Word Vomit

So it’s clearly no shock that I’ve only updated three times after being gone for a month. I don’t really have any specific stories to tell because everything just seems like one huge run on sentence of events and people and things all mashed together into a big humid blur…kind of like this sentence.

After our two-ish weeks in Hellshire, we moved out to our sector specific hubs. The youth sector, my sector, went to Stony Hill, which is up in the mountains just above Kingston. Here we’ve been sitting in a classroom a lot because, well, that’s just what you do for training. We’ve only had to watch a few videos made in the 80s, but none have been as incredible as the ones I had to watch at FedEx for my package handler job. I will never wear a t-shirt with a graphic of a wolf howling at the moon tucked into sweats which are then tucked into work boots and then get my un-ponytailed hair stuck in a mechanical belt.

I’ve been enjoying Stony Hill quite a bit. It’s in the mountains and mountains always make me happy. The temperature, especially at night, is more bearable. I can sleep and not wake up coated in sweat. Sunsets and sunrises are pretty awesome, and there are plenty of steep roads and places to explore. Virginia and I did yoga one evening on a veranda with a perfect view of the sunset over the mountains; I’ve never felt so cliché and exactly like a stereotypical Peace Corps hippy. Sadly, there are no trails because that isn’t really a big priority here, so staring at the mountainsides is a big tease. A machete would fix this issue.

A few of us have been running in the evenings after training. When I say running I mean huffing up an extremely steep road and then sprinting back down it; there is no such thing as flat ground here. There’s a marathon/half marathon/10K in Negril at the beginning of December and if we all train somewhere like this, we’ll show up and totally slaughter the competition. Assuming no one else ran straight uphill for fun because who the hell does that?

I’m getting pretty good at ignoring all the random men hissing at me, which apparently is how they ask you out on a date here. I’m becoming ok with being called ‘baby’, ‘sunshine’, ‘sweetie’, ‘pretty girl’, ‘afro chick’ and whatever else that almost every male says when they walk by and after staring not so subtly. Some guy asked me for my phone number when I was walking home tonight. The conversation went like this: ‘Good evening, can I have your phone number?’ To which I replied ‘No, I don’t have a phone’. Huge lie, I totally have a phone. Then he offered to give me his phone. Family and friends, you know what you’re getting for Christmas and birthdays…a used phone and some random dude’s number.

Jamaicans want to touch my hair just as much as the people back home do. They also ask if I’m a female, just like people at home. The whole short hair thing just really throws people, especially right after I just burp or swear loudly. My host family in Hellshire said they thought I was a boy when I walked downstairs in my soccer shorts and t-shirt. Weird.

Oh, and no one believes me when I tell them I really can play soccer. I spent tonight playing with a bunch of guys at the field in town, then got roped into playing more in front of a church on my way home. The field was a blast back to my first three years at Montana State Billings with the best field in the West. Best meaning best gravel pit in the center, best hump down the middle blocking sight of players’ lower halves, best flooding goal boxes, best bumpy as a horny toad’s back playing surface, and best dead grass. This field actually may have been better than that, as there was no hump and the grass was green where it actually was growing. The area in front of the church was straight up gravel. Stopping required my skiing skills and a pass that went where it was intended was a miracle. When I play on a quality surface again, my first touch is going to be great, which is what happened after playing for three years on the field from hell in Montana. Real pitches are overrated.

We went on a three day shadowing experience at the beginning of this week. I went to a small village, Accompong, up in Cockpit Country on the western part of the island with another trainee, Mary, to stay with a couple of current volunteers who happen to be a couple named Matt and Julie. It was a great experience. I felt like I was in a Peace Corps commercial the whole time: perfect little rural village, beautiful scenery, awesome volunteer projects and hammocks. I hope my site is halfway as awesome as Accompong is; I don’t want to hope for too much. It made me really anxious to get out to site and have some freedom. And then miss being around everyone at training. You can never have everything.

I miss everyone at home and think about everyone often. I can’t wait for visitors after my first three months at site. But don’t you worry, my fellow trainees are awesome and my host families have been stellar, so I am being taken care of.

And I think that is about it for my word vomit session.

PS – I can receive padded envelopes full of cool shit during training…cough, cough. No packages until September, though. Send me interesting books, I need shit to read.

