Love, Love, Love

I would like you to meet some of my loves here...
Father Lucian and I. He started this program six years ago after many long years of preparation. He also started a sister program in Honduras four years ago. He is certainly my favorite Passionist Priest, even though I have been known to forget he is a priest and then when he prays, think out loud, "wow..he would really make a great priest!" hahaha






Monsignor Richard Albert...He started the St. Patricks Foundation and is committed to those living in poverty in Jamaica since 1976. He is a wonderful man and huge support for us!




Yes, this was while we climbed a waterfall in Ocho Rios for my birthday- quite an exhilarating and hilarious experience! We had to hire a guide so he could take fantastic pictures such as this one, as we climbed the falls holding hands haha It was certainly a community bonding event!






I had my favorite first grade class make butterflies out of coffee filters and plastic straws....it was quite a hit!! The kids love to use their creativity to make the most beautiful butterflies and then toss them around in the wind as if they were real butterflies. Here is Leroy, Rashawn, Oshi and Kimani cheesing away with their prized works of art :)





Attempt #1 at taking a picture at mass with the kids....They sure do brighten my day!



And here they are, cheesing away!






Here is Jordan, one of my favorite twelve year olds...he always takes my camera and snaps the best random shots of the kids playing, so here is a shot of himself as a change... all the fifth and sixth graders think its hilarious that they are are almost my height...hmmm









Latifah is such a beautiful and graceful young woman...she is only thirteen but acts much more mature!



Dressed in their very best for mass...sooooooo cute!





A day trip in Port Antonio...the waves were huge and the wind was sooooo strong! I loved it!




My community at the Pelican Bar in Treasure Beach....yes, a bar in the middle of the ocean. We had to take a boat out to it, where we swam and relaxed for the day as a part of our first community retreat.






Cutest bow tie EVER!!!



Yay for crazy hat day!


A couple of the church ladies chipped in and bought me an incredibly yummy birthday cake that I had to pose with for a million pictures....it said "HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMBER. YOU'RE SWEET!" Haha they are too good to me!!



I watched the birth and death of a rainbow the other day while waiting for a bus...needless to say, I was waiting a while...but it was so beautiful to see its life from beginning to end. The weather here is amazing...to my left was the brightly shining sun in the bluest of skies, and to my right was a gray horizon, accented with a rainbow as i got poured on...hmmmm


Devon Pen Primary and Basic School....where I work all week...in the middle of the jungle wayyyyyy up in the hills. This is a view from one of the kids houses. The children walk everyday to school and home again from here, luckily there is a short cut through "the bush"...no wonder why they do not out in the rain.



A zoomed in version.....

Prison Ministry

This is a picture of the Devon Pen church I work out of. It is one of the four mission churches of Immaculate Conception Church and has become a symbol of simple beauty and a source of peace for me. Before mass, I'll play catch with the children using an unripe tangerine plucked from the tree or we will play football (American Soccer) with an empty plastic bottle filled with dirt...and I have never had more fun...Boy is this country weaseling its way into my heart...


I have never been to an American prison, so my first time in a Jamaican prison was a little intimidating, and very thought-provoking. My second time in a Jamaican prison scared the crap out of me, but then helped me clean the mess I made in my pants (not literally guys….geez) Let me explain…

On Friday’s I have been doing Prison Ministry with a local Roman Catholic Church not far from my house. The first week Betsy and I went with the group of about four to Tambourine Farms, a mens medium security prison, to bring encouragement, hope, and faith to those in need of rehabilitation. We go with a group of people who have been ministering to prisoners for about a decade: mothers of inmates who have been wrongfully imprisoned, a priest, and a former prisoner who has since been rehabilitated and is a positive presence in the community.

The second Friday I went, Betsy and I were given the opportunity to go to St. Catherine’s, a mens maximum security prison instead. On the way there, we were told that this prison would be a bit more intimidating than what we had experienced the week before. No problem, I was sure it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.

I can honestly say I wasn’t too concerned until the wardens let us into this dimly lit bypass to search our things before letting us on the actual grounds. The guards were intimidating. The damp, musty air felt heavy. They looked through our bibles and held guns the length of their arms at their sides. Their uniforms looked stiff and their faces, serious. There was an energy in the air that made me feel as though time stopped and happiness was foreign and rare. (For you Harry Potter fans…think Azkaban with the dementors…I really pictured it!) As I stood there with Betsy, three other women and a priest, surrounded by prison wardens, I felt like that moment of my life was taken from a clip straight out of a movie like Con Air (or Harry Potter haha).

