Will I Love My Experience?

I came to Jamaica with little expectations. I knew that no vision that I could paint in my imagination would come close to what Jamaica, or Peace Corps Jamaica would be. I had talked to a few past volunteers and found it to be a exciting experience to gain personal growth, serve our country by helping another.

Now that I am here and have experienced training, and met many volunteers that have served from one to 4 years, I can say that each and every one of their stories is different. Obviously we all have extremely different backgrounds, beliefs, passions and reasons to volunteer two years of our lives (most of us our youth) to serve our country and to provide skills and services to a Jamaican community. As I said every story is different, extremely different. Jamaica volunteers are placed in very different communities and organizations, some are in the mountains in small villages, some work with highly established government organizations or marine parks and live in larger cities. The daily tasks are different, the hours worked, the amount of interaction you have with kids or community members all vary. All I am saying here is that no two Peace Corps Volunteers will ever have the same experience.

Little things happen that make or breaks your day here. It is a culture that is just different enough to make you extremely emotionally fragile. Each of the new volunteers share with each other stories of the littlest things that happen to them. Some of these stories are water issues, bugs, host parents using blenders at 6am to make dinner, but I would say that most of the stories are about people. Interactions are what make or break your day. That is the most important part of early service. You cannot get acquainted with ones new culture and surroundings cooped up in a office or staying in your house. Yes there will be bad days and you will have interactions that you would rather not, harassment you can do without, but you must see the good parts about going out and meeting people. Even if you don’t remember peoples names, and all you ever do is pass them on the street and say hello.

It is this reason that I do not believe I joined Peace Corps to sit in a office. Since day one at my assignment, my supervisor has really encouraged me to be a warm body in the office. If you know me very well at all, you know that I HATE offices more than anything. I cannot sit at a desk for more than a couple of hours without wanting to hit my head against the wall. I am more than willing to do the work and do it well, but I do not want to be expected to sit in a office simply to ensure someone is there. That is in no way why I volunteered for a Environmental Forestry Council Advisory position. I am not a office manager or secretary. This is my current dilemma that I wish to fix soon. I would rather be out helping other volunteers or meeting community members. If I wanted to sit in a office I would probably still be living in Juneau!

Sorry no pictures this week. Just look at the rain picture from the last entry. That’s what it looks like every day.. all week, hasn’t let up for more than 20 minutes. Excited for Gregs visit from Discovery Bay, hopefully it will clear up long enough for some snorkeling at Blue Lagoon or Winifred Beach. And one month until Aimon and Andy fly in to Montego Bay for a visit!