Real Street Soccer

I had my first Jamaican street soccer experience the other night. After a few days of getting a feel for the community and where and when soccer was played, I put my indoor shoes on and sauntered down the street. A group of guys always play at five in the evening in front of the church where our PC training takes place. After convincing my host brother that I can indeed play soccer and play it rough, he told me to go down there the next night ready to play. So I did.

When I approached the group, they all stopped playing and looked at me like I was a cross between the swamp monster and a Victoria Secret model wearing all white in the rain. They immediately put me on a team. I looked all business in my white indoor Nikes, so it was clear I was there to play, not to watch them and get hit in the head with a stray ball. My teammates raised their hands so knew who I was passing to; there are no such things as pinnies or jerseys in street soccer. The game restarted like it had never stopped and I was officially at my first street soccer tryout.

I did surprisingly well considering I pretty much forgot who was on my team, it was getting dark and was starting to rain. I only really passed to the dude with the red tank top on because he was the only one I knew for sure was on my team. There is a constant stream of shouting while playing football on the street, and I could only figure out what they were yelling by what was going in the game. I felt a little bit like a deaf and mute kid who finally got picked first for the kickball team at recess.

Playing in the street implies that other people are going to want to use the street. Whenever a car would come out way there would be shouts of ‘CYAR, CYAR!’, which is how car is pronounced in Patwa. The cars would be polite and drive around the big rocks that were being used for goals. Play was stopped when a person or a family would walk by; no one wants to be responsible for hitting Grandma in the head with a ball. Play was also stopped when there was a massive argument about whether a goal was scored or if there were too many players on one team. Or if someone totally ate shit on the slippery as snot wet street. That happened and I totally laughed, as did everyone else, much more loudly than me. It’s nice to see that the humor in tripping and falling on your ass crosses culture lines.

The game was finally stopped because it became impossible to see. Everyone started introducing themselves to me as famous soccer players, so I told them my name was Mia Hamm. To which I got b. I got blank stares. I was invited to come back the next night. And I did. And scored two penalty kicks and got referred to as a ‘baller’. I think my integration strategy will be playing football in the street and sweating my ass off while doing it. I just may come back with some wicked footskills from playing with ridiculously quick and talented Jamaicans for two years.

So...Linda Fell in a Puddle

I haven't even been here for a whole week and I've already experienced more than I thought I ever would in that amount of time. But there's one story that sticks out that I have to tell before I tell anything else. Linda fell in a puddle.

We were at the Kingston market, which is quite possibly one of the most overwhelming and insane places I have been. There were people, vehicles, shops, yelling, speakers blasting reggae, American Top 40, sermons, sometimes what seemed to be just shouting in no language at all, vendors trying to sell you toothpaste, soap, breadfruit, plantains, shitty plastic toys, whatever you want, and nasty puddles full of trash, road run off, spit, and potentially human waste. So imagine this chaotic scene as the backdrop for what you would never want to have happen to you in public: tripping and falling into a puddle of black, stinky, poopy water.

I was walking along the sidewalk, which is very uneven and full of holes and cracks. Suddenly I hear screaming and a commotion behind me. I look back and Linda is sideways in a puddle, arms and feet in the air, flailing for the railing that was not there. Now Linda is one of our older and wiser volunteers, so I was concerned at first. But when I could tell that she was not hurt, I started laughing. Obviously, falling is always funny. However, no one else was laughing. I was the asshole American laughing at someone else's bad fortune. Shocking. All the people around were very helpful, giving her wipes to clean herself and helping her up, while looking mortified. Which was probably the proper reaction, seeing what she fell in.

Our host moms helped clean her up and bought her new clothes to change in to. Let's just say that after having three basically strangers strip you down and scrap muck off of you, you have no dignity left, according to Linda. Hopefully she doesn't end up with jungle rot after falling into what she has deemed 'The Eternal Bog of Stench'. That's pretty much what it smelled like.