I volunteered to come to this place, with guards holding God knows what kinds of guns that are longer than their arms, to talk with prisoners…some there for life for armed robbery, for murder, for rape, and God knows what else. This is what kept running through my mind…I volunteer for this…oh my…

We stood in this dark bypass room, inside the prison walls but not yet in the prison, in front of this huge gate with thick scary bars and men looking in at us with faces of hopelessness and imprisonment, like caged animals. The warden told us to form two lines, stick close, the gates were unlocked and we walked in. Time seemed to stop and I kept imagining these men not as men, but as bad people because that is the energy the place was sending into the world. How can someone rehabilitate in a place like this?

I felt like a prisoner myself. Betsy was to my right and my first instinct was to grab her hand because the fright and intimidation was taking over my body. We walked amidst hundreds of prisoners, some calling out to us just to say hello, some blurting profanity, and some paying no mind, occupied with their football games, conversation or time to themselves.

I was afraid to look any in the eye at first. Like they could harm me if we made eye contact. I looked only straight ahead, apparently uncomfortable. Its strange how looking someone in the eye can make you feel vulnerable.

I saw them immediately as prisoners. I blocked them together as scary, intimidating, and sinful. There were hundreds of them and maybe eight of us with a warden marching in two lines to the chapel.

We sat close, and I took a second to look around me. I saw the other women we came with waving, smiling, acknowledging the prisoners as people, or even as friends. Today, the prisoners were putting on their annual crusade and we were part of the audience.

The crusade was beautiful. The prisoners sang to music performed by other prisoners. Some gave testimonies of God in their life and their newfound faith of life and hope. A woman who had previously been imprisoned preached about purpose. A prisoner brought us all flowers he had picked from a nearby garden and wished us a pleasant day. It was a moving performance.

Watching and witnessing men who have been accused and are serving time for serious crimes come together and sway in chorus about their love for Jesus and their new found life is beautiful.

Rehabilitation.

I realized as we were leaving, my intimidation had somehow disappeared. It was then that I saw these men not as prisoners, but as fathers, brothers, sons and friends that made serious mistakes and are lacking love, support, and acceptance. Perhaps even victims to their society.

I cannot help to think that they were once children. They were once innocent children like the children I teach every day in the missions that I try to love and hug and care for any chance I get. Because somewhere in their development, something went wrong. The prisoners very well may be a product of a society that has lost its way and needs to be coached back.

As we left, they approached us to shake our hands, and thank us for showing our support. I no longer felt scared, though. They had been humanized in my mind and were no longer “prisoners”. I believe in rehabilitation because I witnessed a small sliver of it in a place I never thought I would. And I believe spiritual nourishment is an essential part of this rehabilitation. Because we are all human, and we all need each other. These men, some who are even wrongfully imprisoned, need to know that someone is looking at them as the person they are, with dignity, instead of the person they seem to be, the prisoner, which is a label so easily placed and not easily forgotten.

It made me reflect on how often people are labeled as one thing or another and what this essentially does to the self esteem or dignity of the person.

These men ultimately are fathers, sons, brothers and friends and they have sinned. We are taught to forgive. We need to forgive.

Blessed

Every Sunday the women and children at my mission mass sing and clap to the very familiar chorus so it rings loud in my ears ...

I am blessed, I am blessed...everyday of my life I am blessed.

When I wake up in the morning, and I lay my head to rest...I am blessed..I am blessed.

I don't know if it is the beauty in this country or the passion in their voices, but I truly believe it.

Boy can it rain in this country. It rained from Monday night until Saturday morning. We couldn’t leave our house for pretty much the entire time because in Jamaica, rain is like snow, and Jamaicans tend to hibernate in the rain in fear of floods and landslides. These top two pictures are on the main road on my commute to work everyday.

My kitchen is essentially outdoors. Two of the four walls are full iron grates, basically open to the elements. So, as I sit eating breakfast at my kitchen table, the damp, cool air sweeps across my body, and I feel splashing of raindrops against my shins and calves.

I glance out the window and I think about a week from today...Election Day. Reality is, in a week, a new man will be President of our country. Excitement and anticipation grow as I feel my stomach turn a bit at the prospect of the election not turning out how I so desperately envision it.

