Getting Accustomed to the Culture

Today I walked down the street I live on. Surprisingly I wasn't harassed at all besides one person calling me "whitie", which is a derogatory term here. But even with that it is no where as intense as what I got when I was in Montego Bay last year. I think people in this little town, called Gordon Town, are used to seeing Caucasian people because of the long term volunteers in Sophie's Place.

I walked up the hill to the post office to buy some stamps, and later I met Dean and Robert at the wholesale store. It is funny to use words like post office and wholesale store because those words mean one thing state side, here the word is the same but the building and the way people go about business is completely different, which makes me wish it was called something else. I also walked across the street to the cantina...again...here it is called an Inn...or an English I guess it would be closest to a bar...but it is really closer to a Catina in that it is under a roof, really close to being on the street with doors that pull up and down like a garage. So you see...how many languages did I have to go through to get the closest description I could to what it actually is?? Anyway, at "Tip Toe Inn" I met Claudette and Auntie Pearl. I asked if I went over there sometimes if they would help me to learn Patois. I think I was the first white person that ever asked them that. They looked at me like they thought I was crazy...but then they said yes. We'll see how that goes.

Being in Jamaica this time is a lot different than the first time I came. Instead of trying to understand what I am seeing and place it in some frame of reference from my experience I am just letting it happen. I am experiencing and letting the experience be something entirely new and allowing myself not to understand it. So far I have found that I am much more peaceful than last time. I spent so much time trying really hard to understand everything that I profoundly experienced culture shock. Accepting it as something new and just letting my eyes take it all in as that is good.

Today I went into a Rasta shop on the side of the road because Katie, another long term volunteer, was looking for wooden beads. Our taxi driver went in with us. As we were there he dropped a couple coins into the Rasta's hand. I was thinking "seriously? do we really have to pay just to make this guy help us?" but then he said thanks went around the counter and put a small bag of weed, here called ganga, into our drivers hand. Okay! No hiding it here! TIJ. This is Jamaica.

I am taking these first few days to acclimate and Monday I start work. I am going to take the first week or two at work to spend time scoping out the scene. I am hoping to start categorizing the different groups in terms of their capacity to comprehend. After I do that I will be able to better tell which groups will be better canadidates for counseling. I am looking forward to start the process while at the same time ready to be overwhelmed by the extent of the mental and physical handicaps. However it goes...All for the greater honor and glory of God!