Question: where can I put my terrarium?

Here's a suggestion computer. I assume you read binary so why don't you 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1.

2008-07-14T17:29:00.000-07:00

Today, a small victory. We were walking between the Village and the school and a neighbor going the other direction stopped us to make sure that the children were home so he could bring them mangoes. Woohoo! He knows we work there! This may seem silly, especially since we see and chat with this man at least once a week and we are usually orbited by plaid-clad electrons clamoring loudly for our attention, but it still makes us happy to have hard evidence that our place within the community is known and accepted.

Another sign we’ve been here awhile is my acceptance of things I once thought odd. When someone told be that taxi divers drove around honking and pointing in the direction they were traveling, I giggled. The scene in my head was probably more fantastic than reality, but still, isn’t that an amusing picture to those of you who have yet to experience it? A bunch of people honking and hanging out the window, pointing their route? In fact, it is wonderfully efficient. I don’t think it’s strange at all. I even point back to confirm the direction I am going. Honk, point.

But then I get ringworm on my eyelid—AGAIN—and I feel like we are stuck in a never-ending loop of hot weather and skin fungi. Gross. Also, while things are falling in place for us, it is still exceedingly, irrationally, difficult to get things accomplished. I just continue to underestimate the factors that contribute to the completion of a task. It’s like a treadmill with hurdles. I wake up thinking okay, today I have to get this done, so I sit down to it and realize halfway through that I have to do 5 other things first to make this task do-able and it always involves favors and information from other people and I get all excited and then my boss can’t understand me. Ultimately these things get done, but never without some amount of panic on my part.

So that’s where we are. And, the kids have learned my name. I know people think this is dumb, especially when the kids can call me ‘miss’ most of the time, but I was tired of being called ‘Patrick and uh, uh, uh…’ So now everyone knows my name, or at least a varied pronunciation of my name, and they shout it gleefully when they see me approaching the Village. Just to reiterate, there are over 100 children and Erin is not a common name here. So I feel good about this, and if you think it is paltry, then you are a poo-head.

Oh my God, Darryl. You look like Barack Obama. Everybody I'm dating Barack Obama.

2008-07-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

Lately Patrick and I have been embarking on mini-adventures of the nature that cause me to proclaim, “this will be the end of our marriage.” So for your enjoyment, we have listed the top ten things that are likely to end in the dissolution of our alliance.

1. PowerPoint presentations
2. Home haircuts
3. Death Match Uno
4. KU/MU
5. Snowboarding
6. Wayne Brady
7. Rationing of baked goods
8. Chorus of the Jamaican national anthem
9. Naming children after steroid-filled Polish men (Mariusz Pudzianowski Mazi?)
10. Top ten lists

Don’t worry, we have our mutual love of ceramic animals with festive costumes to see us through the tough times. Oh Shebadda.

Occasionally I'll hit somebody with my car. So sue me-- no, don't sue me. That is opposite the point I'm trying to make.

2008-07-10T16:01:00.000-07:00

Busy is a relative term. For the most part Erin and I have had our heads down plugging away at our various work projects. We spend most nights at home doing nothing, save pining for our very own game of Carcassonne, but our days have been pretty full. For those of you still reading our blog, I thought I would give a schedule of upcoming happenings for the summer…

At our orphanage:
- A couple weeks of summer school
- A couple weeks of arts &crafts, fine arts, and music
- A few beach days, an airport tour, a Rose Hall Great House Tour, and an off-site trip to St. Ann? (the trip is definite but location still up in the air)
- A week-long JAMM camp
- A week-long football (soccer for you American folks) camp
- The week-long HIV/AIDS peer educator training that Erin got a grant to fund- this project will actually continue on until World AIDS Day in December, but the main part is happening this summer
- A summer-long reading contest, complete with prizes for readership
- Computer classes will be held for the mothers, aunties, and the children though I might wait until school resumes to incorporate the kids