Now onto me. I've been really enjoying my host family, the community we're staying in, all of the other trainees and all of the staff. We were kept in a bubble for the first few days, staying in a nice hotel in Kingston, training in an air conditioned room, catered meals, and being carted around in Peace Corps vehicles. I kind of felt like a freshman in college again, being told what to do and where to be. But I was ok with it, because if kicked out into the street at that time, I would've probably just pooped my pants and started crying. Living with a host family is a great way to introduce us to the culture. I've been eating everything but the chicken foot soup, and I'm pretty sure she's trying to fatten me up by giving me huge portions. I'm taking care of that by watching her like a hawk when she serves up my plate. I am not going to gain twenty pounds in two weeks.

Tomorrow we start training for real. I've learned it isn't that hard to wake up early here because it gets light at around five in the morning and gets hot faster than a fat kid runs after a donut on a string. Or something like that. Next time I update I'll make sure to bore you with something like exerpts from the Volunteer Handbook.

I love and miss all my friends and family! I can't wait to get your letters and packages...that you are sending. Right? RIGHT?! Oh, don't send packages until after training, so in September. Cool, thanks.

Real News

In typical fashion, I have procrastinated on updating this blog for, oh, only a few months. I hope no one was holding their breath for activity on here, because if you were, you would've passed out around the beginning of the year. But patience always pays off and now I have real news! Not fake, but real news! News that probably pretty much everyone I care about is aware of because I've already told you. But repetition is the key to learning, so I thought I'd pound everyone with the same information all over again.

I got my invitation a while ago. I will be flying out for staging in Miami on June 27 at really damn early in the morning. After two days there I will be boarding a short flight down to Kingston, Jamaica for my pre-service training with about thirty other new volunteers. My 'job' description is Youth as Promise Advisor, more specifically Youth and Sports. I thought that Peace Corps would be a guaranteed way to not get shoved into the box full of team sports and children I've created for myself, but luckily Peace Corps Volunteers have a lot of freedom with their projects, so I will attempt to indoctrinate kids with my crazy environmentalist point of views. Don't take the last part of that sentence too seriously...anyway, after about two months of training in sites in Kingston and just outside of it, I will officially start my service at the beginning of September. I will then be thrown out to the wolves and will have to fend for myself like a lost puppy in the supermarket. I have never seen a puppy in a supermarket...stupid metaphor.

I will attempt to keep this more up to date now that I actually have things to talk about. Expect at least one post where I totally freak out about leaving before the end of the month. I'll try to keep it entertaining.

Lab Rat

After months of silence, Peace Corps reminded me that I committed to being jettisoned off to a foreign country in approximately six months. I received an email while in Cheyenne for Thanksgiving telling me that my application status had been updated. Of course I forgot my damn password for my account log in, which led to about five minutes of swearing, annoyance and fending my family off of the computer. With my password successfully reset, I anti-climatically discovered that the change was a medical hold on my application. Meaning my application was finally being medically reviewed, which is good and bad news. The good news is progress is being made and my application hasn't fallen into an underfunded bureaucratic crack where its fate is like that of the Lost Ark in Indiana Jones, banished to a lifetime of dust collecting in some unnamed, not-on-the-map government warehouse full of coffin-like wooden crates. The bad news is that only 15% of applicants complete the medical review paperwork correctly the first time, which pretty much guarantees that I'll be getting back a form that I forgot to date, or even better, reconfirmation on a really expensive physical exam confirming that I indeed have two legs and two arms. What I got back was somewhere between those two extremes.

Waiting for me in Boise was a letter from the Peace Corps office in Washington D.C., telling me that I needed to repeat my urinalysis and send them lab work for Hepatitis C antibodies. Awesome. First, how the hell did I miss the lab work with everything else I had to be poked and prodded for? Secondly, I had all of my blood and urine tests done for free at the VA Medical Center in Cheyenne, so this letter would've been great to get, oh, about five days ago, when I was in Cheyenne. Fucking figures. The VA in Boise doesn't do Peace Corps medical stuff, which is really helpful. Primary Health in Boise, where I had a few tests done for the first rounds of paperwork, wasn't exactly the cheapest option and their receptionists are super awkward, making me want to avoid that place if at all possible. I enjoy awkward, but they take it to a new level, especially Pam. So what the hell is an uninsured, unemployed, total bum of a college grad supposed to do?

