So, here I am at the Peace Corps office in Kingston Jamaica for what will probably be the last time.  I'm here to close my Peace Corps service, and yes, I'm sad about that.  But also happy, excited, and ready.  It really helps that I have a plan for the future (Yes, Mom, you were right about that).  Here it is:  Go home to Naperville, plan for the wedding (dress, food, music, flowers, ect), hang out with family and Malcolm (who is joining me in America for a few weeks), leave America, go to Scotland, hang out there for a month or so, go back to America, stand up in my friends wedding, go BACK to Scotland, continue planning the wedding, go BACK to America to get married (Sept 23^rd), go on an awesome honeymoon (not on a tropical island, thank you), go back to Scotland again to set up house, find a job, live life, and be happy. 

As you can see I'll be pretty busy flying back and forth over the next few months, so I'm not so worried about stagnation and post Peace Corps melancholy. 

Jamaica has been pretty amazing.  As I look back I realize that, actually, I did a good job!  Imagine that.  Although there were days that I wanted to leave, or kill someone, or scream uncontrollably, over all I had a good time, made a lot of good friends, helped some people, learned about myself, and explored Jamaica from top to bottom. 

To all of you people that DIDN'T visit me:  it's your huge, unmistakable, ginormous loss.  Really.  I mean, it's JAMAICA people.  But it's your loss, and I'm not about to spend energy on telling you just how big of a mistake you made in not spending 500 dollars to have the most amazing week of your life.  See.

So, yeah, end of an era.  It feels good, though.  There are lots of things I'll miss about Jamaica: Sunny days, palm trees rustling in the warm breeze, smiley kids, loud music, understanding Jamaican culture to the point of never really being surprised when anything happens…

Alright, next……

Thats right... Malcolm asked me to marry him and of course I said yes!  It's all very exciting and not a little bit surreal...

Still lots to decide, when to do it, how to do it, where to live, and so on.  Right now I'm just enjoying to moment...

So here I am, sitting in Jamaica, less than two days until its 2007.  I never though I would still be here sweating, suffering, and anticipating the beginning of my future.  Lately it seems that all I think about is the imminent beginning of my life… as if at 25 it hasn't begun enough.  Should I stay here, try and find a meaningful career driving job, or go back to the blah blah blah of America?  Why go back, though?  Here in Jamaica everything seems to find it's own place in the Universe… the tarpaulin has been blown against the fence so many times that the unraveled strands seem to perfectly wrap themselves around the fenceposts of their choosing, undulating like waves in the wind.  I want to be like the blue tarpaulin strings, finding my perfect and beautiful place in the Universe.  The fatal flaw of Peace Corps is that it shows you perfect contentment; life without suffering is no life at all…Not only have I helped others, but in doing so I have helped myself, and how can I ever live without that glowing blue egg of satisfaction nesting inside of me again?  At 25 I am too young to understand what the lessons of my life were supposed to be… although I'm sure there is much more still to understand.

Although I live in a country where Halloween is not celebrated, I have managed to dress up in costume, drink copiously, and have a good time three years in a row.  This year (like last year) the party was in Portland, the farthest point on the island from Montego Bay.  Malcolm and I convoyed out there with another car-ful of PCV's and friends.  We arrived in Long Bay and checked into our rooms.  They were beautiful little one room cottages beach-side. 

The next day we went to San-San beach and swam out to Monkey Island.  Alas, there were no monkeys, but it was still totally beautiful and totally awesome to be on something called Monkey Island with no one but my good friends. 

That night was the party... I dressed up as a sexy Librarian, and others had equally good costumes.  My favorite was one guy that dressed up as V from V for Vendetta.  It was perfect right down to the black boots and gloves.  And very creepy... There was also a bonfire and 'beer pong'.  Needless to say, it was fun, at least, what I can remember...

The next day we headed back to MoBay... and our boring lives. 

What else is new?  Not much... Planning a trip to Kingston for Thanksgiving, waiting anxiously for my birthday, and excited for every new day...

Earlier this month I was able to travel back to America to refresh my hazy memories of my mother country.  As I expected things were just as I left them... menus were full of fat inducing meals, stores were overpowering in their selections, and the weather was far from my jamaican ideal.  My family is desperate for me to return to them and abandon my Jamaican independence.  Sigh...

Malcolm was able to meet my family, and I think that he had a good time.  At least, I enjoyed traveling with him, and having him around while my family fawned over me. 

Six more months of my Peace Corps service... still don't want it to end. 

Yeah, I'm writing a blog about changing my layout.  I really liked the Jamaican Flag, but it was too hard to read the stuff over the black.  I think so anyway.  Hope you enjoy the Rainbow!

What else?  What else?  It's (Jamaica's) Independance Day!  Yeah!  No longer are we under the control of the British!  Did you know Jamaica has only been an independant country since 1962?  Did you know the Jamaican political system is a Parlimentary one based on the British system?  Do you care?  I'm full of random facts about everything Jamaican.  Stay tuned for more trivia about the University of the Universe (at least that's what one Rastafarian called Jamaica, and I think I agree!). 

