jamaica is WONDERFUL!

Hello everyone! its tuesday and we're having an amazing time. I'm in the community center's office on their computer, dr swauger asked me to update everyone about what we've been doing the last few days so here we go! we arrives on saturday at night so we didn't get our first real taste of jamaica until the morning when the sun was shining and goats were roaming the streets. in addition to goats, we also see a lot of chickens and cows tethered in peopl's front yards. they drive on the opposite side of the street so it took just a few days to get used to that. on sunday we went into the mountians, we drove up very windy roads and the drivers have to honk their horns as we turn a hard left or right to let oncoming traffic know we are coming. when we traveled farther up the mountain we stopped at a construction project where the community and our group worked together to help build a new house for a woman who lost her house in a fire a few months ago. we used an assembly line technique to move rocks and cement buckets so that was a team building activity and it was a good way to start our trip. after that, we went to the beach and got to have our first dip in the Caribbean. the water was very warm, salty, and green. we found a lot of starfish and took pictures together. we have been eating a lot of plantains and mangoes. fish and chicken are served with many meals and toast of crackers with butter is also usually served with meals at my house mother's home. living with a host family has been a good experience for me as i cannot see a way to better experience the culture of jamaica. yesterday was our first day in the camp and immediately i felt welcomed by everyone. a few of the girls even came up to m and pulled me away and invited me to come on a walk with them. we played net ball which is sort of like basketball. its actually lunch/break time right now so soon we'll probably play some net ball again. yesterday we also went into town and bought phones so we have two phones that we can call home on. it will be expensive to call us for you back home but we might send out an email with the numbers for emergencies. so don't worry if we don't contact you every day because we are very busy and most days are filled with a lot of activity or conversation as we're all trying to learn about each other. i think we might have some curry chicken for lunch, i can smell the spice and it smells so good! we've had a few speakers come to talk to us about the education system and we're learning a lot. their school system is different in some ways from ours back in the states but there are also many similarities. today we've heard two speakers, one from a principal and one from a police officer that used to attent the camp as a boy. we also heard a poem by a girl which was really good. we video taped a lot of the activities and we're going to put together a dvd when we get back. i think some of the girls are going to braid our hair soon so that will be cool, (literally) because its very hot here. i'm starting to get used to it though. luckily my roommate deborah and i have a fan in our room! we also had class yesterday on a platform with a roof and while we were having discussions it started to rain. it felt so good and was such a welcomed rain that a few of us just stayed under the downpour and appreciated the cooling affect of the water. That, and the time spent in the shower, are the only times we're really cool during our time here on the island. i feel like we've been here weeks and weeks but its only been a few days! I cant wait for the rest of the trip and all the fun things we will do, but i know that every day that passes marks the end of our great trip. so farits been such a great experience and i cant wait for more more more!

- on behalf of the whole group in jamaica
-jackie michaels