My Commute

7:05 AM: I leave my home, Stony Hill Hotel, with the taste of Blue Mountain coffee still fresh in my mouth. I’ve got a few picture books, some homemade handouts, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a water bottle in my backpack. It’s a Tuesday, so I’m off to St. Teresa’s All-Age Catholic School.


7:15 AM: No matter that the sun has only been up for an hour; my neck and back are already drenched in sweat. I’ve climbed the first hill on my journey, but I’ve got several more to go. When you live in St. Andrew, Jamaica, there are as many hills as there are mosquitoes. I nod hello and say good morning to the people I pass. I’m off to work and so are they; the people I encounter are coming from the villages north of Kingston to work as servants in the homes of the wealthy of Stony Hill.


7:22 AM: I’ve reached the bottom of Gibson Road and am facing Junction Road, the main thoroughfare that runs from Kingston to the North Coast. I cross onto the left side of Junction and start walking. I hear the occasional “whitey!” shouted from a passing car, but after four months in Jamaica, I’m more apt to hear “brownie” than “whitey.” Luckily, before I can be harassed much more, a coaster bus pulls up. “Tavern!” yells the conductor, but I ignore him and climb on. I’m headed to Golden Spring, and every bus headed north will pass this town. Today is a good day; I manage to score a seat on the crowded bus.

7:34 AM: “Bus Stop!” I shout as I struggle to the front of the bus. “Lettoff, driva, lettoff,” the conductor calls to the driver, and the bus slows enough for me to hand over a few coins and hop off. This conductor, a young man not much older than myself, calls after me, “Baby, can I come with you?” I shake my head and cross the street. At this time of the morning, Golden Spring, a small town at the base of the Mount Friendship hills, is crowded with people fighting for taxis and busses.

7:40 AM: I weave through the people and cars in Golden Spring. Taxi drivers try to catch my attention, but I see Raymond standing by a shop. Over the past few months, Raymond The Taxi Driver has become a sort of guardian angel: he has explained dancehall music, physically carried me over landslides, and defended me against the constant harassment I face. The only thing I can offer him in return is my loyalty; he is always my first choice for my morning ride into the mountains.


7:52 AM: After a few minutes of twists and turns on the narrow country road, we reach the steep footpath that leads up to Mount Friendship. To take a taxi all the way up into the village would double my taxi fare. I hand Raymond fifty dollars and thank him, and he promises to look for me in the afternoon. I get out of the car and scramble up the path. I have eight minutes to make it to school.
7:54 AM: I reach the top of the path and arrive at the dirt road that is Mount Friendship’s main street. It is lined with a shop that sells biscuits and juice, the coffee houses where the coffee beans are weighed, and several goats that graze peacefully. Ahead of me are several children that are also making their way to school. “Kids, wait for me!” I cry, and they turn around to call back to me: “Miss!” I catch up to them and take their hands. “Did everyone do their homework?” I ask. “Yes, miss,” they answer, but I can tell from their mischievous grins that no homework was done the evening before.

7:58 AM: I wave to a few of the people gathered at the shop. “Blessings, blessings,” they respond, and the children and I head up the final hill to school. We arrive just in time; the teachers are assembling the children for devotion. They pray and then sing the national anthem, their tiny voices rising into the surrounding mountains: “Jamaica! Jamaica! Jamaica, land we love!”

8:15 AM: The gathered children walk in an orderly line to their classrooms; the latecomers scramble to slip by their teachers unnoticed. And so, as my morning commute ends, my workday begins.

The Clinic is the Cure

Paul Farmer, an American transplant to Haiti and renegade doctor, once said, “It is through journeys to the sick that we identify needs and problems.”

In the course of my time with the rural poor in Jamaica, I have realized the truth behind Farmer’s musing. Health care in Jamaica is a tricky business. Private doctors are out of the question for most of the population and the public clinics and hospitals are daunting. I personally have spent entire days waiting with families to see a doctor—only to be turned away as the day wanes to evening.

