Jamaica - Day 4

Monday!!! We went to the Jamaican School for the Deaf.  What an amazing experience.  It's basically a boarding school for K-gr 12.  We all piled into the dining hall and we had brought some puppets with us and we had all learned how to sign our names so we could introduce ourselves and you could tell they were snickering at our lack of skill with their language! Either way, it was great. As soon as we got in the hall, there was a little girl, Karla, that I waved to and she came running over to me and just wrapped her arms around my legs. I can repeat myself a million times with this but the overwhelming feeling that comes over you when you just see a child and they run to you like that is very hard to describe.  She sat with me for the rest of the time while the team did puppet shows and sang songs (with lots of actions of course!). She totally melted my heart.

After that, they all went back to class and that is when Marcy (She was the matron of the school) shared with us some of the history with these kids.  One story she shared with us was about a boy named Conrad. He had more then just hearing problems - he was delayed in many other areas, he also had never even been trained to go to the washroom.  He was 12 years old. I don’t know what was wrong with his family life and parents, but he was very obviously neglected and in need of a stable, loving environment.

Marcy graciously took him in and he stayed on-site with the rest of the students but he also lived close enough that he could go home on weekends or at the very least holidays.  After a few months being there his progress came along great!! He was learning so much and catching on in school and he went home a couple of times throughout the year and just a few months ago he went back home again and didn’t show up again to school.  It happens every so often that kids don’t come back, but Marcy was concerned in this case and contacted Conrad’s father and found out Conrad had died.  There was a pit that was dug 6ft deep on their property and there had been a lot of rain and that pit was full of water, and Conrad was found upright in this pit.  His family never did get an autopsy done, but Marcy decided it was important to know what happened and got one done for him and the results said he didn’t even have any fluid in his lungs.  She never will really know what happened to him. Marcy and others put together funeral arrangements for Conrad and so many of his new friends and teachers showed up, but not one person from his family came.

Marcy is such an inspiration. There are about 50 kids that attend her school and because it is a private boarding school there is a tuition of course, but only a very small percentage of parents actually pay tuition, and Marcy still doesn’t turn them away.  They rely on fundraisers and churches & very little money from tuition to feed all these children everyday as well as pay the bills that come with having their facilities (2 buildings for school classrooms all grades, 1 dining hall, and 1 two story building that is the dorms) and to pay for the staff.  Marcy doesn’t money (or not much of any) until all of these things are taken care of first.  And yet, she is joyful and praises God for all she does have and for bringing these kids into her life and school.

She also shared with us that she went to church that week and she had no food in her cupboards and her and her children hadn’t eaten since the day before and she was given a couple dozen eggs for the school and 1 doz for herself.  She was THRILLED!! She didn’t know how she was going to find food for her family, and the children at the school. We also brought with us money  “a love gift” and gave it to her and she wept and she gave all the glory to God and praised him for being “right on time!!” Then she left shortly after to go get groceries!

Then some of us walked down to a Basic school ( 1 teacher with 10-12 kids ages 3-5) that was down the road a little and as soon as we got there we got hugs from every single kid…it was so adorable! We went in their classroom and sang songs did a puppet show, then we took them outside and blew bubbles – that was a huge hit! All the kids we went to see LOVED the bubbles!!  

Then we went back to the Deaf school to get the rest of the team and as we were walking back, some of the friendly neighbors offered us some coconuts from their trees! YUM! They were delish!!! Then we all headed back home and the girls took off to our dorm and we had a few hours of some good ole fashioned girl talk!  Perfect way to end the day!

Turbo!!

Taking a break from Jamaica for a moment...I went with my two older sisters to Turbo last night.  It's a mixture of aerobics/zumba/ufit/bootcamp...it's basically evil.

Actually, it was kinda fun, and I surprised myself with how much I could keep up, well for a first-timer at least! (yay yoga!) I was definitely hurtin' during the workout...it is intense man!! and just when she starts counting down the last few reps, she loses count at 3!! and says it again a couple of times...who can't count from 3-1?

I'd never heard of this before, but she did this thing called Crazy Arms...she wasn't lying! Basically you can't put your arms to your sides for an entire song (one of those long 4 minute songs...).  You might think, oh Jill, that's doesn't sound hard - oh yeah? Try it! Put your arms straight out, and up and out and do little circles - just try it...for 4 minutes.  I thought my arms were going to fall off, they still might. But man, what a workout.  I'll have to try it again.

