I'm Baaack...

I realize I haven't blogged in quite a while. I guess I just lost interest in it. Or the excitement of being a new PCV wore off. Me nuh know. Anyways, I was checking my blogger dashboard and I noticed they now have a tab named "Stats" where I can basically view the traffic on the blog. It's sorta detailed too; I can see the country, operating system, and browser of the people viewing my page and also how many times per day people viewed my page. Someone from the Netherlands viewed my page just a few minutes ago! Thats so cool. Soo, I'm realizing that people (not a lot, but a few) are reading my blog and might possibly want me to update it. I've been selfish. I apologize. I forgot how much I relied on other PCV's blogs to get me through my long journey to service. Some of you reading this now may be joining me in March right here in sunny Jamaica. And what kind of PCV would I be if I didn't shed some light on what you may be experiencing in the near future? I'll try to do better, I promise :)

Since the last time I wrote, so many new exciting things have happened! Not really, but I'll try to make them sound exciting to keep you interested. First, I've moved to a new place. A really really nice place. So nice that I don't wanna show pictures because you may actually get jealous. I also don't want any nominees to get the wrong idea about what they're living situation may be like because my place is absolutely not typical. I feel very lucky and very blessed. And although it's completely opposite of what I thought I'd be living in when I first applied to PC, I couldn't be happier with the place I have. I was so naive. Me, living in a hut? Yeah right.  So the reason I moved is because someone broke into my last place while I was sound asleep in my bed, at 6 am on a Saturday morning. Climbed in through an unbarred living room window. Scared the crap outta me. Luckily he didn't see me, but instead heard me get up, got scared, and left out of a back door. I then proceeded to nervously shuffle to the neighbor's and call the police. Their "investigation" was...interesting to say the least. Put their fingers on everything, I mean, have they not seen an episode of Law and Order, CSI, or any of the other million crime shows on tv? The assailant has not been found, nor will he probably ever be found. Unless of course he returns to the scene of the crime, which we know all stupid criminals do. We shall see.

School has started again. Officially, I'm working with 18 grade 4 students. Unofficially, I work with any number of kids who may wander up to the computer lab. I assessed about 30 grade 4 students who the teachers said needed help with reading and then the took the ones who needed the most help. I tried my best divide them into groups according to their levels, but it's so mixed. And honestly, each of them need one-on-one help. But I can't just work with one student at a time. Oh no, I'm a PCV. I need to help as many people as I can in order to feel accomplished. I need to show my Jamaican coworkers that I'm actually doing stuff here. I'm changing their country for the better. And they should be extremely grateful to me, right? In actuality, future PCV's, you'll probably need to have an attitude readjustment once you begin your service. You most likely will not have a huge successful project that touched the lives of hundreds of people, like we all dreamed of. It's definitely possible and you should aspire for that if the opportunity arises, but don't come in expecting that to happen. You may not have people appreciate or acknowledge what you do. You may have people saying you're not doing enough. Or people who just want you to get money for them. It's crazy how we have all these aspirations about what our service will be like, how happy the nationals will be to have us and work with us and make positive strides for their community. And then you get here and it's like...huh...this is not at all how I thought it would be. Even though I tried not to have expectations, it's hard not to. We all have that stereotypical image of what a PCV's experience is like stuck in our heads. It's very true that every volunteer's experience is different. At times, you have the power to make or break your service with how you choose to spend your time, who you choose to talk to, how flexible you choose to be, and most of all, how positive you choose to stay. Other times, though, things will happen that are completely out of your control. Those times suck. But hopefully it's something you can move on from. You wanted to grow, right?

Ok, back to my school. So I am assigned to a shift school, which means that Grades 1 to 6 meet in the morning from 7 to 12:15 and Grades 7 to 9 meet in the afternoon from 12:30 to 5:15. Do I like the shift school thing? No. Take out about an hour for lunch, a 30 min devotion, and other random class disruptions for each shift and you get about 4 good hours for the primary students and around 3 good hours for junior high. In my opinion, not enough. But as a volunteer, you soon realize that there are some things you just have to learn to work around. Besides literacy tutoring, I've also been trying to help teachers with different computer skills. Some want to start with the basics. Others wanna learn how to use certain programs like PowerPoint. I originally set up a schedule for computer workshops, but unfortunately no one showed up for the first two...after they basically asked me to set it up. And said they would come. But I've been able to work with a few individually, which in the long run is better I think. I installed the Mavis Beacon typing program on one teacher's laptop and she was so excited to learn how to type. Every now and then, she tells me what new letters she knows. I found a router in the computer lab and set up a wireless network. And apparently a couple of the teachers who bring their laptops to school have been using the internet to show videos related to the lessons, which I was really happy about.

Time is absolutely flying by and thats not something I expected to happen. On Monday, I will have been in Jamaica for 7 whole months. That is crazy. And it doesn't feel like that long. The longest I've been away from home is about a week, so I'm extremely proud of myself for not feeling as homesick as I should. I do really miss home though. My family. Mommy's cooking. My favorite restaurants. My favorite desserts. There are times when I actually sit and daydream about food. I've lost at least 20 pounds, so maybe it's a good thing I got away from my fatty southern cooking. Can't wait to get back to it though. Oh yeah, I've also missed what seems like about 100 weddings or engagements so far. Seems like love decided to infiltrate the Alabama air right after I left.

Speaking of weddings, my Jamaican coworkers are on a mission to find me a husband so I won't leave. Someone even gave out my number to some guy named Shemar, who called me and actually tried to have a normal conversation, asking how my day was and where I lived. Uh, I don't know you. Can you not sense the irritation and slight anger in my voice? At least he didn't tell me he loved me like a lot of other Jamaican men do within seconds of meeting you. I'm starting to think that men here don't have a good grip on reality.  Correction:  The phone call was from another PCV. Don't you just love prank calls? I don't. Anyways, my comment about Jamaican men not having a good grip on reality...still stands; I think I still have ample evidence to support that.