Fantasy Football and Funny Pasttimes

(I know, I myself can’t believe I’m doing a blogpost on this)

     Matt has a new obsession. Now, if you’re thinking, ‘Obsession, that’s a pretty strong word.” I would respond by saying, ‘In this case, it’s not strong enough.’

     Peace Corps can be a strange, strange world where you find yourself participating in, talking about, thinking about certain things that in any other circumstance you would never consider.


     And for Matt, I think Fantasy Football is one of them. In September last year, a bunch of the male Jamaica PCVs decided to start a Fantasy Football league to further their male bonding, and because they’re a bunch of American men living in a foreign country, with relatively easy access to the internet. Since then, Matt has become OBSESSED -this isn’t just my opinion, but that of the greater Jamaican PC community. He has spent countless hours on our 2G modem ‘researching’ -as he puts it, stressing out every Sunday, and talking trash via text messages through our PCV CUG.

     However, this is not the reason I decided to write this blog. The reason I decided to write this blog is because my husband, who spent the ten years prior to PC living in the Alaskan bush, who has maybe seen three Superbowls in the last 20 years, who at the start of the season was made fun of for constantly pronouncing the players names wrong, WON this year’s league (a league that has FF veterans and football junkies). That’s right, to the amazement of many, somehow Matt pulled it off.

     And after he pulled it off, for two weeks I had to hear about how nobody bought him a beer, or even called to congratulate him. So, even though over the past 5 months his addiction drove me crazy, and even though I’m not even a part of the stupid league, here it is:

Congratulations Matt on your win! It’s nice to see all that hard work (or luck :)), stress, and frustrations weren’t a complete waste of time…. can we get back to our lives now?

Celebration

     Wow. Where to begin…We assume that unless we’ve been directly talking to you, or you’ve been doing some serious Maroon research, you haven’t heard of Accompong’s January 6th Celebration. Well, let me tell you, January 6th Celebration is a HUGE event, in which thousands of visitors come to Accompong to celebrate Maroon heritage on Kojo’s (the great Maroon freedom fighter) birthday. It is the biggest Maroon celebration in the world, and is recognized on a national scale within Jamaica. Some travel guide books even list it as the number one thing to check out if you’re planning on visiting Jamaica.

     You can probably imagine the impact such an event would have on our small, rural community. The town starts planning come October, and it is the biggest thing Accompong Maroons look forward to all year. For about a month now, our town has undergone a makeover, with people repainting their houses, ‘manicuring’ their lawns-Jamaican style, and stocking up their shops.

US Ambassador with us and JC members

     Every January 6th, the Council holds a traditional ceremony out by the sacred Kindah Tree which involves traditional drumming, singing and dancing, and the roasting of a hog. Later in the day there is a march through town among the seal grounds (sacred sites), which is followed by a civic function, involving speakers, bands, performances, etc. The US Ambassador was the Keynote Speaker, and we actually had a short meeting scheduled with her after her speech. (We were even included in a national press release [link].) 

 
    Overall the event was pretty cool, and we enjoyed ourselves, even amidst the moments we were swamped with random responsibilities. Both the Colonel and Deputy Colonel highlighted us as Peace Corps Volunteers in their speeches, as well as showcasing the projects we’ve undertaken while in Accompong (even if they didn’t make it completely clear that we did them).

     The Jr. Council spent the day trying to fund-raise by selling T-shirts and spread the word about who they are and what they’re doing..... Speaking of, we have 14 T-shirts still to sell, so if anybody’s interested please let us know… :)

Water, Water...nowherrreee

    As of December, our region in Jamaica has officially entered the dry season. Where we once had water tumbling out of our gutters and cascading into our 1000 gallon rain catchment tank we now have… less than 60 gallons left. Our own personal water reduction emergency measures are in place…

• The toilet never gets flushed unless there is something brown in it.  
• When the toilet does get flushed it goes with the least amount of water possible… we have done experiments on exactly how little water is required to eliminate the waste.
• We take “bucket baths” which require exactly 1 gallon for each of us
• All rinse water gets reused in the toilet
• We minimize all miscellaneous water use, i.e. when washing and rinsing dishes, brushing teeth, hand-washing clothes, etc.
• We pee outside whenever possible

     In addition to this we boil all of our drinking water now. In general Peace Corps recommends doing this all the time, but it is only now that our water is beginning to get obviously stagnate that we feel truly compelled to take this action. I think that when we saw the third swimming worm in our water cup it finally dawned on us that the time had come to start boiling.

