Orientation, done.

Orientation over the past few days has just zoomed by. We learned a lot about Jamaica, its history, people, food, and culture.  Perhaps too much to remember, but it was worthwhile nonetheless.  I'm sure everything will come back eventually.  This occupied the first 1.5 days of the in-country orientation. 

The last 1.5 days of the orientation took us to see other organizations working with CUSO-VSO and different parts of the city we might not normally see.  We went to see a few  other organizations - Agency for Inner City Revival, Youth Opportunities Unlimited, and Jamaicans for Justice.  We also got to see a couple of different areas in around Kingston - Trenchtown and Blue Mountain.

The week was finally capped by a dinner that gathered all the volunteers in Jamaica together.  It was a lot of happenings over the past few days so I won't delve into too much detail, but instead, present the executive summary.

The country
A beautiful country with a lot of culture and history, shared with some of the other Caribbean countries.  It also has its own set of problems.  I'll reserve these country discussions for their own posts.

Organizations
We visited the Agency for Inner City Revival ("AIR"), based in Trench Town, Youth Opportunities Unlimited ("YOU"), across from my organization, and Jamaicans for Justice ("JFJ") in Grants Pen, close to where I live.  These are just a few of the organizations operating in Jamaica, and are mostly ones that work with CUSO-VSO, the exception being AIR.  They all operate with  slightly mandates, but the overall vision, I believe they would all agree, converges on the theme of shaping a better Jamaica.  It was interesting and rewarding to be able to meet the individuals within these organizations and to learn about the change they were all trying to effect.  It's inspiring and motivating to see such great initiatives and the progress being made.  It makes me think that change here IS possible.  At the same time, I see overlap between them as each organization expands their scope and reach, due to funding or other reasons.  It'd be great if they could work together, and leverage each others' specialties, instead of each branching out on their own and pretty much re-inventing the wheel.  Perhaps this is a possibility in the near future. Opportunities abound.  Yeah! In any case, it was a great learning experience and gives us a better idea of what's out there, and what some key agencies and contacts are available in the CUSO-VSO world.

Trenchtown
Home of Bob Marley (and many others), and the birthplace of Reggae in Jamaica.  It used to be called Trench Pen, named after the person who bought the plot of land and was later renamed to Trench Town.  It's an area that was populated by squatters and government housing.  It's also an area that saw a lot of political violence - so much that it created No Man's Land, a DMZ or de-militarized zone, in between the area which separated two political garrisons.  It was a ghetto, and it was dangerous.  Now, it's much less so and is a shadow of its prior infamy (or else I don't think they would have taken us there).  Violence and crime have been reduced, it is no longer a stronghold for either political party, and one can seen budding roots for education and progress.  It's a great example for what can happen to Jamaica in part due to some of the great organizations here and was humbling to see. 

Blue Mountain
We took a short trip outside of the core Kingston to one of the Blue Mountain coffee estates, responsible for growing Blue Mountain coffee beans.  Blue Mountain coffee is a specific designation for coffee grown in the Blue Mountain range at a height of 3000 ft or above sea level - conditions in this area are ideal for growing Arabica beans which have a narrow band of climates in which it may survive.  It's some of the most desirable and hence most expensive coffee in the world.  Whether it is the 'best' or not probably is left up to the individual palette, but as a non-coffee drinker, this stuff was GOOD.  Unfortunately, the world doesn't get very much of it because of it 80% is exported straight to Japan.  After learning about coffee, we were brought on a walk up the mountain, which presented us with some gorgeous views of the area and Kingston.  I really liked this spot, and it's a plan while we're here to hike up the mountain to see the sunrise.  That night, we saw the sunset.
 

City and sea

First signs of people!  Some of the new volunteers and our coffee guide, "Lovejoy" (he said it was his name, I'm not making it up)

Sunset