Jamaica is beautiful!

We are doing well, still officially in training, but at our site. We are working with a farmer's cooperative in the foothills. Our work will deal with agroforestry, getting the town's market back going, environmental education and all sorts of various things! We are really excited! The town is pretty small but has a grocery store and a really good rasta hut to get lunch! Our current housing situation is alright. . . no shower is our only real issue.
We've been to the beach a few times, it is really gorgeous. The water is hot! The first time we went swimming, we immediately saw a ray swim by!
We have made a lot of great friends among our group of volunteers. . . training has been quite the experience! Lots of boredom right along side lots of fun :)
No internet right now, but we will try to keep you all updated as much as possible. If you are wondering about specific things, let us know and we will try to repsond!

We have arrived!!!

We have arrived! Yes it is hot. . . but not unbearable. It has been quite a ride thus far – we were working off little sleep for the first few days – but sleep is looking better now! We left Raleigh at 6:30am on the 1st headed for Miami. Then staging for a day and a half – nothing too interesting, really just feel good stuff. The hotel we stayed at was amazing – pillowtop bed – two showerheads – you get the picture. We left the hotel at 6:30am and finally arrived in Kingston, Jamaica at 1pm on Thursday. The time zone is the same, but no daylight savings time – so right now it is an hour earlier here. The college that we are staying at is a small (note sarcasm) downgrade from the Miami hotel. We are staying in the dorms – foam bed – cold water from 5am-8pm – you get the picture. The food so far has been good – bbq chicken, fish, rice & peas (kidney beans), and shredded cabbage. Breakfast consists of baked beans, greens, bread, saltfish (really salty fish & veggie dish) and fresh fruit. We will be here training for 2 weeks, then we head out to our site (which we find out on the 17th where that is) for 2 weeks, back here for a week, back to site for 2 weeks, back to Kingston for a week of testing and swearing in at the end of August. So far, so good – a little boring really, but once we get through training we feel like we are going to like Jamaica. ---pictures suun kom!

Where is the time going?

We just received our staging packet in the mail today! This is really exciting and provides details about the first couple of days of our newest adventure. Until then though, my life is going to be crazy!

'Why crazy?' you ask? I am leaving on Saturday to go to Columbia, SC to finish the work on my thesis. Other than leaving all my friends at work, I'm not that sad about leaving Jacksonville. But this thesis is killing me. I've only been working on this thing four-ever! (For those of you keep score at home, that is literally four years.) So, I'm preparing for thesisville until I leave on the 9pm Amtrak to Columbia. Once there (4am) I'll work my tail off to get a defensible thesis together and get it defended. Which will (hopefully) be on one of the two days my adviser has open in June, the 19th or 20th. That date range works really well for me, because after I pass (thinking positive) I'll have a day to two to get corrections made, get it printed, and submitted to the graduate school. Then, about the 28th, two days before we leave, I'll go home to pack for the next two years of my life. That's right, two days for two years.

Rachel has agreed/is being forced to take care of everything else. Selling our car, packing our stuff for storage, moving us out of our apartment, finalizing bills, packing up for Jamaica, and the five million other things that need to be done.

So, I'm going to be a basket case for the next three weeks. Then I'm going to get dumped into a totally new environment, culture, and language. That will bring a whole new set of challenges.

Seriously though, I couldn't be more excited.

50 days. . .

not that I'm counting or anything. Okay, okay, I'm counting! It seems like there is so little to be done right now. It is too early to pack, pretty much all the paperwork is done and I've read through all the information! Now what? Just wait, I guess. We should receive our staging packet near the end of the month or beginning of June. That will contain information about booking our flight and what we will be doing in Miami for 3 days.
Both of our jobs are now aware that we are leaving. Everyone took it well, it is hard to be mad at someone who is volunteering for peace:) Telling work cemented the fact that we are really leaving and made me start to think of all the things I will miss. Ya know. . . family, friends, hot water (running for that matter), the usual.
Can't wait for July 1st. . . really, I'm having trouble waiting!

Just waiting for July!

Just a few introductions. . . we are a married couple leaving for Peace Corps service at the beginning of July. We are both in our late twenties. Currently, I teach high school biology and Wayne is a GIS/RIS Specialist. We live in coastal North Carolina. Mostly, we are VERY excited about leaving for Jamaica!!!
We started the Peace Corps (PC) application process last June. For those of you that aren't aware, there is a ton of paperwork involved with PC acceptance. We were nominated for the Caribbean in August and worked to get all that paperwork done for a good 6 months. We finally received our invitation (means everything is official) in late February. That is when we found out that we would be serving in Jamaica. I will be under the heading of Environmental Promoter and Wayne is under Community Forestry Advisor. We only have very vague job descriptions at this point and will not find out more until a few weeks into training. We will not find out exactly where in Jamaica we will be until sometime in August.
We hope to keep this blog up to date with our current progress and once we get to Jamaica, exciting stories of our service!
(Above picture: Us outside of Monteverde, Costa Rica)