One Love from Di East :: Visit a Volunteer

“Wow, that was easier than I thought it would be,” I said to myself as the seven other passengers and I climbed out of our taxi. It was the first time since I stepped off the plane in Miami for staging that I had truly been on my own. Peace Corps thought that my fellow trainees and I were finally ready to face the island alone. And I had done it! I had successfully visited a volunteer by myself.

Visit a volunteer is a magical time during training in which trainees get to venture off alone into unknown territory to, you guessed it, visit a volunteer. We were all extremely excited as we waited to receive our site assignments, almost like a little taste of what it will feel like to receive our permanent site assignments in less than two weeks. My name was one of the last names to be called; PORTLAND! We’ve heard wonderful things (and some not so wonderful things) about each Parrish during training, but the general consensus was that Portland was an awesome place to visit. I was told all about how beautiful it was and how awesome the volunteer that I would be visiting is. I was not disappointed.

I started out my trip traveling with three other volunteers (Melody, Andrew, and Davey) that were heading to different sites nearby. The four of us smalled up in the backseat of a taxi and we were off. The first two legs of the journey down the mountain and out of St. Catherina were on winding, pothole-filled roads. By the time we got out of the taxi and got on the mini bus, my butt was asleep and I had a pretty serious cramp in my leg from sitting halfway on my friends’ laps and halfway on the seat. We were quickly shuffled to the mini bus where I eagerly climbed all the way to the back. As I settled into my seat, I looked forward to see the two remaining trainees in the front of the bus. Oops. Guess I’ll be experiencing this leg of the journey with the strangers sitting around me. It didn’t matter, though, because the ride to our next stop was beautiful. We drove along the northeastern coast of the island for about an hour before reaching. We were all smiles when we arrived safely and were greeted by Melody’s volunteer, Glenda.

Glenda treated us to a walking tour of the city. We visited the marina, the grocery store, the hardware shop, the library, met up with another volunteer, and even ran into a former volunteer that was in Jamaica visiting before finally settling on a spot for lunch. On the menu: pizza. Folks, you really don’t appreciate your love for certain things until you do not have it for a while. I will never take pizza for granted again. It was delicious. We even ran into another volunteer during lunch! It’s a small island, y’all. Lots of questions were asked, great advice was given, new friends were made, and fun was had by all.

The Marina

After lunch, I finally got to meet the volunteer that I would be visiting. Alice! We grabbed some groceries and took a quick taxi to Alice’s house. It was like spending time with an old friend and catching up on what’s been going on in each other’s lives.

I went to school with Alice the next day to observe her pullouts. Pullouts are one-on-one sessions where the PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) works with students that are struggling with reading. This will be my primary job while I’m here, so I was pumped to learn from Alice and I definitely learned a lot. She had a closet completely full of creative reading material that she made from everyday items like plastic bottles and she even created a few cool board games out of old cereal boxes. We’ve been practicing making our own creative learning materials over the past few weeks so I was happy to actually see a PCV using those types of materials.

My creative reading material to teach long and short vowel sounds

My team's creative reading material to teach time

We hopped in a taxi after class and headed over to Boston Bay to some J&R (jerk and relaxation). We grabbed our dinner and found a spot by the beach to eat. If you are ever visiting Jamaica, I would highly recommend checking out Boston Bay. There’s a hostel right on the water where we saw visitors jumping into the ocean with their surf boards to ride the waves. A few volunteers and I have made plans to go back for surfing lessons this summer.

Boston Bay

As I’m sure you’ve gathered by now, visit a volunteer was a huge success. Big ups to Alice for being an awesome host! I hope to be back in Portland soon, either visiting or living.