A woman in the bank tells her son, “A black man can be President of the United States! Remember, you can be anything you want to be!” And the boy walks around the bank, his head held high, pretending to be Usain Bolt, the Jamaican Olympian hero. Jamaicans are theatrical and it is fantastic.

It has astounded me how the election and financial crisis has been a topic of common conversation for many Jamaicans over that past few weeks. I’ve been told, “When the US sneezes, Jamaica gets a cold”. Witnessing first hand how much the US affects the world and how much Jamaicans care about my very own opinion of the state of my country has certainly been an experience. All of a sudden my voice matters and carries weight. When did this happen?

I suppose when I graduated from college and moved to a developing nation, I also moved from the kiddy table to the adult table for holidays. I am an educated, white US citizen so I guess that makes me entitled to speak and have others value my opinion. Or at least take the time to question it.

The educated, white US citizen thing now. Yesterday I went to the post office with Lauren to see if I had any love sent from home. On the way out of the parking lot, there is a middle aged Jamaican man dressed in tattered clothing, standing in a misty rain two days old, and he begs me for some money for some food. I roll down my window while frantically searching my bag for my coin purse as the traffic light switches from red to green. I take the coins left in my bag, probably amounting to US $2, and hand them over, glancing him in the eye with a smile and a friendly, “alright…”

“Thank you sweetheart, I’m sorry I wasn’t born a white man…” I heard in a soft, defeated voice as I drove away with droplets of rain on my windshield.

Hmph…

Gosh, race is so obvious here. It’s not like in the US, where you can forget that race is a factor in everyday life, from the quality of life to cultural habits to generations of prejudice. I’ll admit, my American white self immediately became defensive. “It has nothing to do with being WHITE”, I blurt out to Lauren, as if he said it to personally offend me or something.

I hear the words from my mouth as if from a stranger. As I slow to a stop at the next red light, I put my hands on my face and close my eyes…“But it does.”

I am not trying to make any huge claims about race and socioeconomic status here. I am just saying, this poor man at the post office is defeated, he is hungry, and he is black. He looks around and sees that lighter people rarely need to beg in his country and his whole life has seen lighter people as the ones who can afford to give him, the poor black man, money.

Just that very act, giving money to a beggar, is saying something about status. I have the ability to give to someone with lesser. There is an ingrained superiority in that, whether intentionally played out or not.

Getting past the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” notion many of us in the US hold dear, I am just saying, if he was born white in Jamaica, or maybe even in the US, he would have had a better chance from the start at not being born into a family struggling financially.

I look at my own life. I was born into a family, merely blessed with the privilege of having a more than wonderful mother and father who were able to support me financially and emotionally so I could attend college and have the option to do a year of service. Option. So many times I am commended for sacrificing a year of my life, but in many ways this year, is more of a duty or privilege than anything else.

I met a teenage girl a few weeks ago who was intrigued by this program. She wants to volunteer to help people, she told me. I told her that this program requires that she completes college, as many programs do. She cannot afford college and must work to help support her family and younger siblings. A child born in the hills in Jamaica has much less opportunity available from the start, so going to college is almost unthinkable in many circumstances, let alone being able to take a year to move to another country after graduation to help others. They are more needed at home.

A higher starting ground is what I think I got. Poor guy. Poor girl. Or broken system.

Yesterday a poor woman I visit in my community, well, poor by my standard, was passionately ranting about the poverty in Haiti. She had been there years ago and witnessed the injustice and poverty present in the desperate eyes of its citizens. She thinks Jamaicans needs to unite to help the poor people there!

Poor people of one country helping poor people of another country.

And I am just sitting there, listening to her, moved and inspired, saying "yes! I get it...i really get it". But I don't get it like she does...She is not poor in her eyes...I don't know how she views me, other than "her American friend!" that she teaches how to cook. Haitians have much less, and she is willing to share the little she has with those who have nothing. That is beautiful. That is service. That is human.

just a few bug bites...or thirty

Upon popular request, I have uploaded gross pictures of my feet/ ankles. For those of you who didn't get the story, last Monday I helped the church people in my community to clean the church yard.

It was really beautiful...all of the main church goers and even the children gathered on Monday, Jamaica's National Heroes Day, to unite forces and clean the yard. They all brought something, whether it was seeds to plant, plants or flowers, the necessary tools, or even food for the feast that was prepared after a hard days work.

