Volleyball to di world!

Lots of you have already heard this story but I haven't posted any pics yet so I thought I'd go ahead and rehash the event. I got to coach my first volleyball clinic in Jamaica a few weeks ago. There were about 60 kids, one net and four balls! Craziness!!! But once I got them to stop kicking the ball around like a football all the kids had a lot of fun. The clinic was held on friday and then on saturday there was a beach volleyball tournament outside of Falmouth. The tournament has been held for I think five consecutive years as a fundrasier for local schools in the parish of Trelawney and it was started by two PCVs who return to Jamaica each year to put the event together. They asked me to be a ref and I ended up refing for the men's pro division. There are some pretty good players here in JA, and I am luckily now connected with players who live close to me. We play every sunday afternoon on the beach and I'm LOVING it. I thought I'd have to go two years without playing competitve vball... little did I know! And the two RPCVs who have been running the tournament have asked me to help put it together for next year. I'm definitely excited about helping this fundraising project along. The pics on this post were taken by my dear friends Meg and Josh, thanks for being my photographer guys!!

Nerdy engineering stuff

I'm happy to share with everyone that I am actually getting my hands on some engineering projects here in Jamaica. I wasn't sure that I'd have things to right away as a new volunteer because sometimes it takes awhile to get to know your community and organizations that you that you work with, however people hear that I'm an engineer and suddenly have engineering stuff for me to do!

Both of the projects that I've started working on involve water engineering. The first involves helping a rural community fix the problems they are facing with their current water distribution system. Many years ago an organization came in and designed a system for the town but now the system is failing, most houses receive no water at all even though the infrastructure is all in place. I went out to the town and had the care taker of the system show me around the town and take down to the water source, a rather large river located several kilometers from the town. The town pumps water just a short ways from the head of the river which springs from underneath a mountain. (See pic below.) The care taker and I chatted for a long time and he told me all about the problems he sees with the distribution system and a bit of history behind the project. So the first step of this project was for me to understand the system and the community's problems. The next step, well I'm working on that this week, more to come soon...

The next project I started involves a local food factory. Currently the factory pumps water from the town's treated source to irrigate its crops; however as costs run higher for water they are looking to switch the source of water. They want to collect and store rain water that drains from the factory to supply the water demand for the crops. A pump system will need to be installed to pump water from a newly created holding pond up a ridge to where several 1,000 gallon storage tanks are located that feed the drip irrigation system. They also want to pump water to yet another pond that they will soon create to supply another piece of the property. I'm so excited to work on this project because the factory is a huge source of income generation for the community and anything I can do to help cut down on costs and help conserve water would be wonderful.

Guess that's all I got for this week. I'll keep yall posted on the projects as time passes.

Smile Jamaica :)

Just like the U.S. has Good Morning America and the Today Show, Jamaica has a morning program called Smile Jamaica on JTV, the Jamaican national tv station. And it just so happens that one of my fellow pcvs, Benjee, knows the producer of the show and she asked Ben to bring some volunteers on to the show to talk about the Peace Corps! Benjee asked me and Amy who works with youth to go with him and before I knew it we were on a bus to Kingston on Tuesday afternoon.

We had to be at the studio by 6:30 on Wednesday so we woke up bright and early, got to the studio and drank some coffee while we waited in the hospitality room. This turned out to be a big mistake because I was already pretty nervous and coffee sure doesn't help to calm nerves. They took us to the makeup room where we got a quick touch up and then we were taken to the studio's sound proof room (the first picture on this post) while we waited for the segment before us, a reggae band, to finish their act. Finally we were brought on to the set where we met the hosts of the show, Neville and Carlette. They were really sweet and asked us questions like what the Peace Corps is all about and what projects we're working on in Jamaica. I was so nervous the entire time but tried to give good answers and represent PC and the States as best as I could. Then Nevil started to ask us more fun questions like what's your favorite dancehall artists and if we'd learned any dances yet. Benjee got up in front of everyone and did the linga and the gully creepa to the best of his ability... pretty much hilarious! We are trying to get a copy of the segment from JTV and if we succeed we'll put it on Youtube to share with everyone. I'll keep you all posted.