Also!! I signed up for my fitness pal online, and it's the coolest thing ever.  It basically is an online food/exercise journal where you can log all your info and it calculates everything to say this is how many cals you should have in a day, and keeps track of how many cals you burned for a certain exercise...And it tells you the meal you had that day - if you ate it everyday, in 5 weeks you would weigh XXX lbs.  It's freakin' awesome. You type in "tim horton's double double" and it tells you how many cals...you type in Rice cake with nutella...and it tells you how many cals. The database has SO much to choose from even different name brands of rice cakes or Jane's chicken..or anything! It's FREE and you can also get the free app for your phone too...do it!!! It's an awesome way to keep track of everything and it doesn't take long at all!

myfitnesspal.com.   You won't regret it!

Jamaica - Day 3

SUNDAY!!! yay! We went to Kingsleys church in the morning and unfortunately because it was Kingsley's dad's funeral that day, there weren't as many members as there usually would be because they were all going to be travelling to the funeral.  BUT there were still some there and it was such a great service...I loved the music they did,  they had one guy Mickey leading the music and playing electric guitar. Alot of the songs were one's we knew (with their spin on them) and some were new (like the greeting song!) They had a time for us to all walk around and shake hands and as they did this they sang an actual greeting song and it was upbeat and just awesome! Not to mention their singing with their accents, and their style of music, it was just like I'd pictured it to be.

The preaching that morning was so great.  I loved how they just took a passage from the Bible and read it and just explained it - gave us the story from it.  It wasn't super theological or full of analogies, it was simple and easy to understand and so well done.  We had a chance at the end of the service to introduce ourselves to some of the members of the church there, I had a moment to speak to Mickey the music leader and to meet another guy named Andree (with two e's) as well as a few others and it was such a pleasure to meet and briefly talk to some of these people...what a blessing they were to each of us.

After church we came back to the college and our team (of 15 kids, grades 11 & 12, and 4 leaders by the way) got together and we played "the Animal game" and we just had a blast with each other. 

That evening we went to Mt. Stewart church, it was so neat! Pastor Dwayne (I'll just call him P-dwiddy) didn't have any instruments on the platform with him BUT he did have a bunch of tamborines and hand drums at the back of the church, which is where the congregation sat - except us white goodie goodies that sat in the first front rows lol, and they played them for all the worship songs!! SO COOL. Some of the little kids sat with our team and one little girl in particular that was close to me caught my eye.  She was probably around 5 yrs old, and when the music started she hopped of the bench and ran to the back of the room and brought up a tamborine and she had amaaaazing ryhthm! It was INSANE all of us were like oh my gosh, do you see this right now??! It was crazy. Brandon and I play drums and we were both completely shocked.  She was SO CUTE. 

Then after the meeting was over we were getting her to keep playing it and our girls were dancing and this little one was laughing so hard at our girls dancing and then Jason (head honcho) came over and he started dancing all silly and she just roared laughing...and she was still playing along the whole time she was laughing! It was music to our ears and she was SO precious...not to mention her laugh was an evil cackle...it was hilarious!!

That evening we went back home and had our "family time" and prepared ourselves for Day 4 when we would go to Jamaica School for the Deaf!

Jamaica - Day 2

Our first night was great, breakfast was at 7 each morning (except Sunday's it was at 8) so there were alot of tired faces that first morning, including mine...and I spotted coffee and I was PUMPED! so I get my coffee all set up add the powdered milk and throw in a nice couple a spoons of sugar and gingerly bring it up to my lips to taste the liquid gold...and that's when I realized I had put salt in my coffee.  This was so beyond disappointing 1) I felt bad that I'd have to throw it out, 2) SALT, I really don't like salt..I never add it to anything (unless the recipe calls for it of course)...it was all I could taste with that meal - it was nasty. Needless to say, that was my last time trying the coffee...

After breakfast we all piled in the van for an adventure day! We went to a place called Black River Safari and we had a boat tour where we saw some crocs (not the shoes) that were named and the Tour guide Roger could literally call for them by say Tut Tut and they would saunter over to the boat and Roger would feed them out of his hand...it was INSANE.  It was so neat and the River was stunningly beautiful...the water looked dark and kind of reminded me of camp water but to prove to us that it was just the reflection of the peat at the bottom of the river that made it dark, Roger had an empty waterbottle and gathered some of the river water and it was crystal clear! It was so neat and then he pulled our boat up to some Mangrove trees and the kids were able to climb all over them for a few minutes - pretty cool! THEN we continued down the river and he stopped the boat again and said OK this is where we can go swimming...And we did and it was like BATH water...and no crocs in sight just so we are clear...It was gorgeous!!

