School

So working in a high school has been hard, even though my job is to not work with the students I have interactions every day. Some of those interactions are nice, most are challenging. Challenging to understand the language, I practice as much as I can, but when somebodies talking fast forget about it! Challenging to interact with high school kids, kids are kids all over the world and teenagers......oh boy..... Challenging um yeah nuff' said.

I have implemented a new web content filtering program at the school which I think will help things. I reviewed the log of those blocked sites today and was amazed on how many porn sites got blocked. The majority of the sites were gay sites. I'm in the middle of showing the Principle and Guidance counselors this information to encourage some support for the hidden gay community at the school. If looking (or attempting to look) at pornography at the school is their only outlet to express their identity, there needs to be a change. As homophobia is king in Jamaica I'm assuming it will have to be a very slow process.

Turkey Day for me will be spent in Negril with some fellow volunteers. I'm going to have a solo dinner tomorrow but will be thinking of my family and missing one of my favorite holidays. Hope you all had a great dinner and always welcome your e-mails and wishes.

Arachnophobia and Jamaica

So people who have lived with me and some others know of my issues with spiders. They have mellowed over the years as when I was a kid I was terrified, but grew with just a severe dislike. I'm able to kill them or sweep them out the door. I have to say tonight was my worst experience ever! I got home after spending the day in "Town" (Kingston) and turned on my bedroom light to find a HUGE spider crawling on the ceiling. I was talking on the phone at the time to Summer and was like "Oh my god there's a huge spider on my wall" But I don't think I was in freak mode or anything. So thinking a sweep or even a squish would deal with it as I didn't want the spider falling on my bed, I got out my trusty bug spray and started at the MAMMOTH spider. It took a lot of spray as the spider was so GIGANTIC it could take a hit, but I could tell he was slowing down. So then the COLOSSAL spider got his final revenge. The bastard hovered on the ceiling right over my bed and dropped around 100 baby spiders EVERYWHERE! Then it dropped this weird white sac where I guess the babies were living. I screamed like a 6 year old girl!!!!!!!!!!!!! Baby spiders where everywhere, I sprayed everywhere, I cursed and screamed while Summer had me on speaker phone with her kids listening, chaos and pandemonium reined. With what I hope was the last baby spider killed, I went up stairs to tell the story to my host family and their friends that were visiting. To add to my defeat the entire group raged with laughter! "They can't hurt you Jason! They aren't the kind that bite!" I laughed as well as it was pretty funny, and to the families credit they offered me some clean sheets to use for the night.

Now I'm trying to come down from my horror movie experience by drinking a good ol' Red Stripe and sharing the experience with you.

I survived

Phew!

Obama & Jamaica

I Shaved my head!

I have always secretly wanted to do this so two weekends ago I went for it. Thanks to Shanna for the clippers. I have to say it may not look the best, but with the wind blowing in the taxi ride jacking up my hair, it is a Jamaica smart "do"

As a Peace Corps Volunteer you are supposed to stay out of politics, period. I have found that to be next to impossible this week with all of my Jamaican friends and strangers wanting to know if I voted and who I voted for. Surprisingly to me, everyone thinks I voted the opposite of who I actually voted for. They seem to be surprised when I just say "I can't talk about politics" with a HUGE grin on my face. Sorry Peace Corps but I guess I'm not that good an actor as whoever I'm talking to gets the picture. All I can say on this blog is that I had a REALLY good week. Why? Oh for no reason.......... Normally the policy makes perfect sense as conversations about politics here can get heated. Boy what a great week this was......

Halloween was last weekend and I went to a super fun gathering mixed with PCVs and Jamaicans alike. With my new hair cut I went as Joe the Plumber of course, sporting a plunger and as close to plumber gear as I could find. The house was right on the beach and a great time was had by all.


Other than that, life is settling down here a bit. A week from Monday we are meeting up with our group of volunteers for a few days to go over our experiences so far and to talk about what happens next. I'm looking forward to it.