It was inspiring to see what a community can do when they unite and work together, unselfishly. As the adults said, even 'dem pickney helped out! (Even the children helped!)

Throughout the day, the bugs were BAD...I pretty much got attacked so badly that it created a huge infection going from my ankles to my knees on both legs. I went to the Dr. and got a prescription for the infection, so I am fine now, but my ankes and feet swelled so badly I couldnt even walk!!! So I hope you enjoy these gross pictures haha

If a flower could do it...

These pictures were taken at sunset at Treasure Beach a week ago, where we went for our first retreat. Breathtakingly beautiful. In the first, the water reflected the red sky. In the second, the world took on a golden hue, healing and peaceful.



I am trying to start a garden. It has been a feeble attempt because I think I may have the opposite of a green thumb, but I am just hoping a green thumb can be acquired and it is not something you have to be born with.

So my garden. It is built into this ledge in front of my house, being held up by a rock wall. I have already planted sorrel (a flower to make my favorite juice), tomato and Irish potato. Next is cucumber and pineapple. Now, although I have initiated this project, I am not the brains behind the operation. Frank, a man who has worked here for about forty years, has been helping me acquire the seeds and proper planting technique. He basically prepares the land, digs the hole, and I drop the seeds in, one by one, until he says “alright, alright”. It could be at times pretty comical, because I tend to make mistakes often and he just takes it from me and does it instead.

So I guess what the first line of this entry should have been was: I am helping to start a garden by incorrectly placing seeds in holes. Haha

I tend to check on the saplings every morning before I leave for work. It is exciting to see the tiny stems break though the man made hole and then sprout tiny leaves that will soon turn into flowers that I will (hopefully) one day be able to pick and make juice out of. This morning, when I walked out, the sun shone on the little guys as it seemed they were stretching to take in all they could.

But what grabbed my attention was not that a new sapling had broken through. Instead, I saw that a huge flower had emerged from a vine that was growing out of the side of the rock bed. Giant and pink, and growing essentially out of rock, the last place I would imagine a flower to emerge. Here I am, nurturing the saplings of the Sorrel flower, hoping that just one will grow with enough love and care (aka water and sunlight), and out of rock came this beautiful entity, made by God just to brighten someone day, despite all that was betting against it.

So it got me thinking about purpose. Purpose of flowers, purpose of sunshine, purpose of lightening bugs, purpose of people. Purpose is a loaded word, huh? Purpose is even a scary word, because it demands you to dig deep into yourself, a place that can be intimidating, unknown, and even tumultuous. I mean, I wonder what the purpose of that flower is. That single flower that has emerged from rock, that will not turn into fruit for us to eat. I guess scientifically thinking, flowers produce pollen…blah blah blah. This is true.

But what about its beauty?

What about its wonder?

What about the smile it put on my face?

We too, have purpose. We too, come from tough, tough places where it is easy to doubt that anything beautiful can come from it, like a rock wall. But it happens. Beautiful people emerge from hard places all the time. And it is those beautiful people that bring a single, solitary smile to a persons face. To show that it can be done.

It can be done.

And lets be serious, smiles are contagious, right?

I see it here a lot, in children who have nothing positive to go home to, in parents who have been overcome with sickness and poverty, or in teachers who have drowned in being overworked, underpaid and discouraged.

Or even in you and me who have our own struggles we deal with every day. We all struggling. But there is still beauty present in humanity. Despite all the hurt, pain, ugliness, destruction, and rockiness, there is still that lone flower that shines as bright as day to help bring out the beauty in the surrounding flowers, the surrounding people.

So if a flower can do it, so can we. Bloom from that rocky place where nobody thought you could! Or help someone see they can too. Because we each can, and I think that if each of us even does just one thing for someone else, together we can make the world a better place, or at least a better the world for that single person, and in the long run, what really changes the world? Each individual, of course.

Has it really been almost three months?

I wake up in the morning with the bright island sun shining in my eyes, my eyes squinting with the drastic change of sleepy time darkness to new day wonder. I am tired. No, I m exhausted. At this very moment, I am in love with my bed. I roll over and pull my blanket over my head. There has been a cool breeze at night lately. I wonder if I am cold because it is getting cold here or if I am cold because I have been used to overwhelming heat for the past few weeks.