We left there and went to a place called Paradise that was a restaurant right in front of the ocean and it was delish!!! Then we were off again to Y.S. Falls, it was so beautiful!  I keep trying to load pictures but IT WONT LET ME and then I lose all my unsaved things so I give up. Check out my facebook for photos haha.

Anyway, So we got a chance to actually go swimming in the falls! it was awesome...but chilly like PEI waters! There was a rope that you could use to jump in and it was a blast!! Then on the same grounds were some gift shops and some pools and loungers and it was GREAT!! There was even a river with some little rapids that you could take a tube and float down ...or so that's how it was explained to me.  I was told that you get a tube and the current takes you down the river and rapids and I thought you'd just chill out on your tube and enjoy the view...FALSE.

I paid 8 bucks to row myself down a current-less river and into ever tree that came out over the water...and when I did get myself more in the middle I bascially rowed in circles...I tried to even my strokes but the tube was big enough for my hiney AND I had a lifejacket on and my knees were up to my face and I had no control.  I couldn't get my self seated on the tube in a way where I could easily row around...but I thought we were lazily going to let the current take us - in a straight path- all the way to the end. FALSE. so there was 2 tour guides one in the front and one in the back...I started out in the front...and about 5 minutes into it I couldn't even see the rest of the team and the tour guide literally grabbed onto my tube and dragged me the rest of the way - hey I got to see the scenery!! We got to the end and caught up to some of the team in the meantime because my tour guide was speedy...but not before he had asked for my number and invited himself to come back to Canada with me...in case you weren't keeping count...I'm irresistable.

Then we went for supper and this was the part in the trip where I met him...again. We have had this on again, off again thing for years...and you can imagine my surprise when I saw him in JAMAICA!? Anyway, I never saw him very often, maybe every couple of months or so and it usually didn't end well and yet, I keep coming back...my parents even like him, in fact my whole family does...although they haven't seen him in a while...I'm sure most of you even know him...his name...is Burger King. We got to see him twice while we were there..and it was always a nice treat!

Jamaica - Day 1

Jamaica was AMAZING!!!!!!!  Hands down the most amazing experience of my life. I have so many things to talk about...I'm going to post them in Day by Day posts...It's just easier that way, and  ALOT less reading at one time for those of you who have children and lives and stuff...you'll thank me lata!

Day 1
We got up at 430 in Moncton and grabbed a couple of taxi's and I was in with a group of teens where I was lovingly dubbed "Mama Jill". A name which is now a term of endearment to me.  (Since then even some of the teens' parents have been calling me Mama Jill!)

First impressions:

Flying in to Montego Bay is BREATHTAKINGLY beautiful...you feel like you are going to land in the ocean and then you touch and say a wee little Thank You Lord because you actually did land on the runway...it's so amazing though.

I don't know if you know this...but Jamaica is HOT! Stepping outside of the airport it was super sunny and we started glistening (girls don't sweat, they glisten) shortly after being outside waiting for our ride.  But it wasn't tooo hot that we couldn't stand it. We all climbed in the lovely Air Conditioned van that took off for a place called "the links" where we would wait for another ride to come get us.  When we got to the links we had some time to kill and it was very close to the airport and we watched a couple of planes coming in and it was so COOL to see from the ground too!

While we were waiting at this lovely beach there was a man literally selling seashells by the sea shore and he came up to our group asking if they wanted a shell for $5 and then he gets to me and he says while grabbing my hand " oooo I like your physique, where you from? for you - 4 dolla!" I look over at Jason (our head honcho, who gave me plenty of warning that I would be irresistable here, well those weren't his words, but I'm pretty sure that's what he meant...) and he's busting a gut saying "10 minutes Jill, we've been here 10 minutes!".

The ride to the college from Montego Bay was terrifying...Jamaica at rush hour is INSANE, and then we start heading into the mountains and their main roads were skinny and people drove so fast and all the turns are blind turns and I'm a nervous driver on a good day, so I was holding my breath for the most part, but it's amazing how you just get used to it after a few days...

We got to the college and it was alot nicer then I had anticipated! cockroaches and ants aside. We had bunk beds and about 3 girls per room and it was nice! we had a front room with a couple of gecko friends that lived on our walls.  One was drake and I can't remember the others name but he had two tails...

We had our first supper...Chicken and rice and beans! It was so yummy...we were so thankful for the food that was prepared for us each day in the Dining Hall...it was delicious and we always had fresh fruit and sometimes we even got ice cream for dessert! What a blessing those lovely ladies in the kitchen were to us....

We spent the rest of the evening getting settled in and at this point we were completely unaware of the amazing experiences each of us were going to have - individually, and as a 'family'.