Our Daily Lives: Adelphi

Located in a rural farming district, Adelphi borders on the sugar and orange belt of Trelawney and is only 30-40 minutes from Montego Bay. We are in Saint James Parish (like US county or state) located about 73 mi (or 117 km) North-West of Kingston, the country's capital town. The census doesn’t list our town, but I guess the population is less than 1000. (Towns less than 2500 are not on the list. In the 2011 census Montego Bay had 110,115 residents.

Our town is really a cross-roads with about 5-10 buildings; it has a primary school (where I work), 2 shops, a police station, a post office, a government registrar’s office, many churches, an auto repair, 2 cook shops (restaurants with maybe 1 or 2 tables, but mostly take out, and a bar (as teachers, it is not acceptable for us to go to a bar – although we can order a beer or even a rum in a cook shop.)

Post Office & Registrar's Office

Police Station

Housing – We live in the lower level of a wonderful home up on a hill. Our landlord lives above, and she is marvelous about helping us. She has chickens and we now get fresh eggs every week, also some sugar cane which she has given us as a super sweet snack. We have a kitchen/living area (which we’ve modified with enough table space for both computers. The bedroom is large; we have a mosquito net over the bed, and we have bathroom with a shower. Piped water (meaning ‘city water’) is pretty reliable and drinkable (it is heavily chlorinated) and the house has 600 gallons stored in rooftop tanks for when the water (or electric pumps) fail – these tanks are ubiquitous all over Jamaica. There is no hot water – but after all, this is the tropics, and cold showers are wonderful.

Water tanks on the roof of almost every house

Community is vital. We’ve attend the local CDC (Community Development Committee) meeting – we met in an unused former day care centre – the conversation quickly moved to our ‘secondary projects’ for Peace Corps…ideas for the building included a homework/study place, maybe a small library, a computer skills training centre, and even some workout equipment. The idea is to meet local needs for community gathering, to keep kids engaged, to provide possible job skills training, and to enhance our community. The Jamaican government’s Social Development Commission is a wonderful way to help communities find resources and grants. We hope to identify our secondary community project by September.

Mr Chin's Shop (Blue) & Bar (Yellow)

Shopping - There are 2 shops in Adelphi – Miss Rose’s at the bottom of our hill, and Mr. Chin’s (actually many shops are owned by Chinese merchants – they are all called “Mr. Chin” even if they have another Asian or even Irish family name). Both shops work like many in this country – all the items are enclosed behind a wire and glass wall – you go up the small window (imagine old time banks going up to the teller’s ‘cage’) and you ask for what you need – usually there is no choice of brands, and often the answer is ‘not today’. Since Miss Rose’s is only 3 minutes from our apartment, we can even buy frozen ice cream and get it home before it melts in this climate.

We’ve made 2 marketing trips to ‘town’ – which means Montego Bay. There are grocery stores similar to small town USA – aisles of open shelves with some choices of products…the local brands are far cheaper than the imported from ‘foreign’ which means USA or Canada. Also Asian imports of canned meats and vegetables are much cheaper than North American.

Market Day

Produce comes from the open markets – some farmers rent stalls inside and are there every day, other ‘higglers’ spread out a blue tarpaulin on the ground and sell whatever they have – could be yams, callalou (like spinach) and cell phone chargers all on the same tarp.

The hill and path to our place (yes, goats and chickens too)

Getting our purchases home is fun: we walk loaded down with ‘scandal bags’ (black plastic shopping bags) or take a short taxi ($100 Jamaican = about $1.00 US per person) to the Total Gas station in town – that’s where the mini-vans pick up for surrounding towns. When a van headed to Adelphi arrives, the driver miraculously helps load everything into the smallest places…under seats, behind legs, and on laps of strangers. Everyone squeezes in (it’s called ‘smalling up’) and with maybe 20 people and all their stuff in a 15 passenger vehicle, we head off up the pot-holed road for the 30 minute drive to Adelphi. We are dropped off at the bottom of our hill and walk up with our scandal bags.