     How did we go from a full 1000 gallon catchment tank just over a month and a half ago? It is a bit puzzling to us. Because we have indoor plumbing (the first time for Matt in 15 years?) we run through more water than we usually expect. We also got spoiled during the rainy season, using water all the time whenever we wanted for whatever we wanted. We certainly aren’t frivolous, but somehow it went away. Rural Jamaica isn’t known for its high plumbing standards so we wonder about possible leaky or cracked pipes hidden from view, or that somehow the tank may be plumbed incorrectly so that it back-drains into the main system. Some community members speculate that the water is be “teefed” (stolen) in the night or when we are away.

     Regardless, we will get by, and we are thrifty enough to make do with whatever water we do have, however little it may be. If worse comes to worse, then like many of our community members we too will make the trek to one of the two local springs and haul our water in five gallon buckets, by hand, just like we did back in Alaska.

Yard Sale 101

     One the Monday and Tuesday before Christmas, working alongside the Jr. Council and JACOM, we helped to facilitate a yard sale in Accompong.

JACOM shipped down roughly 2000 pounds of clothes, school supplies, books, and other miscellaneous items contained in two very large ‘crates’. After a long and epic journey, those crates reached Accompong in the beginning of December.

      Bringing down clothing and school supplies has been one of the many things that JACOM has done in Accompong over the past several years. Of course all these items are donated by the lovely people of Minnesota, and JACOM has done their best in trying to distribute then in a fair way to those who need them. In the past, everything has been given away freely, and local politics, among some other reasons, contributed to some glitches in this distribution process.

     So after all of us putting our heads together, we decided to do a Yard Sale, to be held at the community center, facilitated by us and the Jr. Council…….AND after some anxiety, stress, and frustration, we’re happy to report that the Yard Sale was a success!! Of course, we ‘vexed’ a few people along the way -which is unavoidable in Accompong Town. We also had…how should we say… a mixture of dishonesty and craftiness created by a handful of people who’s own self-perceived need surpassed the amount of the item in question. This manifested itself in people throwing items out the window, stuffing clothes in their bra, putting on clothes and walking out with them, and completely switching out an item for the one they came in with, like say… a pair of shoes for example. And those were just the incidents we caught. –This is also somewhat unavoidable in Accompong Town.


      Overall locals seemed to enjoy the experience. It was a cool thing to happen in their community right before Christmas, some people came ‘dressed to the nines’, as if they were going out on Rodeo Dr. for the day, while others just came to hang out at the local community event. The prices were affordable, but high enough to create some accountability. AND all proceeds are going back into the community through the Jr. Council and JACOM’s scholarship fund.

Caribbean Christmas

     Christmas was obviously much different this year. Although it was hard to be away from family during the holidays, we realize that this is part of the Peace Corps package, and thus tried not to think too much about it, because it would just make us sad.
     We celebrated in the next best way we could think of by getting together with some of our best PC buds for the weekend and celebrated in our own PCV way.
      Nine of us met up in Brown’s Town, where fellow PCV Meg lives and works at a school for the deaf. Friday night (Christmas Eve) was Grand Market in Brown’s Town, supposedly one of the best in Jamaica. Grand Market: think Time Square on New Year’s Eve combined with a farmer’s market with a strong Jamaica twist. So Christmas Eve, we had homemade lasagna for dinner (Meg’s family tradition) and then headed down into town for Grand Market.
     Christmas Day we had a wonderful brunch, followed by a White Elephant gift exchange, and just hung out, read, and played endless hours of games.
     We slept in everyday. Didn’t have to think once about our Accompong Peace Corps duties. Laughed until the tears streamed down our faces. Ate good food. And got some much-needed R and R....It was wonderful.