One of the best solutions to the health care crisis has been the phenomenon of the free clinic. Charitable organizations, such the American program “Medicine in Action” come to a community and set up shop for a day in a church, a school, or an orphanage. A team of doctors and nurses provide free examinations and more importantly, free drugs.

As the “American volunteers” in the area, we are often called in to help with these travelling clinics. This past week, my housemates and I worked two separate clinics. ‘Tis the season, I suppose.

This past Wednesday, there was a clinic at our church in Stony Hill, Immaculate Conception, scheduled to begin at 10 AM. We volunteers wandered in at 9, unsure of our role. I was shocked to see the hordes of people already gathered at the rectory doors. We grouped some chairs, made up a hasty registration list, and, since we knew most of the patients, mingled.

“What time did you get here,” I asked 85-year-old Mr. Brooks as I bent to kiss his wife’s wrinkled cheek.

“8,” he answered, grinning widely. “Miss Edith a come see doctor!” He had a 4 hour wait still in store for him, but he was exuberant. This elderly couple had a chance to get some “pain tablets” for their crippling arthritis.

The excitement at ICC was palpable. A clinic is always a major event—it is a chance to get one’s eyes screened and one’s blood pressure and blood sugar tested. However, this clinic had promised a full team of American doctors—complete with paediatricians and gynaecologists.

The doctors arrived, with their suitcases of antibiotics and blood pressure pills. We—the PVI’s—were handed stacks of intake papers and my day suddenly passed in a flurry of activity.

I took down countless names and recorded home addresses the best that I could (“up in the hills” was an oft-quoted description) and then asked the trickiest question of all: “And why are you seeing the doctor today, sir?”

Sometimes it was simple—“my knee pains me.” Sometimes it was a chance to get “the sugar” tested, sometimes it was to get blood pressure medication they know they need but cannot afford. But sometimes it was a litany of ailments that have gone unchecked for years. Pressure, sugar, arthritis, the wound that won’t heal, mysterious bleeding, head fungus, cataracts, rashes, skin spots, ringing in the ears, aches, pains, stiffness; the lists went on.

It broke my heart to write down the ailments, but my spirits lifted when I was able to guide the person to a kind doctor who could answer questions and provide hope. This particular clinic was a long one—some waited 5 or 6 hours. In total, 105 people—an unprecedented amount—were seen at ICC.

These clinics show me what a blessing modern medicine is—a kind doctor or nurse can assuage a mother’s fear about the well-being of her child and a Ziploc bag full of Tylenol can ease the suffering of a gentleman with arthritis.

Tensions flared at times, but the patients were overwhelmingly…well…patient. They were kind to each other and polite to us as we took down their information. I made new friends, I held lots of babies, and most importantly, learned a lot about the people I serve. I now know who has “the high pressure,” and who has “the sugar.” I can be a more effective advocate and I can better empathize with their struggles.

Sometimes my experiences with poverty leave me sick, but my very minor role in the clinics seems to be the cure.

The Cat in the Hat Goes to Jamaica

Dr. Seuss is a close, personal friend of mine—I learned how to read on Hop on Pop. And, to this day, I can recite long stanzas of the Cat In The Hat (my father must be recognized at this time for his patience in reading it to me countless times). I give Seuss books as gifts, The Lorax made me switch to reusable grocery bags, and Seussical the Musical is on my iPod.

The dude has gotten me into trouble, though. In July, I was standing at the American Airlines baggage counter on my way to Jamaica when I was told that my bag was 8 pounds over the limit. The woman called me honey and dear and told me to take my time rearranging everything.

She was a very kind woman, but I was not amused. There I was, at six in the morning, nervous about the next year of my life and stressed after a tearful goodbye with my beloved parents, and I had to repack my bags? Feeling like a fool, I ripped open my massive suitcase in the middle of Logan Airport and found the 8-pound offender: A Baker’s Dozen of Seuss. I had to laugh at my own stupidity—I had thrown the book in during the final frenzy of packing. However, I found myself strangely relieved by the sight of the volume, and quickly transferred it to my carry-on. It was comforting to know that Dr. Seuss would be accompanying me on this journey.

