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| Bluefields Bay as seen walking down from my supervisor's farm |
Last week our Safety and Security Coordinator came to visit
and brought one of the best possible gifts; a care package from Linnae’s
sister. I say this, because inside was an 18-month weekly planner just for me
(the coffee is great too). Now I can finally keep track of all the meetings,
tasks, and fleeting ideas that come into my brain without shuffling through
disorderly notes in a flimsy college-ruled notebook. A wise Texas A&M
professor once told me, “Pale ink is better than brilliant memory.” I couldn’t
agree more.
Linnae and I have been in Jamaica for 110 days and at our
site here in Bluefields for 44. At this point, we more or less have established
a routine. I am up at about 5:30 to feed the chickens and fetch some water. By
six o’clock I am eating cereal, drinking coffee, listening to BBC, and reading
news (basically my morning routine back in the U.S.). If it is a weekday I am
on my way to a farm or working on a project at home by 7:30. Most of what I
have been doing at home is reading about organic farming, developing adult ICT
training, and literature review for my thesis. Linnae and I each wash dishes
once a day.
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| It is puppy season in our yard |
Weekends usually start the same but also include hand
washing our laundry and tidying up the cabin. This Saturday evening we were
invited to a gospel singing at the Seventh Day Advent church just up the hill.
If the vocal talent in the churches of Jamaica were ever unleashed on the TV
competitions in America, we would have a really hard time competing! Sunday
nights we go to the local Police Youth Club (PYC), which is a youth development
program sponsored by the police force. Many communities around the island have
a PYC.
Every other Monday evening is a general meeting of the
organic farmers group and often the in-between Monday is a committee or
executive meeting. Bluefields just had an initial meeting to stand up a
Community Development Committee (CDC). So two Wednesday evenings will entail
going to the general meeting or the executive committee meeting of the CDC.
Starting in September, I will be going to Belmont Academy (high school) every
Tuesday afternoon to work with the 4-H club. On Monday evenings and Wednesday
afternoons, we go to a local resort and visit with the tourists. Part of the
Peace Corps mission is to help Americans gain a better understanding of the
country that we serve in. So, we go straight to the Americans who are staying
in all-inclusive luxury villa and talk to them about what really g’waan in
Bluefields.
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| My supervisor with a freshly picked pineapple. His field is recovering from a fire. |
You may have noticed I just talked mainly about what I do in
the mornings and evenings. This is mainly due to the fact that it is really hot
and really humid in the afternoon and I am a taxi ride away from the nearest
public establishment with air conditioning. So, between 2:00pm and about
5:00pm, I am sitting in front of a fan at the cabin reading or napping. I
talked to a professor from Missouri State last week who has been visiting
Jamaica for research over the last 40 years. His opinion is that Bluefields is
the hottest non-urban spot on the island and he doesn’t bring students in the
summer anymore. I guess this makes me feel a little better about my afternoon
laziness.
Peace Corps Masters International
Thus far, I am still hoping to do a study that looks at a
basket of agricultural innovations introduced in the area and the influence of
local attitudes, beliefs, and activities on the adoption or non-adoption of
those innovations. I am hoping to incorporate a mixed method design, because I
don’t think you can do development research without qualitative/naturalistic
inquiry to go along with numbers and statistical tests. As I type this, I can
already tell it is too ambitious and I can hear my professor telling me to pare
it down to something more realistic. But at this stage, I am thinking pretty
broadly and focusing on integrating with and learning from the community. I
want the community to have a voice in the development of hypotheses and
potentially take action with the study’s findings. I don’t want to be
extractive like so many development scholars who craft a survey in their ivory
tower, swoop in to an impoverished community, generate their numbers, and then
go home to write up a report and get themselves published (if you have read
Robert Chambers, this might sound familiar). I’ll do another update on PCMI
soon. I will know a lot more as I go through the Community and Sector Inventory
process that Peace Corps mandates. I’ll be sharing that document with my
professors and potentially all of my blog readers to get input on the potential
research to be done.