I know my day lay ahead of me. I will walk a half hour through the mountains to my bus stop where I’ll wait for a coaster bus that will soar through the winding, rolling hills up to good ole Devon Pen. Now that it’s been almost three months, I usually recognize someone on the bus or on the street, which is comforting and actually really cool. I never thought I would have friends on the road in Jamaica. I never thought I would be living in Jamaica either, but that’s a whole other story.

Forty-five minutes and a wild bus ride later I reach Devon Pen. Sometimes I’ll visit shut ins before school, or visit lonely mothers busy at work hand washing the family’s clothes, cooking dinner, or coming back from “the bush” where they farm most of their food. This certainly is a matriarchal society. I spend time, chatting and learning about their lives, the happy and sad, the triumphs and struggles. Sometimes I learn to cook a Jamaican dish, sometimes I make my favorite juice from a Sorrel flower, or sometimes I help make chocolate, a process that includes roasting, peeling and mashing the bean. I have learned to appreciate how “the time” is what matters. Being there, spending time, allowing them to teach me, is what ensures their dignity of both of us, together, as friends.

The school children are the most beautiful children I have ever seen (except for Leigh-Leigh and Michaela, Collin and Keira of course haha). As I walk up the school yard, the children run full speed towards me, racing to be the first to latch their skinny arms around my waist. I catch myself smile and laugh…can it get much better than this? As they near, I brace myself, because once one fastens himself to my waist, they will all be seconds behind, arms wide, as they form a giant circle of children, each holding the person in front of them to create a giant skirt of children ascending from my waist. After much teetering and near falls, they begin to break away, awaiting for individual hugs, and leaving remnants of their snacks left on their face all over my shirt. If I wasn’t profusely sweating before this, I certainly am now.

The fact that these children learn at the schools is a miracle. Some of the kids are so bright, and excel through their natural tendency to absorb knowledge quickly. Others are drastically left behind, a poor reality in schools of poverty, where they are understaffed, under-resourced, and overall discouraged. More times than not, the kids aren’t given the benefit of the doubt, are too soon beaten than understood, and bullied by other school children in a culture where it is not uncommon to hit your neighbor as a way to play. I am not there to change any of these things, as much as it hurts me to witness, and although I see a different way of conducting class, I am fresh and in many ways, ignorant eyes to issues that are centuries old and cultures away. I try to encourage the kids with hugs, affirmations, and explanations. I try to focus on love and praise them as a way of positive reinforcement, but for all of their lives they have learned to react to punishment. At the end of the day, I am exhausted, confused, and overwhelmed.

I try to wake every morning, with the sun shining brightly in my eyes, approaching the day as a new day, with a renewed energy. I try to see God in my daily activities, whether it is a mother bathing her infant in the river or a patient and loving pre-school teacher who treats the children as her own. I struggle daily and even hourly at times in processing poverty, crime, and how God’s grace fits into all of this. But then I remember a prayer written by Richard at Sunday School a few weeks ago. He is a ten year old boy being raised by his grandmother and very sick grandfather.

“Please pray for my mother and father and grandmother and sick grandfather. Please keep them safe and healthy because I love them very much. And please help me to be the man you want me to be.”

A ten year old is asking God to help him “Be the man He wants him to be.” He is a beautiful soul in this country, raised by a beautiful family, and that is what keeps me going. The children. That is why I am here.

Oh Gutav, you awful thing

Oh Gustav, you awful thing.

I spent the day in bed Sunday after the storm, sickened with sadness and heartbreak. The day begins with mass at 8:30 at Immaculate and I am already sort of poopy (yes, that is the technical term) and then I am told I cannot go to Devon Pen (my primary mission) because the roads are too bad. So I think, "oh okay...a few trees are down" and I decide to go to King Weston instead with Lauren. Lauren drives up because she is more familiar with the roads and King Weston is the mission that is farthest up in the mountains with the worst roads. On a good day, it would take us about and hour and fifteen minutes to get up to the church, but with road damage from a storm, we have no idea what we are driving into.

