What We Are Doing

Ok, I'm getting the hint. We have been here for almost 15 months and nobody knows what we are doing here in Jamaica. Even the people we talk to on a regular basis are not clear on our day-day lives or even our living arrangements. Much to the displeasure of my mother-in-law we are not building toilets for people. Although people do need them - a sanitation survey I conducted in one community showed that over 15% of people do not have a properly functioning toilet, i.e., a basic pit latrine or hole in the ground - we have been unable to secure funding to build them.

A typical Peace Corps volunteer has a primary job/project and a couple secondary projects. In some cases volunteers have multiple secondary jobs, a primary job that takes up all of their time or a combination of the two. For me, my primary job is with the Ministry of Health where I am working with the maintenance department in the Southern Region of the island. I am helping get a bio-medical equipment preventative maintenance (PM) project off the ground for two hospitals, monitoring utilities (energy usage) at three hospitals and building a maintenance database as well. My secondary project is with the 4-H clubs on the island. As I have written about previously, we have a bio-diesel project that is taking up most of my time. We are awaiting for materials and the processor will be constructed, I hope, by the end of October. Pictures will soon come. As for Mrs. Zed, she is working with the health department in the parish with the parish nutritionist, where she is primarily helping with breastfeeding. This week, in fact, is National Breastfeeding Week. Her other project is with the community center in the town we live in, where she is attempting to get a literacy class off the ground, as well as other classes.

As to our living arrangements. We live in a two-family house, where our landlord lives next store. We have all basic amenities - electricity (fairly unreliable) and piped water. There are grills on all windows and doors. We use cell phones for communication and because it's cost prohibitive, we don't have internet in our home. We do have internet at our work sites and could use it at the local library for free if we choose to do so. And no, we don't have air conditioning! That's right, most houses don't have it. How do we get by? Well, this summer was a bit of a struggle, but we do have fans and fortunately it cools off at night.