Market Experience....Look up! a star!

Look up! Tilt your head way back and look into the very center of the faintly lightening sky of a Jamaican dawn. One loan star shines and blinks through scattered clouds. Think: everyone you know could see that same star, thousands of miles across the land. "What are you lookin' at?" A young Jamaican woman looks up with me, then when I say "one star in the whole sky", she looks at me like I'm completely crazy! Perhaps she only sees the old dirty tarps strung on ropes overhead, making a makeshift roof for the hundreds of produce farmers in the timelessly old Linstead Market. I keep glancing up, holding to my touchstone star. It's one world,one home,one time to live.
   When I peel my banana this morning, I remember the faces of the men who sold them ~ a family, young and old, standing in the dark street, overflowing with heaps of garbage. An old goat sifts through the debris. When I eat my pineapple and watermelon, I see the smiles and hear the welcoming greetings of the "deep rural" women selling inside the old market building ~ their beautiful mounds of cabbage, beans, peppers and ginger. Ginger! Huge piles of ginger root, and everyone buying it as a staple! Another man we visit sells us very large bundles of scallions and thyme. 
   The young man who sells tomatoes, cucumbers, plantain and green bananas by the tree branch)bunch) is a friend, as are all the sellers and farmers in this intimate yet bustling community.
Hand trucks made of wood with a steering wheel maneuver through tight aisles and filthy streets. Some young men sail by as if on skateboards!

   Here, because Linstead is small(unlike the huge city Kingston market), everyone knows each other. Everyone laughs, greets, asks if we are blessed this morning before dawn, helps, accepts....never astonished that I am like that lone star: one lone white person in a thousand faces of various darker shades. I have no pictures of the market..this is just another day, another town....it would not be wise or appropriate to take pictures while "integrating", as the Peace Corps calls it. At 4 AM, we wander through the happy hard-working market, my host family's mother connecting with patients and friends(she is a parish(county) nurse). People call me "miss" and "beautiful" and "lady" and "love" and "sweetheart"..men and women alike. In a harsh land of beauty, it is their way..,to give and help.
(top photo is ackee, a Jamaican fruit)

Promoting Understanding

 Third Goal of the U.S. Peace Corps:
To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of all Americans.

IMPRESSIONS: Mountains! Trees,flowers,fruit,jungle and forestland ~ A valley surrounded by rolling green mountains,buried deep in coconut palms and bananas, ackee fruit and oranges, avocado and almond, cashew and limes, hibiscus and orchid, jasmine and starfruit...oh, and the glorious acres of sugarcane and bamboo taller than a house!
   Rough, winding narrow roads, disintegrating beneath heavy rains and traffic. Buildings both impressive and depressed. People greeting,colorful clothes and storefronts. Cars and more cars and taxis and trucks and semis and delivery vans..and always people walking bravely.
   "Jamaica is very beautiful, one of the most beautiful places in the world, but we don't take care of it."
 Thoughts of a Jamaican family. Sadly, it can be a harsh place to live, within such beauty. Jamaicans are a proud,strong people, often with unknown priorities. Independent, yet insecure. Dreamers lacking a real dream. Faithful, religious, hopeful on a Sunday ~ yet, where does the hope and faith truly serve?

We come to connect, to learn, to serve. We, from the orderly,prioritized,organized, regulated USA, come to wild, brilliant, relaxed and yearning Jamaica. The contrasts are many and huge ~ the need great. The similarities largest of all: We are all human beings, born on this planet, living as best we can with what we are given.
(Photos are school children in summer camp,sugarcane fields, a north coast public beach, me with my host family's daughter)

We MUST Be the Change We Wish to See

"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." ~ GANDHI

How many times and places have we read or heard this Gandhi quote in recent years? We nod and appreciate it's bold truth, yet who can find the resilient courage and compassion to live it? Quite an ongoing re-committment, wherever we are, however we apply it.
Beautiful, exhilarating Jamaica envelopes us in welcomes and joy...yet we learn of intense need at every turn. People are grateful for our presence and commitment, even while their own lives are joyous and strong in overcoming difficult odds. It is a vibrant, noisy, bold, grand, desperate, country of deep longing and dreams. Positive sayings are painted on walls and billboards, angels on houses, brilliant colors everywhere in the midst of wild tropical flowers and trees, white egrets and blue herons, turquoise sea and overwhelming thunderhead clouds. Life can be good, is always hopeful, often a struggle. For Americans, there are abundant lessons to be learned and taken home. We all hope we can be of some assistance as we learn and donate our individual skills.

Our Peace Corps group encompasses ages from 22 to 77, careers including counseling & psychology, engineering, business admin., organic farming, teaching, sports coaches/athletes, musicians, artists, actors and dancers, judges and lawyers, professors, activists and pacifists and much more. May we be the change we wish to see in the world.....
in peace ~ Susan/Mom

Small Voice

"I am but a small voice..." Small voice, large dream, help needed....Jamaica.
Yes, we are here, we are learning, we are living a very new & different life. Training,Peace Corps Jamaica style, is professionally presented in all the newest educational and business management approaches and forms. We have been given dynamic instructive professional music performances, interactive talks by Security from the Embassy plus many Peace Corps staff members, welcomes by the Ambassador, and open arms of our host families who will proceed to care for us and teach us the language and culture for 2 weeks, while we attend more classes.
Life in Jamaica is not easy even for those who have homes and education..it is incredibly difficult for those we will end up helping in September at our permanent sites.
I really feel I am one but one small voice in a land of huge hopeful dreams, where endless help is needed. It's hard to believe that all those luxurious resorts ring the island's beaches...we have barely even seen the blue Caribbean Sea.
Onward in learning and growing. Peace is a far distant goal, while site-specific help may be possible.

Be peaceful each day...kind to someone...Be Well ~