We are still on Junction, the main road to the North Coast of the island. So we figure that it is surely clear because it is heavily traveled. Out of nowhere, as we turn the bend, we see the two lane road merge into 1 lane because half the road has collapsed into the river. It is now a week and a half later, and half the road is still gone. ( I will put up pictures soon)

Ok...so we continue on, a little startled at the fact that we just saw half a road vanished into the raging river below. We ask at the halfway mark, where we turn off the main road, if it is clear up to the church. "Yah mon, roads clear. Blessed up". So we continue on, cautiously maneuvering the van up this already horrendous road, now converted into dirt, rocks and debris from landslides, broken walls, and debris being carried down the road that I am sure resembled a river during the storm. A few times I was sure we were going to get stuck in the mud. I could picture it already- the two of us and a bunch of Jamaican men behind the van in our Sunday's best, pushing the van out of the mud.



I count six broken telephone poles so far and we are only half way there. Some with the wires laid out on the ground for us to drive over, some wires hanging to hit the van as we passed underneath. King Weston did not get power or water until a week after the storm.

Around every corner, my jaw drops lower and my sighs grow sadder. This is awful. Thank God it wasn't a stronger hurricane. These poor people. Men with shovels- old men, young men, children, digging out the road. A bulldozer easing some of the work. Mud and rock everywhere, as we heard from the road the usual friendly remarks... "Yah mon!', "Blessed up", "Wagwam", and "alright" (well, lets not forget the ever present "WHITEY" hahaha)

We were close, about three quarters of the way there and we came to a stop. A landslide had taken out a shop on the corner and then crumbled into a family's home. Thank God the family was safe, but all of their possessions were destroyed. The woman told us how grateful she was for her and her sons safety. "No man, we're alright...at least we have our life".

At least we have our life...

That sure is gratitude. And that surely put me in bed the rest of the day. We had to turn around because the road was blocked. We went back to our safe place, with all of my things, and certainly my life, to a comfortable bed, with food, electricity and water (even though it was unsafe to drink) and I went to bed. I kept mulling that woman's remark over in my mind. Was I as grateful as she?

I later realized what I was feeling was grave concern and hopelessness. The people here have become my life. They are stealing my heart every chance they get and they have done a wonderful job at becoming my family away from home already. Previous to this year, I had only been on service trips to help strangers who have suffered from loss, tragedy, poverty and/or injustice. These experiences have been priceless for me, but I did not have an emotional attachment to those I was serving. Now, the people who I am encountering every day are no longer strangers. When I tried to call Aunt Daph in Devon Pen the day after the storm and did not get an answer, I was severely concerned. She has opened her loving arms to me every single time I visit her. She has taught me how to cook several Jamaican dishes, has showed me around, and she has accepted me into her home without hesitation. When I called her and she did not answer, I wanted to immediately drive to her house to check on her and fix any problem present. But I couldn't. The roads were blocked. There was no way for me to help her if she needed me. And I couldn't even get a hold of her to ask.

Thankfully, for the most part, most people experienced incredible water damage, which is manageable. I was able to visit Wednesday after the storm and bring up some water for the people. But I just keep thinking about that family with the landslide in King Weston and say to myself, well thank God they have their life....and thank God I have mine.

Since then I have started school, which is absolutely amazing. The kids are energetic, curious, honest and FUN! They love to play, sing, and dance and I keep imagining them as little theatrical wonders. I helped to teach the first grade class, which was wonderful and played football at recess, all the while building tons of relationships and establishing trust with their innocent minds and hearts. I am going to really enjoy school and am excited to love them, care for them and teach them all that I can.

Give and it shall be given unto you

In the bulletin at mass this week, I read a poem that touched me and helped to ground me. I hope it sparks a small flame of inspiration inside of you, as it did for me.

The Joy of Unselfish Giving
Time is not measured by the years that you live
But by the deeds that you do and the joy that you give…
And each day as it comes brings a chance to each one
To love to the fullest, leaving nothing undone
That would brighten the life or lighten the load
Of some weary traveler lost on life’s road…
So what does it matter how long we may live
If as long as we live we unselfishly give.

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over…Luke 6:38

Lately I have been thinking...what have we received that has not been given to us?





O yeah, While running errands the other day, I heard Hanson's Mmbop on the car radio in Jamaica...yes Mmbop in Jamaica ON THE RADIO....I was shocked and THRILLED, so I rolled down the windows, blasted the radio and rocked out to this wonderful surprise...If you know me well, you know this could make my day/ week and it so did...woo hoo... BIG UP JAMAICA!!!

