Time flies when you are having fun!

One year ago today we moved to Morristown, Tennessee. So many good happenings have been part of our lives – here are some of the highlights. However, we have so many readers around the world in many countries, and I must say that we strongly oppose the unraveling of our moral national fabric. I love our system of democracy which has a long history of respect among people of different opinions, but our president has lost the trust of many Americans – we hope that as more citizens and elected officials find the courage to speak out, we will see changes and begin to rebuild our partnership with people of good will around the world.

So – what are we doing these days?

Irene has been busy. We’ve been married since 2009, but Irene kept her last name (in order to get her Peace Corps security clearance, she had to apply using the name she had ‘used for at least 2 years’), so in May we petitioned the County Court , and she is now officially Mrs. Irene Ledesma Lawrence!

...at the courthouse: Meet Mrs. Lawrence

She is thrilled to have started work with the local Head Start agency as a Teacher’s Assistant. After our experience in Jamaica, Irene decided that her passion was to continue giving by teaching little kids – I am so proud of her. Also, she is continuing her education in a college program to earn her ECE (Early Childhood Education) Certificate.

And, she has grown as an artist – doing amazing work…both painting and photography. She will have a booth at the big “Arts in the Park” fair in September, and she had a piece accepted for a juried show too. Check out her website www.DiGrayLady.com.

Colorado Columbine

Universe Applauds

California Poppies

 Serena, our “Jamerican” dog who travelled home with us from Jamaica, got a new baby sister in May. Hannah, a 1-year old Coonhound Walker, adopted us at the local animal rescue shelter.

Steve started two new projects recently. He will be teaching 2 freshman classes in American Government at Walters State Community College, and he is continuing his work in international education as a teacher for www.Global-LT.com providing customized ESL and integration support for large local corporations’ new managers and engineers relocating to Morristown from other countries.

Who would have thought that a girl from Southern California and a guy from New York City would love living in rural Tennessee so much? We are a mile away from one of many large lakes and we can even see a bit of the Great Smokey Mountains from our house. Morristown has great theatre, a good college, some fun restaurants, very good medical care, and of course very welcoming neighbors. No state income tax and low cost utilities contribute to a very affordable cost of living; we wish the nearest ocean beach was closer than a 5-hour drive, but…our life is good!

Lunch at Brumley's in nearby Greenville, TN

We always welcome your comments. We wish you peace, good health, and fun times!

What have we been up to these last 3 years?

          *** 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.

Students at work

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.

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.

Adelphi Town Square and shops

Steve's School

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.

The path up the hill to our apartment

Our home

Our View

The market

Our favorite Rasta Vegetable seller

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.

The road to Kingston

The Bus

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!

Our wonderful first host family and neighbors

Friends

Our Peace Corps volunteer group

Obama came to visit

We loved our Peace Corps Service and will always miss Jamaica!

Hello USA! (…and Good Bye to Jamaica)

“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.” (“To a Mouse,” by Robert Burns).... Well, after planning on spending a 3rd year working in Jamaica, Peace Corps pulled-the-plug on that plan. Sadly, and we do feel very unfairly, Irene's Medical Clearance was denied. She was sent home to California in April. I stayed on until mid-May to wrap things up including shipping Serena home by ‘air freight’, and then I joined them to begin the next chapter in our lives. Wish us luck and stay tuned for our next great adventures.............. 

Here are some highlights of those months –

March – Irene and I flew to Washington DC for her medical evaluation. She stayed for 3 more weeks after our first 5 days together. Although the outcome was sad, we did have some good times ‘on expenses’ including St. Patrick’s Day at a real Irish Pub.

April - The whole student body and staff at Adelphi primary School gave me a wonderful and emotional send-off. Someday one of these students might become Prime Minister of Jamaica – so we do feel that we really did ‘change the world’.

May - Irene and I spent a month in California with her mom – a chance to connect with sons and families – including good times with 9-month old grandson Levi. We also connected with Irene’s high school friend and many aunts, cousins, etc.

June - We are now officially residents of Tennessee! We drove 4000 Km across the USA (with a few fun stops at Route 66 ‘must see’ landmarks) to the Tazewell/Morristown area of eastern TN. We are living with Irene’s very gracious sister while we look for a home to buy and settle down.

 

 

What’s next? …well, in typical Irene-and-Steve style, we will wait and see what paths open up. The people of Tennessee have been very warm and welcoming – so, although we will always have a love for Jamaica and our dear friends, we now welcome ‘yuh-all’ to stop by for BBQ and sweet tea sometime.

What’s new in the New Year?

In only a couple of weeks, we will mark our 2-year anniversary of working in Jamaica. Here are a few highlights of the first 2 months of 2016.