Three months have passed since that overwhelming encounter with my old friend Seuss, and I am no less happy today than I was on July 18th when the Cat in the Hat smiled up from the book’s jacket. As an international Passionist volunteer, my tasks are varied, but a fixture in my routine has been tutoring struggling readers in the village school.

Illiteracy is in alarming abundance in Jamaica, and many of the schoolchildren I work with are far below American expectations of reading levels. At Mount Friendship School, I take small groups of struggling readers out of class and we work on different words. I never envisioned myself a resource teacher—in the States, I often felt inept when working with struggling readers. Here, though, we are encouraged to meet needs as they arise, so that’s what I’m doing. Thank goodness I’ve got an expert to help me—Dr. Seuss hasn’t let me down.

During the hour or so that I have a group of children, we will practice letters and sounds. We work on the most basic words, and they are slowly making progress. I use everything from worksheets I make out by hand to flashcards. But always, I conclude the session with a story from my Baker's Dozen of Seuss. The kids can certainly understand being stuck inside during a rainy day...I'm sure they wished the Cat in the Hat would visit them. They delight in the musical rhythm of the stories and they like to pick out the words they know. "Miss," one of my kids cried when he saw Thing One and Thing Two race accross the page, "Dem tings a mashup dem house!"

And that's exactly right.

My Baker’s Dozen of Seuss might have caused some anxiety at the ticket counter on that fateful day in July, but I am still relieved that I brought it along for the ride.

Discipleship

A disciple is someone who learns. An apostle is one who is sent. These two words are used interchangeably when we speak of Jesus’ reign on earth—Jesus chose and sent out his Twelve to do His work. Passionist Volunteers International chose and sent me and my community mates out to be disciples of sorts—to try to do God’s work in whatever ways we can. However, the best example of discipleship in Jamaica comes in the faith that I witness on Sundays.

My Sundays begin at 8:30 in the morning at Immaculate Conception Church; it is like any mass that one might encounter in the United States. It is a well-attended mass in a big, pretty church, there’s a very gifted choir accompanied by guitars and an organ, and people donate generously to the collection basket. But my easy, American-style Sundays at ICC end at around 10:30 when we take off to the missions.

Mass out in Mount Friendship is rustic: there is no electricity or plumbing in the church, and often, it’s is merely a communion service because they only see a priest once per month. But somehow, services there place me directly in the presence of God.

I walk in and I greet the twenty to thirty people who have gathered in their Sunday best. The church must be swept, there is a cloth to be spread on the altar, there are hymn numbers to be scribbled on a piece of slate, and there are candles to be lit. I sit on the left, and soon, a cluster of beautiful children have gathered around me. I am the unofficial “kids section,” and I love that they scramble to sit by me and to share my hymnal. Many of these children come alone—their earnest faith inspires me.

Here, there are no instruments, let alone a formal choir. Instead, the sounds of Jamaican Christian choruses fill the building. The prayer of the faithful response of “Hear us, O Lord,” is always spoken passionately. The collection basket is a plastic flower pot, and people offer whatever Jamaican currency they are able to give. The pot fills slowly with shiny ten-dollar coins and creased fifty-dollar bills.

After mass, no one hurries away. People recline in the pews; they’ve walked miles to be here, they might as well stay awhile. And the children remind me of my work here: “Miss, you keeping the Sunday School, miss?”

Sunday School is always bustling. My tiny pupils scurry into the back room where we read a story about Jesus’ love for us and then head out to play little games in the church yard. This past week, we made Disciple Puppets. My students became Thaddeus, James, Simon, and Judas. They jostled to show off their work, they held their little crayon-colored pictures taped to cardboard high in the air as we talked about how we can become Jesus’ disciples in the here and now. Their answers were pure: Obey God. Visit sick people. Share my food with my friend. Love each other.

It brought me to tears.