So it got me to thinking about how I have been here for almost two months...wow, almost two months in another country living out what I thought I could never do. This is nuts. This is surreal. This is my life. And I love it. But more importantly, as I sang the words to this fantastic song, I thought about the lyrics and thought, "I've been here for almost two months, and in an mmbop it will be gone..." (haha yes, i did just quote hanson and you LOVED IT!)

I have been incredibly busy with the beginning of the school year but will soon be updating my blog with a few great stories and some pictures when I have more time on the internet! I promise!

....and please watch this video, it touched my heart and brought tears to my eyes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adYbFQFXG0U

Hello Mr. Gustav

Hello Mr. Gustav,

Please be nice to us and our Jamaican friends. We do not mind some rain, but please go easy on the wind and try to keep your stay in Jamaica short and nondestructive.

Thank you,
Amber DelPrete


We received a phone call from our weather guru and friend, Rosie, at 7am on Thursday morning. She gave strict instructions: Pack your things, secure the house and move in with her by noon. Gustav is on his way.

So that is what we did. Food, books, movies, random shiny things to keep us occupied like crayons and markers and fun paper, and oh yeah, clothes, all got shoved in a bag and tossed into our van for our first hurricane experience.

Gustav hit Jamaica by about 9pm Thursday night, although it rained HARD all day. The damage is "minimal". Well the radio says it is minimal. We hear over the radio, “4,000 people have been displaced, a bridge has collapsed, trees are down, about 150 houses have been swept away, flooding, landslides, rooftops are blown away and there are 11 deaths”. That doesn’t seem minimal to me.

I am going to be completely honest, the wind is exhilarating. For a long while I sit on the veranda and take it all in. It feels cool and fresh and it is exciting to see the trees blow sideways in the wind, an unnatural and uneasy sight, but all the while, exciting.

It is only supposed to be a Category 1, which according to Jamaican standards, isn’t a bad storm. According to Amber standards, if it has to be labeled with a category number, it certainly is not good news.

I sit on the veranda. The rain gets louder and the wind, stronger. The cloudy sky turns vibrant shades of purple- beautiful but unnerving. Something about a purple sky makes me uneasy. Especially if it’s a cloudy, vibrant, purple, straight out of Crayola crayon box or a water color painting. I want to snap a picture of it because it doesn’t look real. But I don’t want to walk away from this view to go inside to get my camera. This is a fleeting moment. So I just sit.

I become inspired to send a prayer into the universe, thanking God that my tummy is full, my clothes are dry, and most importantly, that I and those around me are safe because there are plenty of people in Jamaica who do not have this luxury. I am usually not one for spontaneous prayer, but it felt the thing to do at the time.

A family in the missions keeps creeping into my conscience as the rain pours and the wind gusts. They are members of Devon Pen church and live in a single room in the mountains with several children, I haven’t been able to keep track of how many. I am scared for her. I am scared for her children. I try to put them out of my mind…“They are used to this,” I try to comfort myself with. But I know it is false comfort. And I become confused and ashamed and selfish because I am trying to comfort myself, when I am not the one needing comfort...i am comfortable and blessed to be in this house, full, dry and safe. The family needs the comforting. There are plenty of families who are not having such a comfortable experience with this hurricane and they cannot escape it. So many who are scared of their shelter being blown away. But this is reality. Sad reality.

I sat on the internet for a long time today. Rosie has wireless internet and it is a treat to use it. I turn into an addict when I get a chance to go online. It takes you- the internet, and before you know it, you’re eating dinner. With your eyes stinging. And the day behind you.

But I received many lovely emails today from people that I love. I love emails, especially thoughtful, reflective, “I am thinking of you” emails. So thank you, thank you.

I made a Jamaican friend last week as I was practicing guitar. He has a few children. I knew his name, but now I forget it. I do that often. I want to remember, I really try. But the name escapes me regardless of the number of mind exercises I perform to remember. I end up remembering the curly-haired child with him instead or the shadow of the setting sun or his nervously tapping toes.

We had great conversation about Jamaica, about expectations, about people. He told me my spirit moved him. That I emitted a positive energy not present in many people anymore. That I made his heart feel light.

He had been nervous to talk to me. But something made him take the leap and approach me. He expected me to insult him, or shoo him away. Insult or disregard him. Why? He couldn’t say.

