First off- I had my birthday on this past Monday. Wahhooo! I get to spend two more birthdays in Jamaica before I end my Peace Corps service. I have to say, we are off to a good start. On Sunday another PCT (Peace Corps Trainee), Marie and I celebrated our close birthdays (by 3 days) at the beach! It was initially overcast, but the sun eventually came out of the clouds. I had some red stripe, and festivals. Festivals are almost like churros. Just fried dough without the cinammon sweetness....that reminds me, its Friday and my neighbor cooks them...I'll be getting some festivals after this write up. Yum!
Back to Sunday, people came to the beach to hang out, and some wore the birthday cone hats I found at the market in Kingston. I wore mine in the ocean, slightly foolish, but overall funny. Around 2ish or so a Red Stripe promo car drove onto the beach and blasted out some great dance music. The homestay kids that came to the beach with us were dancing and naturally I had to join. I'm a work in progress.
Then Monday, my actual birthday, friends came to my house after the days session and we watched Hunger games and ate rum cake that my host sister made! Delicious!
Now, last Saturday Group 83 had to experience the Carnation Market in Kingston. It's big. Theres people who come from all parts of the island and sell their fruits and vegetables. A lot that are new to me, but DELICIOUS! For instance, I love love love toasted breadfruit. Its like the way sounds, it grows on trees and the inside is like soft bread. I also tried star apple, its a purple plum looking exterior, yet has a gooey slime-like fruit center. It's...different in regards to texture, but the taste is good.
In the market, there are booths/sections of which farmers/sellers have with their goods. Everyone want you to buy their fruit or vegetables. The market area is also shaded by tarps to block the sun which creeps into the cracks of the makeshift roofs. My host family and I went at 7:30 in the morining, and we left by 11:00. We also went by the clothes shops too. These shops are small entrances into a building and are set up like a closed hallway. The clothes are displayed on mannequins in the front, and the rest on one wall pinned with their price. The other "wall" is a big gated area upon which the other side resides the owner with the clothes in clear bag packages. When you decide on the clothes item, they get it from the inventory and you purchase the clothes like you would buying movie tickets, with that partition.
We will be going back to Kingston for some sightseeing tomorrow, I look foward to seeing some historical and cultural parts of the capital city. I'm getting a better idea of the geographics of Jamaica. Today we had due as homework a country map, a seasonal calendar and a community map of Hellshire.
As a PCT I did this to begin learning how to learn about my environment and what will be important to me in the Youth As Promise Sector. For the country map I mapped the 14 parishes and capitols and then located sports and party sites pertaining to the youth population. I found there are all kinds of events in Jamaica. One I want to do is the Reggae Marathon ( I may just do the half) in December. There are cricket, netball, football, rugby, running, triatholon events all over. As for party's it goes from Carnival/Baccachanal, Dream Weekend for Independence day, to Jamaica Fashion week. I hope to participate in some events in the future! Then with the seasonal calendar, I reflected the same information, but in calendar form. Then the community map was a way to view my immediate location and the likle shops and fields that I go by and eat at.
I titled this post Vybzies, because vybz is a description of a person whos chill with spunk, or something. haha. And the Peace Corps driver called me that too. haha. We'll see if the nickname sticks.
Now, time to get those festivals!
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