I came to Jamaica to be an apostle. I wanted to “take nothing for the journey;” and I wanted to “take up the cross.” I’ve been sent, and I’m learning. But my people out in Mount Friendship are the true disciples; they have shown me what it means to follow God. Their natural faith is what gets them to church and allows them to sing loudly and prayerfully.

The simple nature of the mass on the mountain reminds me of something crucial: God is here. He is the warm church filled with people who struggle over hills and through gullies to be there, He is the heartfelt singing that resounds in the air, and He is the weight of a toddler on my lap.

So, thanks, Mount Friendship. Thanks for teaching me my Sunday School lesson. Like I said, I’ve been sent, and I’m learning. Boy, am I learning.

Skim milk, one Splenda?

My funny, smart, and quirky roommate Nicole introduced me to one of her interesting habit during our senior year in college. She saw the fiscal world in terms of coffee—if she were to pay an electric bill, she might comment that the bill was worth thirteen coffees. A clearer explanation is as followed: 2 dollars roughly equals 1 medium coffee from LaSalle Bakery in Providence, RI. Nicole and I, along with many of our friends, consumed mass amounts of coffee during our tenure as students at Providence College. It was our comfort and our pick-me-up, and we always looked forward to treating ourselves to a cup.

Coffee is everywhere in Jamaica, but in a far different sense than in Rhode Island, where coffee shops appear every quarter mile. No, it is the coffee plant that is omnipresent here, particularly in Mount Friendship, the community where I now work as a volunteer (for 50 coffees per month).


There are many small coffee farmers in Mount Friendship, but I have grown particularly close to one. Jerome is a reflective man who thinks deeply about a host of topics, including Jamaican sports, violence, corruption, and the availability of water for the poor. When he heard about my passion for coffee, he was eager to fill me in on the coffee trade in Jamaica. And I was eager to learn.

As we walked through his small grove, Jerome pausing periodically to pull a slug off of a tree, I learned interesting facts about growing coffee. The coffee bean grows in a soft, fruit-like casing, and a farmer will know when it is ripe when this berry-like bean turns from green to bright red. I learned that when a tree makes more beans than it can sustain, some beans will turn black. I learned that a tree bears the best beans at two years’ maturity. Jerome also proudly mentioned that he would never sell a bean that had already fallen to the ground; this bean could have rotted, and he would not risk his reputation.


Coffee bean buyers come to some of the most rural and poorest communities in Jamaica to buy their harvests. Once these buyers purchase the beans, they will be taken to factories to be pulped (taken out of the casing), laid out in the sun to dry, and then roasted and ground.

Procedures vary, but usually a farmer will take away one payment during the transaction with the buyer and will receive a final payment several months later. The boxes that farmers must fill to the brim are enormous, and most farmers will only take away three thousand Jamaican dollars (roughly forty U.S. dollars) for one box.

Coffee farming is a tricky business. Farmers often lead a hand-to-mouth existence; many families have sadly explained to me that they go without medication, school books, or food until the time of the coffee harvest. Also, these farmers frequently run the risk of being duped by corrupt bean buyers. “It a bad business a bad men,” Jerome warned me once in a thick Patois accent. The health of the plants also depends upon a vigilant, experienced eye and a temperate growing season. Tropical Storm Gustav recently wiped out many farmers’ coffee harvests.

My dear friend Nicole was the first one that taught me how to view the world in terms of coffee, but she isn’t the last. Jerome is one of many farmers throughout the world who measure their lives in pounds of coffee. I once watched my gentle friend lovingly examine one of his coffee plants and I realized just how much coffee means to him. Coffee used to get me through my 8:30 philosophy class, but coffee provides Jerome and his wife with food and with medication for their hypertension and diabetes.

Blue Mountain Coffee, or a nameless blend of coffee from the foothills and the mountains, sells for exorbitant prices abroad, but the farmers are paid a pittance. I do not know how to make Jerome’s farming lifestyle easier, but I can remember the work of the coffee farmers throughout the developing world as I enjoy my morning java.

