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