weather update

     As some of you may know, Jamaica was hit by tropical storm Nicole this past week. This has led to all those wonderful things that come with tropical storms: flash floods, landslides, power outages, roadblocks, food shortages, etc. Although this may seem like a stressful situation, and for some communities it has been, most of the island just adapted and coped like they so often do to adverse situations. And, to be honest, it hasn’t been THAT bad.
      We were starting to get slightly concerned when earlier in the week, it looked like a rather sizable hurricane was heading straight for Jamaica, but luckily for us, the hurricane has seemed to dissipate. Otherwise we check the NOAA Caribbean map regularly to see if there are any orange or red blobs in the Eastern seas of blue.

our banana trees that were blown down this past summer

     Hurricanes and tropical storms are a reality here in Jamaica, but to be honest, we don’t really worry too much about either. This is partly due to the fact that our place could double as a bomb shelter, that PCJ does an excellent job of keeping us safe, and that living in a small, farming community, at a high elevation, we are cared for by the community, some sort of produce is almost always available, and all the water runs downhill. Probably the largest inconveniences in Accompong this past week was the couple of people who lost their zinc roofs to the strong winds, power outage (lasting Monday through Saturday), and how stinkin’ moist/damp/wet everything is after a week straight of rain, and I quite literally mean just that. Rain all day, round the clock.
     For us personally, we didn’t have to put up with too much because our Early Service Conference (ESC) was this past week. So not only were we not in Accompong, but we were staying at a resort in the tourist hotbed of Ocho Rios. In our defense as suffering PCVs, we stayed at a low-end resort (the same place where the Ministry of Education has been known to hold their conferences), and the only other touristy thing we did was go to Margaritavile on Wednesday night.
     As far as the fun factor, Margaritaville was probably one of the best times we’ve had with other PCVs. After being at our sites for 4 months and dealing with all that entails, it was great for about 20 of us to cut loose together. Margaritaville has a Wednesday night special: all you can drink for about US$8. Add the pool, waterslide, dancefloor/DJ, hottub, and the fact that because of the rain, only about 10 other people were there. Let’s just say it wasn’t the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to endure….So, where was I? Oh yeah, our trials and tribulations.
     When it comes to power outages in Jamaica, the tourist districts are last to lose electricity. As a result, we had power in Ochi all week. Originally we were supposed to head home on Friday after ESC was over, but due to roadblocks, collapsed bridges, and the like, we ended up needing two days to get home (the same journey took us 4 hours on Monday morning). Aside from this, the other hassle is that when we came home, our place smelt worse than a moldy gym shoe. There was water on the floor, everything was damp, and bacteria was growing on our walls. Remember how I said we lived in somewhat of a bomb shelter? Well, cave might be the more appropriate term. Prior to this week, we regularly have to rewash formerly clean clothes that acquire mold spores somewhere during its quiet life in our dresser drawer –and that’s with us here every day, opening the place up, running the fan 24/7, and it NOT raining round the clock for a week. So you can imagine what our place was like yesterday. Since then we’ve been trying our best to air it out, clean up the water and mold, dry out our linens in between the frequent rains, and get rid of that God-awful smell.