On the north coast, about 45 minutes away (but requires 2 taxis – since taxis drive fixed routes and don’t go all the way) is Falmouth where the mega cruise ships come in. On Wednesday is “Ben Dung” market – actually Patwa for “Bend Down”. For decades, hundreds of higglers have travelled many miles from all parishes to either sell or purchase food, clothing and an assorted variety of haberdashery items at reduced retail and wholesale prices.

As one higgler explained in the Sunday Gleaner (newspaper), “The market could have earned its name because of how, with a scarcity of stalls, items used to be spread on tarpaulin on the ground for display, forcing persons to bend down to pick up the items for inspection.”

People build as they have money - so they live downstairs for years while building above.

Wash day – we do our own laundry – BY HAND in a wash tub outside. Elbow grease – plus some strong detergent and good old ‘blue soap’ for the areas that need bleach are part of the process. The clothes lines are out behind the papaya trees.

Cooking: We did spoil ourselves and invested some of our ‘settling in’ allowance from Peace Corps to buy a coffee maker and a toaster oven. Our gas stove is fuelled by a 30 lbs. propane tank. When it runs low, we can refill it just down at the bottom of the hill at Rose’s shop. We continue to learn about Jamaican produce and are getting creative mixing styles for our meals. We’ll save food for yet another blog post.

Satellite map from Bing – here is a map of our home… (structure at the 'S' bend is my school)

The schools – We each teach at primary schools (Grades 1-6). We’ve posted about these before, and we’ll devote a separate blog post just to the schools and kids.

Irene relaxing with her guitar on our veranda

Saying hello to everyone – There is a Patwa saying, “Howdy an' tenk yu, noh brok noh square” - meaning: To say hello and thank you is not a bad thing; it is good. Even on my 10 minute walk to work in the morning I probably say hello to 10 or more people, ask how they night was, and also wave hello to every car and taxi passing by. Not saying ‘gud maahning’ is plain disrespectful; if the elderly man who lives next to my school is out on his veranda, or out in his yard picking weeds, I will always try to wander by and say good morning too.

So, we’re settling in, and we really feel very much at home. Of course, being here together as a couple is the best part of our experience. Each day we come home and share our stories – certainly there are problems and struggles, but we’ve always found that there is at least one heart-warming story or success which made the day worthwhile. Most of our Peace Corps colleagues came here as singles – we communicate a lot by text or email, and we have all found a lot of mutual support from what PC calls “our government issued friends”.

We close with two wonderfully simple Patwa phrases when departing,

 “Respec” and “Walk Gud”.

The view from our road

 

 

How does religion influence the Jamaican society?

Many Americans are not accustomed to the integration of religion into so much of public life and government. Yet, here in Jamaica the system is accepted and enjoyed. Every couple of weeks we intend to write about an aspect of our new home country – here is the first instalment.

Jamaica is said to have the most churches per square mile of any country in the world. More than 1,600 churches can be found across the country's 4500 square miles, whose population is 2.712 million (2012). Jamaica's constitution provides for freedom of religion. However, Christian prayer is part of most all government and public gatherings; In Jamaican Public Schools the day begins with Devotions – prayers read from the Bible and singing followed by daily announcements. Even the U.S. Peace Corps acknowledges the local custom – and usually begins meetings which include local Jamaicans with a prayer too.

The National Anthem is a prayer which begins "Eternal Father bless our land". It replaced the British National Anthem, “God Save the Queen".

Last week I attended a computer technology workshop conducted by Digicel, the local mobile telecom provider, which opened with prayers and hymns and included prayer before lunch too.

As part of our integration into our community, we have asked to be invited by our colleagues and neighbours to their various churches. So far we have attended Church of God, Methodist, and Baptist Sunday services. And, we are looking forward to joining friends at Anglican, Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist and others.

What is interesting to me is that we are completely accepted for who we are – there is no apparent prejudice about my non-religious Jewish heritage, and Irene’s various experiences with Christianity; most faiths seem to coexist easily in Jamaica.