After the show we had to run some errands in Kingston and people would stop us and say, "I saw you on TV!" and they would laugh about Benjee's dance moves. It was awesome to have people recognize us and people are still coming up to me and saying, "You look familiar, where you on Smile Jamaica last week?" :D "Yep, that was me!" Anyways, the whole experience was so much fun and it's exciting that so many people in Jamaica heard what Peace Corps is all about. This could lead to some big things, you just never know...

In the make-up room before the show. The stylist gave me purple lip gloss to wear... yikes! I definitely wouldn't have picked that color but I guess it looked alright on camera.

On the set of Smile Jamaica with Benjee, Amy, Neville and Carlette

In the news

Group 79 made it in the Jamaican headlines: read it up!

Nuf tings gwan fi mi mon!

I have SO much to tell you guys about. I'm gonna give you a break down of the week and then ramble about some of the events that took place:

Tuesday: Took an oral examination on what I have learned during PC training

Wednesday: Had a BBQ with the other PCTs to celebrate the end of training

Thursday: Sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer at the U.S. Embassy

More of Thursday: drove on a mountain during the beginning of tropical storm Gustav

And more of Thursday: had a flat tire on the side of a mountain during Gustav

Thursday night and Friday: spent a night and day w/o power

Saturday: took part in an assessment of drinking water sources after the storm (luckily no major problems in St. Ann)

Sunday: Went to church and then went cliff diving in Discovery Bay :D

The swearing in ceremony:

Our ceremony to swear in as official PC Volunteers was really nice at the US Embassy. The US Ambassador for Jamaica was there along with a Jamaican minister, and the head of Ministry of Agriculture who gave a nice speach. The ambassador presented each of us with a certificate for successful completion of PC Training. It went like this, they call your name and your title, and you walk up in front of everyone to shake her hand, receive the certificate and a really cool PC Jamaica pen, and pose for a picture with the ambassador in front of the audience. What I didn't know before my name was called was that the ambassador was saying something to each person as she shook their hand, something like "Where are you from?" or "what school did you go to?" So I get up there to shake her hand and she asks me, "So you're an engineer?" ... This caught me completely off guard. I said "Yes..." very uneasily and she turns to the crowd and goes "Oh! Pretty AND smart!" I was soooooo embarrassed!

HomeComing:

For the last week of training me and my fellow PCTs had to stay in Kingston for final tests, lectures, and administrative purposes. On Thursday after the swearing-in ceremony I returned "home" to my host mother, just before the heaviest part of the storm hit our area. I was greeted with the warmest welcoming, it was so very sweet! My host mother (we call her Nurse cause she's a retired nurse) had made fried chicken and baked a white fluffy cake to celebrate my swearing-in. I felt loved. :) And how did she know that white cake is my favorite?? hehe! Her and Shavan, my host brother, also filled up my water tank and put kerosene in my lamp for me before the storm. I feel so blessed to be living with a caring family. So despite the storm I felt comforted and part of the family.

TS Gustav:

Lots of you were worried about me when you saw satalite pictures of TS Gustav, but luckily the storm wasn't that bad here in St. Ann. Just lots of rain and some wind, nothing I couldn't handle. As I mentioned earlier, we were without power for the night and some of the day but nothing unmanagable.

Lessons of the week:

Not a good idea to travel during a tropical storm. Also not a good idea to swerve a donkey on the road, it could possibly lead to a flat tire during a tropical storm... yikes!

Aaaand here is a few pics for ya:

Me with my fellow Civil Engineers at the swearing in ceremony. We make engineering look goooood!

I did it Mom! Me with my offical documentation from PC after the swearing in ceremony.

A giant snail we found on my friend's porch. Tastes like chicken ;)