Grade 5 student 'reporters'

Rural Jamaican students don’t have much opportunity to do any recreational reading; there is no nearby library and many homes don’t have books at all. I was very pleased with a lesson plan I created using newspapers. The kids enjoyed being ‘reporters’ – they selected a picture in the paper, and then wrote a fictionalized story about it.

Super Bowl 50

Pizza, Fries and Red Stripe

Big Ups ("thanks") to CBS for providing a Super-Bowl-50 cable feed to Jamaica. Pizza, fries and Red Stripes while watching our Broncos win!

Levi is 6 months old!

Grandson Levi Anderson is 6-months old. We were even able to SKYPE with him (Irene sang him a lullaby as he fell asleep).

Our 2-years of Peace Corps service conference

We attended a conference with all the volunteers from our group who started in Jamaica in 2014. It was at the “FDR” – Franklin Delano Resort (lol!) in Runaway Bay.

Peace Corps Jamaica volunteers - we all started in March 2014

Serena, our ‘Jamerican’ dog, is always ready to play and show her love. She is also a good watchdog – making sure that anyone (or any goat, chicken, or dog) that comes near our gate is properly announced.

"Es mio!" - It's mine!

The GSAT (Grade Six Achievement Test) is administered in March. I made a deal with a great Jamaican software entrepreneur (Edufocal.com) to license their training tool for our school.  We use our USAID donated projector to engage the students in a ‘video-game’ approach to studying for their critical exam.

Studying for the GSAT

Valentine's Day 2016

Chow Mein & Corona Beer

 

And…we hadn’t had Chinese food for 2 years, so for Valentine’s Day we went out to a ‘fancy’ part of town for Chow Mein and Corona beers (they didn’t have any Asian brews).



 

We do get TV coverage of the U.S. elections here, and of course, we can vote by absentee ballot. This week is also parliamentary election week in Jamaica. We are careful to remain ‘neutral’ in our communities; it will be interesting if the labour party gains the majority from the current Conservative majority. Thanks for following our posts – Walk Gud!

Cuba for Christmas

Cuba is only 80 miles from our home in Jamaica. Every Friday a small cruise ship leaves Montego Bay for a 7-day trip to Cuba. It was quite a week – we visited 4 cities and learned a lot.  

Streets of Havana

OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) is the US government Treasury Department agency that controls Americans’ travel to Cuba and creates the specific guidelines for allowable travel; our trip was a “People to People” educational journey under the sponsorship of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, a US 501(c)3 non-profit.

After a night at sea, our first port was Santiago de Cuba where, on 26 July 1953 Fidel Castro struck the first blow against the Batista government. Fidel and Raúl Castro gathered 123 fighters and attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago.

Streets of Santiago

Rebellion yesterday, hospitality today, heroism always.

At San Juan Hill - site of the Teddy Roosevelt battle in the Spanish American war

After another overnight at sea including circling around the US base at Guantanamo (with a Cuban naval escort for our ship), we arrived for a 2 day stay in Havana. Our official programme was very structured and covered many of the ‘tourist’ sights, but Irene and I were very lucky to spend a day with a local Cuban friend who helped us learn so much more about the ‘real’ Cuba.

Enjoying a day with our Cuban friend learning about Havana

Maria la Gorda is a nature reserve where we made an afternoon swim/beach stop before arriving at our last Cuban port, Cienfuegos, a powerful town due to the fertile fields surrounding it and its position on the trade route between Jamaica and South American cities.

Streets of Cienfuegos

  

Ceifuegos Harbour

Our small ship’s crew were from many parts of the globe; however, the cruise schedule gave us too little time to  experience enough of Cuba…when we return, we will try to travel independently and certainly make more time to learn more about Cubans' daily lives.

The complete picture story is on FaceBook – just click on the LINK:

 

We wish all our family and friends a healthy, happy and prosperous 2016. We are considering extending our Peace Corps service in Jamaica into 2017 (we will know more soon). Thank you for following our story and for your comments.

As Jamaicans say, “di fon kyaahn don,
so av a Jaiful airi krismus in di son!”

[The fun is not done, so have a joyful good Christmas in the sun!]

 

A New School Year

Jamaican schools have been in session since September…and it has been a busy year. Each school was asked to prepare a 5-slide presentation highlighting some of the activities and uniqueness. Here is ours from Adelphi Primary.

[Click on each picture for a larger view]



Adelphi Primary is more than 125 years old. Here are some
students forming the Jamaican flag in Black, Green and Gold.

Miss Clarke teaching Grade 3. We were the recipient of a USAID and DIGICEL (phone company) grant
including a small smart board and laptop.

Sports Day, Careers Day,
and Jamaica Day

Police Sargent teaching discipline. Girls learning
deportment. Grade 2 eating lunch on placemats.
Respect for the flag.



Grade 6 graduation. Morning devotions.
Our principal and teachers.