Sunday, July 1 – Today I woke up and it was cold. It was probably cold because we were high up in the Blue Mountains. Once I was awake, the team and I cleaned up our living space so that we were ready to leave E.I.T.S. After the living space was cleaned, we headed to the bus. Breakfast was canceled so we could get to Kingston earlier. It took us an hour to get down the mountain and my ears popped. I felt good after leaving E.I.T.S because it was a completely new experience for me.
When we got back to Kingston we immediately went back to Shortwood Teachers College. We brought in our luggage and we were greeted by Ms. Diana (the cook and housekeeper of our in-country partners, the Bennetts). She made us breakfast (which was brown stewed chicken, callaloo, bread, and fried dumplings). I didn’t end up eating breakfast because I didn’t really know what it was and I wasn’t hungry. We also had snacks on the bus earlier coming down from the mountain. After breakfast we had 4 hours of free time. Most people slept or played games, like Spoons or James Bond. It was great to have free time because I got four hours to myself and I could get my head straight after our weekend in the mountains. It was such a different energy in the mountains, and it took some time to adjust back to the hot city. At 2:00 pm we had lunch made by Ms. Diana again. We had 3 types of chicken, escovitch fish, and mac and cheese. It was good.
After lunch we went to Devon’s House. Devon’s House is a town square in Kingston that has tourist stores and a famous ice cream shop. The ice cream is rated the 4th best ice cream in the WORLD. The ice cream trip was fun because we got to explore Devon’s House and I bought some gifts for my family. My favorite flavor of ice cream is strawberry, so of course that’s what I got. On a scale from 1-10 I give the ice cream an 11. It was scrumdiliumptious.
We then arrived home and had dinner. It was a big day of eating. After dinner we had a very long meeting. It was the longest meeting we’ve had so far. It took over 2 hours. It was our halfway check-in of the trip, so we went through everything. First we went over our leadership groups and then we started to plan our lesson plans and social entrepreneurship workshop for our next week at Mary’s Child. I was in the dance group and we planned to teach the students the Cha-Cha Slide.
Now that I’ve been here for over a week I realized that this is not a place I can see myself living. It is wild. It is very different than the USA, and there are many things I’m not used to. For example the school system in Jamaica. Students are taught differently and an early education is not a given. Also the money is different – 3 or 4 items at a grocery store costs over $1,000 Jamaican dollars! Lastly, there are too many bugs here. The scariest bug I’ve seen was a flying beetle at E.I.T.S. There have been good times as well though. My favorite part of the trip was when I said goodbye to the 1st graders at Mona Heights Primary School. When I saw their faces it was a very fulfilling moment. I am looking forward to going to the beach next weekend and seeing the water. I’ve never been to a beach where there is beautiful blue water.
So far on this trip I have learned about what teamwork is and how to advocate for others. I have also learned more about LearnServe and why we are in Jamaica. We are here to interact with the Jamaican community and grow as leaders. I have also learned the true meaning of social entrepreneurship. You can use it to create social change, be financially independent, and to find overall success.
Reone’ T., Paul Public Charter School