Mr. Gustav

I know very little about hurricanes. I weathered a few in New England and I saw the remnants of Katrina’s devastation in Biloxi. I was wholly unaccustomed, however, to the hurricane fever that sweeps through the Caribbean from August to November.

Hurricane Gustav, or Mr. Gustav, as the Jamaicans liked to call him, blazed through the Caribbean and then continued on his path of destruction into the Gulf Coast from August 26th until August 31st.

Mr. Gustav took 11 lives in Jamaica, and displaced 4,000, but I barely noticed him at the time. My roommates and I evacuated to the home of our friend Rosie’s. Rosie is a hurricane guru who has taken pity on the volunteers and our window-filled home for as long as PVI has been in existence. We were well-fed, safe, and dry, and only ventured out of Rosie’s home during the calm moments to bring in extra water from her pool.

On my first post-Gustav run, I noticed a few landslides and downed branches. The tall grasses that line my favorite path had been only temporarily beaten down by wind and rain. Immaculate Conception Church in Stony Hill had stayed dry and snug. The biggest problem our own home faced was the half-inch of water that covered our kitchen floor

It was not until Sunday when Father Gaston and I headed out for mass in my mission, Mount Friendship, that I realized exactly what Mr. Gustav had been up to. Father’s standard-shift, four-wheel-drive truck struggled over the piles of dirt and rocks on Junction Road, but it was the sight of one of the mountains that took my breath away. Completely stripped of its usual vegetation, the mountainside was now a tangle of mud and rocks.

As we drove deeper into rural Jamaica, the landslides were more frequent, the downed branches more numerous. We had just reached Mount Friendship when the already treacherous road became impassable. Reluctantly realizing that the truck was not going to get us—or the food bags in the truck bed—any further, we climbed out and walked the rest of the way, Fr. Gaston lifting the hem of his Passionist habit high above the rubble.

Mass was smaller than usual and the floor was covered by a layer of muddy water, but a small crowd still assembled to praise God for His greatness. People were rapturous; they spoke of Gilbert and Ivan and Dean, of losing much more with previous hurricanes. In 2004, Ivan killed 23 in Jamaica. Last year, Jamaicans saw wind speeds of 145 miles per hour with Hurricane Dean. Gustav wasn’t getting them down this year. Mr. Brooks, an 85-year-old renegade bush farmer, arrived wearier than usual and without his standard Sunday tie, but bearing the grapefruits and mangoes that he had managed to salvage. He handed them out to the parishioners, eager to feed his friends in the wake of the storm.

On our way back to the abandoned truck, Fr. Gaston and I saw that the men of Mount Friendship had appeared, machetes in hand, to chop away the fallen trees, garbage, and bushes that had obscured the road. They too were in high spirits, directing me to the sturdiest stones and joking with Fr. Gaston.

The people in the missions are still without water in their communal taps, and much of the island is still without electricity. Some have lost roofs. Others, living in gullies, have homes that have been completely flooded. Others have had their homes battered, their crops of coffee or bananas "mashed up." But what we have to realize is that this is a blip on the radar for Jamaicans. Mr. Gustav wasn’t a hurricane when he hit; he was a tropical storm, and they’ve weathered much worse. They’ve spent the past week picking up the pieces, putting their homes back together, and clearing away the countless landslides.

My next fear was for my own countrymen—we receive little bits and pieces of American news here. I was able to eek out some information, and from what I was able to glean, the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast needed prayers as much as the people of the Caymen Islands, Jamaica, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.

I still know very little about hurricanes; Rosie is quick to tell people how the volunteers slept through the worst of Gustav. However, I am beginning to learn of the resiliency and courage of the human nature, particularly in the developing world. We humans pick up the hem of our clothing and tramp through the rubble, for it’s all that we can do. We have nothing else to do but be grateful for what we have, even if it is only a few tired mangos and a bruised grapefruit.

Sorry, Gustav. As my friends in the missions say, “Mr. Gustav? He not trouble me too much, mon. We okay.”