For the past week I've been just outside of Kingston working with the new group of "Youth as Promise" trainees.  We've been learning (or they've been learning, and I've been helping) about Youth Development, Life Skills, Safety in Jamaica, and Patois.  The group is really cool and I enjoyed all of the time we got got spend together.... I can only hope that they got as much out of it as I did.  I feel like I made 20 new friends.  I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true. 

Next few weeks I'll be planning for and hosting a summer camp.  I'm going to be glad to wrap it all up, as it's a really stressful time of year. 

Mostly I'm looking forward to going back to training.  Swearing In is a few weeks away and that's always a good time!

I've been so busy lately... in and out of Kingston more times than I care for in the last few weeks.  I've changed from a PCV (Peace corps volunteer) to a PCVL (Peace corps volunteer leader).  Basically this means that I'm working with the 60 new trainees that arrived on the island last week.  I'm supposed to use my last two years of experience to help them adjust to Jamaica.  Since I love Jamaica (questionable lately) I'm pretty good at this.  I spent all last week there and it was so great to be around all of the new energy.  The trainees asked the same questions that I asked when I just reached Jamaica: "what will my job be like?" "where will I live?" "how do you still have a nose piercing in?  They told me to take mine out!" and "do you speak patois? show me!!". 

My answer to most of these questions was "it depends on your site".  That didn't really satisfy anyone and I was getting some pretty distinct eye-rolls by the end of the week...

Had a rough time in kingston last day I was there... nothing that I want to get into on this public forum.  Get in touch if you want all of the bright shinny details...

Last Thursday I traveled to Kingston for the Peace Corps quarterly meetings.  I didn't have anything to do until Saturday, but I decided to go early to enjoy all 'Town' had to offer.

Thursday night I was planning on taking it easy to store up energy for Friday night, when I knew everyone would be in town.  After checking into the hotel on Thursday afternoon a few of us went out for drinks and dinner.  Malcolm drove all the way from MoBay to meet us and reached Kingston around 9pm.  Jess, Malcolm, and I decided to continue the night after everyone else was finished, so we went downstaris to the 'gentlemans' club.  There were many ladies wearning not so much clothing... and I even gave one some money!

After leaving that fine establishment we headed over to Asylum, one of Kingstons dancehall clubs.  When we arrived around 11 there were only a few people there so we hung out by the bar... until I decided that Jess and I should take advantage of all that empty space.  I dragged her onto the dance floor and we started to show off our dancehall skills, until the security guard came and informed us that 'that kind of thing was not allowed'.  We got kicked off the dance floor because we were two girls dancing together!  That's how homophobic this country is...

Despite that incident, we still had a good time.  The next night we had dinner and drinks at the same place then headed home early.  Saturday afternoon (after the too long meeting) Nate, Drew, Malcolm and I headed to Mandeville to attend a birthday party / street set up.  It was a good time, but Malcolm and I headed back to MoBay around midnight. 

Weather here in Jamaica has quickly shifted from hot and sunny to muggy rain.  Hurricane season is here as of June 1 and I think God wanted us to prepare early for the next round of weather phenomena...

Another crazy weekend...  I swear to God, Peace Corps has been awesomely awesome for so many reasons.  Not only do I get to live and work on a kick ass Island, but I also have met and mingled with some great people. 

Friday we saw X-Men 3.  I have been going to the movies left, right, and centre these past few weeks.  Saturday I took a trip with Malcolm to Ochi then Boscobel (East of Ochi).  As we were leaving Boscobel I got a call from Jess summoning me down to Treasure Beach for a Litterary Festival (Calabash).  Malcolm and I discussed it and decided to go.  Now, let me impact the full weight of that decision... Ochi is 2 hours from MoBay, and Treasure Beach is another 2-3 hours from MoBay.  For such a small island it sure seems bigger when you drive from one side to the other.  Anyway, we drove through MoBay to pick up Nathan, then headed down to Treasure Beach.  Despite Nathans directions we managed to get there around 10 pm.  Fortunatly, everything in Jamaica starts really late, so we had missed some, but arrived in time for some poetry and music.  We stayed until 3am, and finally reached back to MoBay around 5am. 

As I'm sure you're aware of, Jamaica is a country that is made up of 13 parishes.  A parish is kind of like a state in America, but much much much smaller.  On Saturday I was in 7 parishes... a worthy feat because many weeks can go by without me leaving my home parish of St. James.  I'm still wiped out, but it was fun!

Endnote: This weekend has really crystalized my love of Richie Spice.  Check of some of his music... I would recomend "Pon de corner", "Youth dem a get so cold", and "Operation Kingfish".  I never though I would love Jamaican music, but now I think it's one of my favorite thing about this country.  Picture this... cramed into the back seat of a taxi with 3 other large adults, speeding down the highway, turquoise ocean on one side and green hills on the other, your new favorite song on the radio, and EVERYONE in the taxi is singing along... I have had too many moments here where I think "Is this really my life?".  Amazing...