Long, Long Time :: Let's Catch Up, Shall We?

Wow! It has been a hot minute since I've posted an update. A lot has happened since my last post and my life has been a whirlwind. It's my intention to write separate posts for a few of the major events, but I want to briefly share a few of the highlights with y'all. We definitely have some catching up to do.

September

School started! After over five months of my Peace Corps service, I got to get into my classroom and start literacy pullouts. That means I finally got to see if all of this training had worked. So far, so good y'all! Check out these pictures from my first three months as a teacher.

We have a new illustrator in the house!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom inspired tree in my classroom

Word monster fun

They ABCs are moving us

Writing letters to their penpals

We also had our Early Service Conference (ESC). It was really cool to see all of my fellow PCVs for the first time all together since training and eat all of the free food. There were PowerPoints, flip charts, and Red Stripes for all. Good times. Until we got some bad news...

A little love from Group 87 Edu volunteers

October

What up, Hurricane Matthew? Just as we were packing up after ESC to head back home to our communities, we got the news that Hurricane Matthew was coming straight for Jamaican and that all of us PCVs were being consolidated for our safety. Peace Corps takes our safety very seriously, which I totally appreciate, but it was extremely difficult to leave my host mom alone not knowing when I would be back. Matthew ended up taking a turn right before it hit us and our island was spared. Unfortunately, our good fortune was Haiti's bad. It was incredibly hard sitting by and watching the devastation going on there while we were sent back to our communities feeling helpless.

Trapped inside the hotel at Hurricane Matthew consolidation

Life finally started getting back to normal (well, my new normal) just in time for my mom to come visit two weeks after the hurricane! It is really challenging to communicate with all of you back home exactly what life is like here. It was amazing to have my mom here to experience everything for herself. She had a chance to try the food, see my community, check out Dunn's River Falls, spend a day at an all-inclusive resort, and take a few taxis - the taxis themselves are a story for another day. One of the biggest highlights of her visit was getting to teach my students baton twirling tricks together. We had the time of our lives.

Mom with my favorite Aboukir family

Dunn's River Falls

Learning baton twirling for the very first time

I put on a little show for the kids at school

All-inclusive resort for the day

November

Another month, another Peace Corps conference. We were hosted at an awesome resort with our counterparts for our Program Design Management Conference (PDM). We learned a lot and got started on our community projects that we will be working on for the next year or so. My counterpart and I are working to open a school computer lab/internet cafe for our community. At this conference, we learned about all of the different funding opportunities and began writing our grants. I will keep you posted on our progress! Besides the actual work that we had to do, there was time for some fun too. We had a karaoke night, which the PCVs and counterparts absolutely crushed, and I also got to watch the Cubs win the World Series with some lifelong, die-hard Cubs fan. A great time was had by all.

Then there was an election. I have no intention of getting into politics here, but I will just say that it has been extremely interesting and difficult to listen to what people in another country think of the result. It has given me, I think, a unique perspective that will be burned into my heart forever. It definitely makes my job of spreading peace and friendship on behalf of Americans more important and challenging than ever. Challenge accepted.

After all of that excitement, I had a chance to visit the famous Mystic Mountain with a few other volunteers and ride the Jamaican bobsled through the forest in Ocho Rios.

I also got to visit another volunteer in Portland, check out Reach Falls, and experience my first Jamaican club, although I definitely could not hang until the dancehall music started at 4am.

We're almost caught up!

This year will be my first holiday season in Jamaica. I've spent the last three years in New York away from my parents and siblings, but I always had my aunts and uncle, cousins, and grandpa to keep me company during the holidays. This year was different. It was my very first time being away from my family and, I'm not gonna lie, I was extremely homesick. I spent my day at school until about 6pm and didn't get a chance to celebrate at all. So I decided to make myself a day late Thanksgiving feast with all of the things that I could find/afford. I thought that I was cooking for myself, but I ended up feeding about five other people as well. My host mom and I took turns telling each other what we are thankful for while we ate. It ended up being a really special Thanksgiving that I will never forget. Even though Thanksgiving ended up turning around for me, I've already decided that I will definitely be traveling back to the States next year. The only thing left to decide is where; with my sister and sister-in-law in Washington, my dad and step-mom in South Carolina, my aunts, uncle, and cousins in New York, or my mom, brother, and step-dad in Florida. I'm lucky and #thankful that I have so many places to consider as home, including Jamaica.

And now here we are. It's almost December and I can hardly believe it. I'm nine months into my Peace Corps service and the new volunteers are getting ready to join us in March. It was almost exactly a year ago that I received my official invitation to serve as a volunteer. It sounds cliche, but it honestly seems like only yesterday. I can't wait to see where the next year takes me.

More catch up posts to come but until then...

Next up: Reggae Marathon 10k in Negril.