”Walk Good.”