You say goodbye and I say hello

The first few months of service are the hardest.  I have certainly had my ups and downs, you can see that just by scrolling through my blogs.  Everyone deals with these ups and downs differently and we all have our own breaking point, the point where it no longer makes sense to continue on.  My training group, Jamaica 81, started with 38 people divided into three groups: Environment, Health, and Youth.  We lost one person during training and just within the last two weeks we have lost three more!  It is a weird feeling when you hear that one of your fellow PCV’s have ET’d (wow I have been in PC long enough to start using their acronyms).  PCV is Peace Corps Volunteer and ET is early termination.  All four of these people are from the Environment sector (my sector).  I believe we started with 16 volunteers and we were all very close.  We spent our first two months on this island seeing each other for better or worse just about every day.  These were the people who we complained to, sympathized with, shared stories and pictures of our families, practices patwa with, do stupid skits with, we were it.  I understand and can relate to many of the reasons why each of these people left.  They are missed already and I will continue to keep in contact with these people as they are living back in the “real world”.  

Currently I am in a really good place with my service.  I got that first “home” feeling the other day as I was riding in a mini bus back to Portland from another part of the island.  I had been away for a couple of days.  As we reached Portland and the smell of salt, rain and humidity made me calm.  The familiar site of the ocean and the lush green mountains made me smile.  I had that happy feeling that I was back home.  I honestly have been in a really good/high point in my service, I am finally feeling comfortable with my community and my home, I am enjoying working with the farmers and am excited thinking about the school year starting up and doing some different projects in Port Antonio.

I don’t have too much to say, but here is a picture from Blue Fields, a friend of mine lives here with the most amazing host mom and yard.  I had a really good visit there, felt like I was visiting a family member and had some real good home cooked Jamaican food. 

Life is Good!

Bumpy's Yard-Blue Fields