I spent about an hour combing the internet for alternate options, which is my typical response when I don't know what to do. Hopefully I will be able to problem solve in a country with limited internet access, but that is a whole other post. After thoroughly searching the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, Central District Health and Centers for Disease Control websites, I discovered that the pathetic fiscal management by our government has made this country's health resources not much more than a website with loads of information. After typing in a search term that was basically a sentence, Google rewarded me with something that could not be true: a franchise of labs across the country who did professional lab work for fairly cheap, no doctors or appointments involved. It's called PersonaLabs. You set up an account, order tests online, print out the confirmation sheet, take it to their lab (there are 1700 across the nation), pee in a cup, and your results are emailed to you in a few days. Seriously?! It was like ordering a pizza online, only this pizza was being tested for STD's and blood-borne pathogens. This was way too good to be true.

I read every bit of text on the PersonaLabs website to confirm it was legit. And it was. They actually had a panel of tests you could order specifically for Peace Corps. Conveniently, there was a lab just down the street, right next to my old high school. I ordered my two tests, paid online and rode my bike over, which was an adventure in itself with all of the miniature ice skating rinks on the roads. I half expected 'the lab' to be in a cubicle by the dumpster in the back of a parking lot. Luckily, it was not. It was in a small office building, in a room with a small waiting area, an examining room full of blood drawing equipment, and a bathroom with a basket overflowing with urine sample cups. Oh, and one very friendly employee. We chatted about soccer as she stabbed me in the arm with a needle and showed me the cool little door-compartment-door contraption between the examining room and bathroom where I was to put my full pee cup after I was finished urinating all over my hand in an attempt to get a clean sample. I was in and out in a matter of about ten minutes. I was pretty sure I had entered some alternate universe, where health care was affordable, uncomplicated and actually pleasant.

It supposedly takes a few days to get results back from a blood or urine sample. So I was extremely surprised when I sat down to check my email this morning and discovered that my results were already posted to my profile. WHAT?! It literally took them eighteen hours to test my specimens and get back to me. This is too much, I can't take how easy this process has been. Nothing with medicine ever goes this fast. Is this the future of health care? Streamline the process, order online, skip the private insurance option because that shit clearly isn't working so well, go to a minimalistic but effective facility and ta-da, you've taken care of your needs. PersonaLabs, thank you for making at least one part of my medical review process simple and quick.


After a flurry of activity, the Peace Corps adventure will go back to what it has mostly consisted of: waiting. Which at times can be frustrating, but mostly it's been good for me to be able to digest this new adventure I will be embarking on in the very near future. And it will give me time to ski this winter, which I am completely ok with.

Irrational Fears of an Over-Exerciser

Being in the midst of a waiting period lasting for an undetermined amount of time, I have the time to sit around and worry about all the various unknowns associated with Peace Corps service. The majority of my fears deal with fairly inconsequential issues, such as 'How may pairs of shoes will I be able to jam in my bag?' and 'Should I buy a Kindle so I can bring along a ton of e-books that I probably won't read?' and 'How I am going to survive a ridiculously long airplane ride overseas without gouging my eyes out or punching my neighbor?'. These are very important issues, obviously. I mean, I need a different pair of shoes for every activity: sitting, running, extreme walking (otherwise known as hiking), biking, climbing things, working, kicking a soccer ball and drinking beer. I've also discovered that reading is a great way to quickly put myself to sleep at night, meaning it takes me about a month to read a 300 page book, reading ten pages a night before I totally lose focus and start drooling. As for trips by airplane, my body takes being in a small, enclosed space with a bunch of strangers for an extended period of time as a cue to start manufacturing a massive amount of noxious gases. So when I say I'll have to avoid punching my neighbor on an overseas trip, what I really mean is that I will have to figure out a way to defend myself from a potential onslaught of angry non-mouth-breathers. While I am moderately concerned about these problems, there is one thing in particular I am very concerned with. It is my borderline obsessive compulsive nature of exercising. Yes, exercise.

Being in good shape is something I have gotten used to and put a lot of effort and time into. When you're in good shape year-round, you can register for half marathons a week and a half ahead of time and not stress too badly about passing out in a pool of vomit before the finish line. You can also eat voraciously every few hours and not have a body that screams 'I fucking LOVE Ben and Jerry's Half-Baked ice cream, one whole pint at a time!'. In addition to the eating benefits, you can also drink calorie intensive local and regional micro-brews almost daily, which has the added side effect of transforming you from Keystone Light guzzler to beer snob almost overnight. Being in quality shape also allows you to run around in circles for no real reason during recreation indoor soccer games, other than to prove you have too much time on your hands and spend it working out. Basically, what I'm saying is that being ridiculously active is a major part of my life. And I am not sure how that will fit in with Peace Corps service.