Praise be.

We all love the Olympics—we love raw talent and there’s just something about hearing your national anthem played as a gold medal is hung around one of your own. One of Jamaica’s newspapers, The Daily Observer, reported that more than two billion people around the world watched the opening ceremonies alone.

But the Olympics are more than evening entertainment here in Jamaica. Televisions in corner shops and homes are on constantly in order to follow the athletic achievements of countrymen. Location matters little—from Kingston to Negril, everyone watches with bated breath. Pride and patriotism, always present in Jamaica, have exploded to epic proportions during this Olympic season.

This past month, I was at the home of a parishioner to collect food bags that needed to be moved down to the church when I realized just what the Olympics mean to Jamaica. Mrs. Hylton was directing me as I dragged the rice sacks full of food down the hallway when one of her helpers, Celine, started shouting.

“Praise be! Praise be to Jesus! He’s done it!” Celine yelled loudly as she danced around the television set in Mrs. Hylton’s living room.

I pushed my hair out of my face, stopped struggling with the food bags, and headed towards the TV. “What’s up, Celine?” I asked.

Celine made the sign of the cross and wiped away a few tears. “Usain Bolt won the gold medal!” She grinned widely as she pointed at the TV. “Praise Jesus!” I looked, and saw a man clad in the blinding yellow and green Jamaican uniform perform some Jamaican dance moves before the crowd in Beijing. Bolt was so far away, but his victory was precious to those at home.

For weeks, Jamaicans speculated about the chances of a gold medal for their country in the 100 meter men’s sprint. They had pinned their hopes on two worthy candidates: Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell. Tyson Gay of the United States and Great Britain’s Tyrone Edgar were also eyed as being contenders in preliminary heats. But on August 16, 2008, Bolt broke a personal record, a world record, and scored Jamaica’s first gold medal in sprinting.

“We’re a little country, but we’re good!” Celine roared. “Thank you, Lord, for this victory! Praise Jesus! We’ve got a gold medal!!”

“Congratulations, Celine,” I said as I hugged her. “It’s a good day for Jamaica.”

“Yes!” she answered. “It’s a very good day for Jamaica! Oh, I’m just so excited! Praise be!”

I finished moving the sacks into the PVI van, waved goodbye to Mrs. Hylton, and drove up the winding dirt road to the church. My workday continued, but I couldn’t get the image of Celine dancing around the home of her employer, thrilled at this victory. Later on, I found out that there had been dancing and celebrations in the streets of Kingston and Montego Bay as well. People in the States may get excited when Phelps wins his eighth gold or when the women’s beach volleyball team scores a medal, but they don’t yell their thanks to God or riot in the streets. In Jamaica, where the citizens face poverty, violence, inflation, unemployment, and boredom on a daily basis, this is a big deal, mon.

As the sprinting competitions continued, Jamaica went on to win more medals. Each time, people danced in the streets, honked their horns, draped flags over their shops and busses, banged pots and pans, and praised God. Many of these athletes emerge from shantytowns and one-room board houses—they live in the same conditions as the rest of the country. Athletes like this provide hope in the face of unbeatable odds. If a tiny island mired in poverty can beat out countries 50 times its size, does that not speaks volumes about the spirit of the people? Does it not tell us something about the atmosphere of perseverance and tenacity that is present here?

I was not able to catch the medal ceremonies; as volunteers, our schedules are unpredictable and our access to television is unreliable. However, part of me desperately yearned to see the runners bow their heads as the medals were hung around their necks. I would have loved to listen as Jamaicans sang along to the chorus of their national anthem: “Jamaica! Jamaica, land we love!”

I am not Jamaican. I am a United States citizen, and I would have celebrated had Tyson Gay won that 100 meter sprint. And yet, I rejoice that this little country—my temporary home—can enjoy a sense of national pride and achievement. The medal count currently stands at 11, and I am so happy that I was able to be present for this country’s numerous victories. Congratulations, Jamaica. Praise be.