According to 2011 statistics, the largest single denomination is Seventh-day Adventist, with 322,000 members, next is Pentecostal at 295,000, then come Church of God, and The New Testament Church of God. Others include Anglican, Presbyterian, Jehovah’s Witness, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Baha’i, Judaism, Islam, Society of Friends (Quakers) and Hinduism. Smaller Protestant denominations include the Moravians, Disciples of Christ, and United Church of Christ.

The Rastafari movement is an African-based spiritual ideology that arose in the 1930s in Jamaica. It is sometimes described as a religion but is considered by many adherents to be a "Way of Life".Its adherents worship Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia (ruled 1930–1974), as God incarnate, the Second Advent, or the reincarnation of Jesus, and they revere Marijuana (Ganja) as part of their worship, although it is still an illegal drug in Jamaica. Officially, there are about 30,000 Rastafarians in Jamaica, although the number may be greater. So, contrary to some foreign ideologies, not all Jamaicans are 'Rastas'.

We have also been part of the religious ritual and celebration around death of members of the community. Nine-Night (in the past, commemoration celebrations were held for nine nights following the death of a loved one, hence the name) is held on the 9th day after the death. Celebrations typically start at 8 pm and continue well into the night. Family, neighbours, and friends, whether or not they were acquainted with the deceased, come out to join the celebrations. A table is laid out with food and drink, none of which should be touched before midnight. Legend has it that the spirit of the deceased should have the chance to eat, drink, enjoy the festivities, and hear the wishes of loved ones before passing on to the next plane. Celebrations reach fever pitch with music, drums and dancing where the travelling soul and the spirits of the family's ancestors are called upon to guide and welcome the newest arrival to the afterlife.

We hope you find this post interesting – other topics in the future will include Jamaican food & cooking, more details about education and our rural schools, and our general day-to-day life. We welcome your posted questions and comments.

As Jamaicans might say in Patwa – Bless Up and Respec!

 

 

Reading Centre is open!

We opened the Reading Centre at our Jamaican Primary School today! Literacy education is our #1 priority - we started with Grade 4 students, although kids from all grades kept coming in just to find a book and read for a little while. It was a very good day! [...and for our Colorado friends - YES, that is Governor John Hickenlooper - our book today was "Duck on a Bike" and I showed a video of him reading the same book during One Book 4 Colorado Day.]



Reading Centre at Primary School in St. James

Sargent Shriver - 1962 Peace Corps Director Video

I met R. Sargent Shriver in 1964. Here's a short clip from a 1962 TV game show; the Peace Corps was 1-year old. Even then he says that were some volunteers over '60 years old' - I guess I probably got them beat!

 

We'd enjoy seeing your questions about Jamaica and your comments posted below. Thanks, STEVE and IRENE

1. Help us fullfil Peace Corps' Third Goal; 2. JFK; 3. Frogs...Chinese

1. The Third Goal of the Peace Corps aims to help Americans understand the people and cultures of other countries. It is one of the three goals that support the mission of the Peace Corps to promote world peace and friendship. Help us reach others by signing up for emails from this blog - and by recommending our blog to others. Thank you!

2. In honour of his birthday, watch this video of President John F. Kennedy in the oval office talking about the importance of Peace Corps service.

3. A Chinese guy who eats frogs….As I spend time with each of the grades in my new school, I have a little time to introduce myself and answer questions. Somehow the topic turned to foods – what do I like about Jamaican cooking, and what have I eaten that Jamaicans typically don’t? Well, one of the Grade 6 students asked if I eat “Spring Chicken?” – and I, thinking they were asking about regular chicken said, “of course!” Well, that got quite a reaction – disgusted faces and laughs.

So…as my new students proceed to teach me, in Jamaica a FROG is sometime called a Spring chicken.  Well, I then said that some people in places in the world do eat frog’s legs, and I had eaten them also.

The next day, one of the students said, “Mr. Lawrence, are you Chinese?” I said, “why are you asking me?” and he said, “Because you’re WHITE and eat FROGS!”