One of the great things about living in the United States, especially the West, is the ample opportunities and resources to live a healthy, active lifestyle. I can go for runs by myself and not worry about being snatched, go biking because I have the income to afford to do so, rock climb because I have the leisure time to spend pursuing it, and hike because I have access to some of the most beautiful mountains on the planet. Am I going to have these sorts of opportunities while overseas? I have absolutely no idea. For all I know, I could be placed in an area where my only exercise options will be doing pull ups from the door jam and running up and down stairs. Don't laugh, I've been very creative on vacations before...yes, I exercise on vacations.

I have a feeling soccer is going to save my ass, literally and figuratively. Soccer is a sport played and loved pretty much all across the globe, so I am almost guaranteed to end up somewhere with pick up games happening daily. Not only will I be able to satisfy my need to run around in circles, I'll also instantly have something in common with my new neighbors. I will obviously be making room in my bag for a pair of cleats. Like I said, I am very concerned with the high maintenance nature of my footwear needs.

I haven't even left for my service yet and I am already learning to appreciate America for what it is. The ability to work out probably isn't at the top of the worry-list for most volunteers; however, for me, it is near the top of the list. Most people have rational fears about Peace Corps service, like communication with family and friends back home, eating weird foods and learning a new language. Nowhere on the Peace Corps FAQ is there a section titled 'What if I am an over-exerciser? Will I be able to go for a run and eat half of the pantry afterward?' Not knowing exactly where I will be placed or what sort of situation I will be in, I can't really begin to prepare myself for what sorts of creative ways to work out I will use to keep myself sane. I do know that I will have to mentally prepare myself to be okay with not being able to pull a half marathon out of my ass. I will have to adjust to a lower level of fitness and activity level. This might be a little rough and I might not like it very much at first, but it's something I will have to deal with. Plus, all of the other rewards of Peace Corps service will make being slightly out of shape seem like a more than fair trade. And I guess I will have to cut back on binge chocolate eating...maybe.

Progress!

Today was a historical day. A day I thought was never going to come. I MAILED ALL OF MY MEDICAL PAPERWORK BACK!!! Holy fucking shit, gathering all the necessary signatures, lab work, medical history, x-rays and prescriptions was seriously ridiculous. I am still brain blasted by the fact that I actually completed all of it, even with the complications of moving back home and traveling all over the place. I have signatures from doctors in Wyoming, Idaho and Colorado. There was a while there I lost track of time and space. This is about how the conversation went with the receptionist at Primary Health in Boise:

Receptionist: "What is your primary pharmacy?"
Me: "Well, I don't really have one...Osco, I guess."
Receptionist: "That's in Montana."
Me: "Right. Sorry, forgot where I was. Whatever the pharmacy that's inside of Albertson's."
Receptionist: "Sav-on?"
Me: "Yup, that's it."

Thirty seconds later

Receptionist: "Why don't you just go back to the original doctor and get him to sign off on this?"
Me: "I can't, he's located in Wyoming."
Receptionist: "Oh, ok..." (look of confusion)

Thirty seconds later, again

Receptionist: "So you know that you have to come back in in two days to get your TB test read, right?"
Me: "Yeah, I know. That means I'd have to come in...let's see, it's Monday, so..."
Receptionist: "It's Tuesday."

From then on she treated me like I was ten years old. I probably deserved it, because I was apparently totally out of touch with reality. I am going to be so out of it when I am old.

Now that I've finished jumping through the medical hoops, I get to wait some more! Waiting is just so fucking fun, I can't handle it. I have this sneaking suspicion that I am going to get back half of my paperwork with a massive stamp on it that says "INCORRECTLY FILLED OUT" and "WHY THE HELL DO YOU HAVE TWENTY DIFFERENT SIGNATURES FROM THREE DIFFERENT STATES? GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER. UNACCEPTABLE." All in caps, exactly like that, overwhelming and immature.

The end.