LearnServe Jamaica – Day 1: First Impressions

Hello, My name is Victory  and this is my first time traveling to Jamaica. I am a rising senior at a public charter school in Washington, DC. I was super excited when I was one of the students at my school chosen to attend this Learnserve trip to Jamaica.

I wanted to come on this trip because I love traveling and I want to travel the world. So when the opportunity to travel to another country came, I took it. Also, my mother, who is a mid-wife, delivered babies here in Jamaica and talked about it often when I was younger. She told me I would meet some of the nicest people here and that it was a beautiful country.

This is our first full day here and so far it is very interesting. The scenery is beautiful and the people are incredibly kind. I have tasted some very interesting foods, such as, the hatu-eatu apple and REAL Jamaican beef patties. Also, the house I am staying in is lovely, and the weather has been beautiful.

I have met a group of children around my age who dress very similarly to us are very much like us, despite their accents, which I think are so awesome. Today we all played a game and got to know each other better. Then we also had a training on how to tutor the children at a local school here, St. Alban’s, where we will be teaching children grades K-6 , in Math and English.

Overall, I would say my first impression of Jamaica is exactly what I expected, but totally different, at the same time. In saying this, I mean that I expected the area we would be traveling to would be slums and people would not have as much as I have in the USA and I was right. We traveled through a very unfortunate part of Jamaica where children had no shoes and their houses were basically pieced together from tin. Imagining this and actually seeing it really changed my heart and mind. I really want to help these people help themselves.

My first impression differed because Jamaica has very nice parts as well. Such as, the area of Kingston called  “Beverly Hills” and the neighborhood we are staying in called “Cherry Garden”. These communities have very nice houses in the hills of Kingston. I didn’t expect to see anything like this.

I would say today was progressive and I hope you enjoy this post because there is much more to come.