Swearing In – Peace Corps Volunteers

 

We are now Peace Corps Volunteers! After 10 weeks as ‘trainees’, the oath of office was administered to 26 Americans by Chargé d'Affaires Elizabeth Martinez of the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica. It was a truly memorable event; our new school principals were there too. The Honourable Robert Pickersgill, MP, Minister of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change delivered the keynote address. We are now truly in our new HOME – a rural town in St. James Parish about 30 minutes from Montego Bay. We have been warmly welcomed by the community, and feel so lucky to have made it through the training and to begin our 2 years of service.

PC Jamaica Group 85 Education Volunteers and our instructors

 

Steve and Irene with our new School Principals



Chargé d'Affaires
 Elizabeth Martinez

The Honourable
Robert Pickersgill, MP,
Minister of Water, Land,
 Environment and Climate Change

The work we will do is multi-fold. The first priority is Literacy Education. In Primary Schools in Jamaica, the Grade 4 Literacy Test is critical – if students can’t pass this exam, they will not enter an academic high school after grade 6. We’ve learned a lot about teaching Standard Jamaican English (SJE) – not American English, and we will be doing ‘pull-out’ sessions (small group tutoring) with students who need extra help with reading, writing and comprehension.

We all are expected to find secondary projects. Irene probably already has found a role in helping to set up parenting education for families of kids in her school. My project might get me involved with technology supporting primary education for literacy and numeracy. Digicel, the local cellular company supports many schools with great tools; however, access to working computers, internet, and software is very limited in rural areas. More ‘lieta’ about my nerdy stuff.

Some friends have asked about our living arrangements. When we applied for PC, we were prepared for living in huts in Africa (or similar) – well, although some volunteers certainly still have that type of assignment, the ‘new PC’ is keeping up with the times. We do have a small apartment in the lower level of a wonderful house in this very rural community; we have electricity (although use oil lamps as backup), and Jamaica has 98% cellular coverage, so internet access is mostly by cellular. We do have a mosquito net over our bed -- it's one of the PC issued items that has been very useful.

It is rare to have hot water, although piped water is common (with rooftop tanks as backup during drought and when power goes off) – but hot water is very rare…luckily the temps are tropical: we haven’t had hot showers since we left Miami in early March, 2014. We do our laundry by hand in an outdoor tub, and hang it on a line to dry. We cook on a stove fuelled from a 30 lb. propane tank in our own kitchen. We are at 175 metres above sea level (575 feet) so we are a likkle cooler than our home in St. Thomas - and we're up on a hill so we get a nice cooling breeze (the last 100 metres is a steep climb home after school each day).

We spent part of almost every day of our training learning Patwa, the Jamaican language, and also a lot about culture and norms. We understand a likkle bit, but our accent still sounds Jamerican for sure.

Painting Irene's new classroom and Parenting Center

Today is Labour Day in Jamaica – it is a national holiday, but the idea is to LABOUR for a good cause. We both went to Irene’s school where we painted the room which will be her classroom and Parenting Center – a warm yellow and she will paint a mural of big tree on one wall. I also worked pulling out old fence posts and wire to make room for a new outdoor reading area.

 

Labour Day at Irene's school

Our dietary focus has been on healthy foods. We’re quite used to Jamaican food – goat, Ackee and saltfish, fresh fish, fried chicken with rice & peas, and manish water (goat head soup) or chicken foot soup. However, with lots of exercise, my pants are now loose (had to punch a new hole in my belt), and my one blazer jacket hasn’t fit as well in years. Tonight, as a ‘reward’ for labours, I poured the first glass of Scotch Whiskey I’ve had since March.

 

We can receive mail through the Jamaican Post Office. If you want to send us a ‘care package’ please ask us for the mailing address. There is a process in place that allows us to receive most packages duty free – although you still have to fill out a customs form when you mail it from your local Post Office in the USA.

New Peace Corps Volunteers!

 

We enjoy seeing your comments on this site and on Facebook too. Thanks for following us on our 2-year adventure. Walk Good! Steve and Irene.

 

Official Pictures of the Swearing In Ceremony

Here are Official pictures from the Peace Corps Office in Jamaica.



PCVs, Honoured Guests, and PC Jamaica Director

Steve with Chargé d'affaires

Irene with Chargé d'affaires

PC Jamaica Staff