I sat and listened to this, my fingers strumming the strings on my guitar without any intent, and felt sad. Why would anyone insult someone they have never met? But he had thought this. Something made him think that. I know I am not intimidating so I asked if I looked snooty. He said no, I saw him as he was. Equal and present without playing the common role two strangers might play- uneasy, untrusting and unconcerned.

My wish. That we could naturally meet a person where they are in life and be okay with it. Role-less interaction. Meet them not as a “secretary”, “grocery store clerk”, “teacher”, “volunteer”, or “stranger”. But instead…meet them as a “person”. Person to person interaction. An attempt to first see the human in everyone, because at the end of the day, we are all the same, even though we may label ourselves or each other differently.

Intend to meet me where I am and be okay with it. I will try to do the same. Then we will have a conversation.

More Pics!!

This is a picture of the HUGEST but COOLEST catepillar I have EVER seen. There are tons of them all over the place in the hotel...apparently they eat the trees clean, which I have noticed and I am still amazed by it. And when you try to pet them, they try to bite you, as I soon found out...haha oops. As you can see, it is about as big as my finger and I swear they are real! How cool!



These are pictures of my room/ bed. We put netting up over the windows, but the bugs still get in so I put a net over my bed. It is not entirely necessary, but certainly does help, and I think its cool that I sleep in a sort of cocoon....haha The view from my bedroom window is yes, a jungle, without a house in sight :) We see very interesting wildlife (this morning I saw a hummingbird!!) and I love the huge window, especially because the sun wakes me nice and early (about 7:30) , which conveniently means no alarm clock and I wake freshly rested!

o yeah, for those of you who can see closely, yes bunny is there enjoying the view from my pillow as well. haha


If I have called you, I am usually talking to you as I sit at this spot, which is one of my favorite places at home. There is a great view of the city and the sunsets always display a beautiful array of pinks and purples, which is certainly a gorgeous sight.

Picking COCONUTS!!!!

So I was laying by the pool Friday afternoon when all of a sudden I hear this huge CRACK!!!! I jumped and looked around to see that a coconut, yes a coconut, had fallen from the coconut tree above the pool and splashed in about five feet from me. Now, imagine if I had been in the pool where that coconut had fallen...I would have been killed! Or at least knocked unconscious! So I am thinking that I may wear a helmet from now on when walking around Jamaica (Tim Rich's wonderful advice) I wonder how many injuries are caused by blunt force to the head from a falling coconut.....geez, this country sure is dangerous.

Well anyway, here we had this coconut and had no idea how to open it, so we found our dear friend Frank, who has worked at the hotel for at least the past fifty years. He knows everything about this place and we figured, would probably know what to do with this coconut. So we asked. He took the coconut and said "soon come", only to return five minutes later with a machete and a cracked coconut, ready for us to eat.

Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with eating coconuts from a tree, as I am now, I will give you a little lesson. When the coconut is picked from the tree, it has coconut milk in it, which you can drink, and then jelly inside that is delectable when scooped out and shoveled into your mouth. It makes a great little snack when you are hungry and dying of thirst and can usually be bought on the side of the road at a fruit stand for less than an American dollar. That is my favorite coconut and here I am drinking from one:


The one that fell from the tree into our pool was ripe, which meant the center was hard and is usually what we grate up into shaved coconut, but is good to chomp on as well. I told Frank how much I enjoyed the coconut jelly, which then caused him to again reply with "soon come", which meant he was going to climb a coconut tree for me to get me the jelly. Frank is certainly "the man!" Next thing I know, I see Frank, who is by no means a young fella, in a coconut tree, picking me a coconut with the water and jelly. This picture was taken in my "backyard", from my our roof/patio... if that is what you want to call it....haha




My favorite. He sure does take care of us, and we are blessed to know him and have him around. The next thing I knew, we had about six fresh coconuts in front of our house, ready to be drank/eaten or saved in the fridge for a cool snack later. I saved him some of our dinner and gave him some juice to show how grateful we are, because in this country, people show gratitude in food and I love it!

And here is the man himself, Frank, in a picture with Betsy and I with our matching PVI T-shirts! Yea monnnnnn

The view at dusk on my patio.....For my Jamaica 08 team, this is the patio where we star gazed when we lost power. Simply Breathtaking.....

My kitchen....yes, it is fully open to the elements and we commonly have lizards crawling on the walls and cats eating all of our crackers!! There is a fantastic view, however, and it is gorgeous during rain storms.