Intro and Week 1

I am going to do my best to write and share in such a way that three main audience groups get something out of this blog. I will primarily write to friends and family that are just wanting to keep up on what Linnae and I are doing and how things are going. I will also write about the 'Peace Corps experience' for folks who may have found this blog and are interested in learning more about the organization and what serving is like. I will also write about my experiences as a Peace Corps Masters International participant and catalog the process of developing a research problem out of my agricultural role in the community. Please feel free to leave comments or questions in the appropriate space below each posting.

Week 1: Linnae and I left the airport in Ohio on March 12 enroute to Atlanta, GA for the staging event. The staging event is basically a 24 hour process that takes care of some initial paperwork and allows the volunteer group to interact and talk about expectations, apprehensions, etc.

We checked out of our hotel at 2:00am on Wednesday morning to catch our flight out of Atlanta. We had a brief layover in Miami and were in Kingston by 11:30am. We were greeted by Peace Corps staff and loaded our baggage into a truck. We then went to the Peace Corps (PC) headquarters and commenced with some more administrative tasks. Late in the afternoon we went back to check into a hotel and collect our luggage. At 6:30pm we went back to the PC headquarters for the Group 83 (that's our group) 50th Anniversary Peace Corps Jamaica party. Linnae and I's group has the honor of being the group that arrived during this special anniversary. At the event, many dignitaries from the US and Jamaican governments spoke, but it was the entertainment portion that we really enjoyed. The Nexus Performing Arts Company gave a great show consisting of gospel, classical, reggae, and African music and dance. It was a great welcome to the island.

Since then, we have been busy with Pre-Service Training (PST). Some of this was done in Kingston, but we are now in the Portmore area for community-based training, language and cross-cultural, safety and security, and many others. Linnae and I are staying with a host family, who are taking very good care of us. We have our own room and bathroom and are being fed very well. However, eating well also entails eating some of the traditional fare: Cow Head and Chicken Foot Soup. I'm proud to say I had some of each, but I will be content if I can stick to animal products from the region between the head and feet in the future.

The Portmore community is a short walk from the beach, which we have to take advantage of now since our next community will be farther inland and our permanent community will likely be much farther inland and rural. Linnae and I attended church services on Sunday and really enjoyed ourselves. Churches I have attended back home could take a few lessons from the musical portion of services down here.

We are about to start our second week of training and will get to do a little more sight-seeing and learn more about public transportation, culture, language, and of course safety and security. For those of you who are worried, our Safety and Security Coordinator (SSC) was voted by her peers to be the best SSC among all of the PC's 77 countries of service.

Peace Corps Masters International
Prior to departing service, I did some generic literature review and identified a few texts that I intend to use as a basis for my research. However, my community counterpart organization and projects are supposed to drive my research, so expect to remain flexible and prepare yourself to identify a research problem after arriving and integrating into your community.