Waaaaaagrawn

Peace Corps volunteers are back together doing a week of training. It has been great hearing everyone’s ridiculous stories from their sites. There are volunteers living like tourists, bushmen and rasta.

Luckily, one of the volunteers is working directly for Food for the Poor because my community plans on sending proposals for everything under the sun (food, zinc, books, medical supplies…. A few volunteers live in tourists areas of the Jamaica. They say this is a mixed blessing. For one, the volunteers live in homes with reliable utilities and have amazing sites to see and all things American like Burger King and supermarkets BUT the locals see the volunteers as tourists so integration is difficult and they are charged ridiculous prices for food and transportation.

I am Peace Corps group 80 in Jamaica but there are also group 79 and 78 volunteers on the island. We call group 79 the seventy-whinners because all they do is complain!!!!!! Any time I ever feel even a little depressed I take a deep breath and just think I AM IN JAMAICA! If I was not in the Peace Corps right now I would be in law school and not enjoying a second of it or worse, living back at home with my mom. … love you mom! And miss you!!

You wouldn’t think it but Peace Corps in Jamaica has one of the highest dropout rates of any country. When people think of Jamaica they tend to forget about the high poverty, low literacy and high crime and focus on the beautiful beaches. I see it holistically, I have all the beauty of Jamaica’s culture and people and a whole heep places where I can spend time working on projects. I love it.

Fun story- My supervisor, counterpart and I chartered a taxi to Montego Bay and our taxi driver Rock Eye hit on every single girl we ran into. The best pick up line by far was used on a relatively round women “pisss, my size”. The lady turned around, paused, smiled, and then waddled over. I couldn’t believe it worked!

There are NO hot Catholic girls in Jamaica. My language instructor who I have previously said was the hottest girl in the world was raised Catholic but is not practicing any longer. Language class is basically a class where all the guys hit on the instructors. They are all so good looking. : ) Anyway, my instructor attended Catholic high school so I thought she would be able to give me the hook up since only old ladies attend the Catholic Church in my community. Well my teacher told me that none of her friends are practicing Catholics. There are a million Christians in Jamaica but no Catholic girls. It’s ridiculous that I am having such a great time that I have to make this huge stretch to find something to complain about.

One Love