*** CLICK on any picture for a larger view ***
Over
the last 6 months, since we’ve been home in the USA, we have mentioned this
blog to many new friends. So, here is a ‘short’ summary of our service in
Jamaica. If you find some of this interesting, then please surf through some of
the more detailed posts since March 2014.
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| Students at work |
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| Students Learning |
And, if that isn’t enough, take a
look at some of our earlier travels and a bit of our experiences after we
returned to the USA and then settled in rural Tennessee.
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| Steve's School |
Irene
and I were Peace Corps volunteer teachers in 2 rural primary schools in Jamaica
for 2 ½ years. We worked with students from “infant” which is like pre-K
through grade 6 to help them ‘catch up’ in English reading and writing.
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| Adelphi Town Square and shops |
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| Steve's School |
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| Post Office |
We
lived in the small town of Adelphi in St. James Parish – 22 kilometers from
Montego Bay. The town had less than 1000 people, 2 very small shops, a police
station and a post office. We had a small apartment which we reached by walking
up a steep hill. We did have electricity, cold pipe water (sometimes), and we
bought bottled gas for our cook stove. Jamaica does have good telephone coverage,
so we had cell phones and internet access too.
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| The path up the hill to our apartment |
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| Our home |
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| Our View |
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| The market |
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| Our favorite Rasta Vegetable seller |
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| the open market |
Peace
Corps gave us a monthly stipend for food, rent and transportation. We shopped
in the open local markets and cooked our own meals – we also had our own
organic garden where we grew some local vegetables. We were not allowed to
drive a car, so we relied on local transportation. We were about 6-8 hours away
from the capitol of Kingston which we reached by taking the “country bus” over
very bumpy windy roads.
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| The road to Kingston |
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| The Bus |
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| Dinner with our neighbors |
We
loved our work and our many new friends in our community. Jamaicans are genuinely
warm and friendly people. We arrived as foreigners and left as family – and if
we helped a few young students read and write, then maybe we really did change
the world!
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| Our wonderful first host family and neighbors |
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| Friends |
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| Our Peace Corps volunteer group |
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| Obama came to visit |
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| We loved our Peace Corps Service and will always miss Jamaica! |
