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| Dad at March of Time |
Time Inc's newsreel series, "The March of
Time®" chronicled the events of our lives. These award-winning motion
pictures recorded global events and brought them to big screens around the
world and then later, television. After WWII my dad left the Army’s Signal Corps
Pictorial Centre; he became the editor at MoT’s television series. I
thought it appropriate to use the title for March’s Jamaica chronicles. We have many school events to report, the arrival of
a new group of Peace Corps Trainees, and of course, food and cooking.
A
highlight has been meeting the new US Ambassador to Jamaica, Luis Moreno who
held a town meeting for US Citizens in western Jamaica. We met him and his
senior staff – all very down to earth and interesting people. Ambassador Moreno
is a BIG supporter of Peace Corps;
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| Ambassador Luis Moreno with Irene and Steve |
I had the chance to stand up and present an
idea related to PC’s “3rd Goal” (To help promote a better
understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans).
Over 1 million
Americans visit Jamaica every year, but very few IMHO ever see ‘real’ Jamaica.
I am working on trying to set up ‘tours’ for cruise ship guests to come to our poor
rural schools, maybe read a lesson for our kids, sit down and have traditional
rice & peas and chicken for lunch, and begin to know more of Jamaica than
the beautiful gated resorts. If there are only 20 interested people on a cruise ship carrying 5000 people, it would be an interesting project.
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| Marching with Sergeant Brown |
Boys’ Day – All Jamaican schools have a special day
to make boys feel special … this is important because the rigid education system
often can’t reach the young males who have too much energy and would rather “lick
each other” (fight) than sit in their seats. Strong male role models (high
school teachers and even the local police sergeant) came to lead activities. Sergeant
Brown led them in formal British style marching events to practice pride and
discipline.
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| Marcus Garvey |
Connecting US and Jamaican history – Using our
Digicel/ USAID grant donated technology…on Martin Luther King’s birthday holiday,
my students had a chance to hear a recording of the “I have a Dream” speech and
hear Marcus Garvey, one of Jamaica’s National Heroes who was also a leader of
the Black Nationalism movement. Then on US Presidents’ Day we saw pictures of
Abe Lincoln and Sam Sharpe, a Jamaican Hero and leader of the slave rebellion
of 1831. BTW, slavery ended in Jamaica more than 35 years before abolition in
the USA. Each student received a US 1-cent Lincoln Penny too.
Jamaica Day – the Ministry of Education’s theme this
year focused on regional Caribbean history; Jamaica shares a colonial heritage
with nations in northern South America as well as neighbouring island nations
including Cuba. Each grade presented songs (including a Grade 6 boys’ rap about
school subjects). I was honoured to be asked to raise the flag during the
national anthem. The students wore Jamaican colours and formed the Jamaican flag for this picture.
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The Jamaican Flag - students with colours in the flag design
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Irene’s school is applying for a Peace Corps grant
to rebuild a playground for the little kids. Using her Interior Design professional
training and her cool 3-D graphics software, she created a great concept
presentation for the grant submittal.
My Peace Corps focus is on reading literacy,
however, we also incorporate some maths (yes, Jamaicans say it as a plural), so
my daily Reading Club (30 minutes of free reading) now has a group who
challenge each other with maths problems too.
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| Lunchtime Reading Club |
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| The new PCTs arriving on Jamrock |
38 new PCTs (Peace Corps Trainees) arrived on
Jamrock this month. They will spend 10 weeks in training before getting their
2-year site assignments. Irene and I were asked to speak to them about our
experiences integrating into work and community life. This will give us the chance
to go to Hellshire and briefly visit with our first ‘host mom’ Miss Mabel, with
whom we lived last March. I also ‘inherited’ the role of T4D (Technology for
Development) committee chair when a 2-year volunteer left last month, so in
April I will be going to Guys Hill for 4 days to teach PCTs about some of the
technology tools available to Peace Corps Literacy volunteers.
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| Sea Trout |
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| Ackee and Saltfish |
Food, food, food! – We have planted a new crop for
our garden. Our last tomato planting wasn’t too successful, we only had 2 small
fruits...but with our host Shawn, we had a ‘tomato festival’ – cut them in
small bites and toasted with a glass of wine. The house has lots of fruit
bearing trees; Ackee (the Jamaican national fruit) from our own trees became
homemade Ackee and Saltfish. We made a stuffed chicken which we named “Chicken
Jamaican cordon bleu”, and also used local “Sea Trout” and fresh local veges
from our favourite Rasta man seller for a nice dinner.
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| Irene's birthday cards |
Irene’s Birthday – Jamaicans celebrate their
birth MONTH – not just a birth-DAY. Some of my students made cards
for Irene – she loved them and she has them hanging up at home. In honour of our year of service, our new Country
Director gave us lapel pins with flags of both countries and the PC logo.
…what else is going on? Irene’s older son Jason and
his wife Etchie will be having Irene’s first grandchild in August – we hope to
travel to California when the baby arrives. Serena, our puppy dog is now 5
months and 29 lbs; we both recently applied for TRNs (like Jamaican social
security numbers) so that we can qualify for export permits to bring Serena
home to the US in 2016 or 2017. Since I have a TRN, I am going to get a
Jamaican Driver’s License (right hand drive – left side of the road) – I will
have to take a road test too, but this will allow us to drive a rental car
during our vacation.
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| Jamaica day - T-shirts...no uniforms! |
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Walk Good! And Respect!