At the marine park:
- Revamping the outreach and education program
----- Educating and getting the local fishermen onboard to facilitate a protected area for fish to breed and grow
----- Educating the public, both domestic and foreign, about the issues the local marine habitats are facing and how they can help
- Hopefully finding funding to initiate a mooring buoy system to act as boundaries for the protected zones as well as providing environmentally low-impact anchor site

As for us:
- Last week we met the new PC Trainees. They all seemed very excited and full of energy. I believe they are all capable of making a difference in the lives of those they will soon be living among.
- Erin’s folks are coming for a 5-day Jamaica extravaganza! Woohoo!

And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.-- Sir Paul McCartney

Patrick

Cool! Bouncy house!

2008-06-23T16:25:00.000-07:00

Today was our first day volunteering at our secondary project, the Montego Bay Marine Park. The marine park was the first national park in Jamaica and has a ton of various projects that need revamping. The cool thing is our supervisor is really excited to let us run wild and pick the projects that best utilize our skills/interests. I am excited as the work is a bit more along the lines of development work and more what I expected to be doing when I joined PC. I love what I do at my orphanage, but the energy investment is in the 105 children and not really in expanding capacity of the organization, as one would expect in development organizations. This way we get the best of both worlds.

To Do List:
1) Mold 105 positive world citizens that can hopefully read better than they could ante-Patricio
2) Save the aquatic environment in the Montego Bay area or at least get a good start
3) Become guitar virtuoso—Eddie VanHalen, Clapton, Kenny Wayne Shepherd watch yourselves!
4) Cook dinner for Erin—Tonight may be leftover stir fry but tomorrow’s tacos with my revamped tortilla recipe will dominate
So my list may be a bit over the top, but after getting roughed up last week I have found a bit of peace and renewed energy and am ready to conquer the world again. Things are looking up. Hell, even the Royals have won 8 out of their last 10 games.

I am very excited about the new volunteers coming to Jamaica soon. I am excited to feed off of their energy, their desire to make Jamaica and the world a better place.

Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things that renew humanity. --The Buddha

I’m doing my best Chubby.
Patrick

We're all homos. Homo sapiens.

2008-06-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

I was in a bookstore in downtown MoBay and encountered a peculiar site. On one of the main shelves, prominently displayed, was the novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Despite this Pulitzer Prize winning book getting rave reviews from Erin (though I have struggled through parts), I was very, very surprised to find it shelved so conspicuously. For those of you that have procrastinated reading this book STOP HERE!, the following is a SPOILER… The protagonist is Calliope, who after having a lesbian-ish experience finds out she is in fact a he that has 5-alpha-reductase deficiency. So a couple of un-descended testes later, some incest, and transvestitism (though unknown to Cal), this book really hits home the complexities of gender identity. Let me pause to express just how taboo homosexuality is here. It is biblical stoning taboo—literally. Jamaican homosexuals were almost (but not) granted U.N. refugee status. So for this book to have such a blatant placement I have to assume the store itself or the shelf stocker is extremely progressive. I hesitate to fully assume the liberal leanings of the store as Middlesex was surrounded with books whose covers were adorned with Fabio’s oiled chest and whose titles included The Pirate’s Booty (that title doesn’t necessarily imply smut novel, but its cover confirmed my suspicions). So maybe there was a mix-up in the book orders, maybe someone was excited by the idea of a Pulitzer Prize winning romance novel, but I want to think the owners/staff of this bookstore were deliberate in their shelving. I am happy with the idea that they are trying to encourage their fellow countrymen to open their minds.

I was in the bookstore to solicit some presentation supplies and was just browsing to kill time waiting for them to draw up my invoice. For the past couple of days Erin and I have been running around trying to complete a grant application. We are planning an HIV/AIDS peer educator training for the children at our orphanage. This training, for 20-40 kids (depending on summer work schedules), will provide instruction on HIV and other STIs, work to improve ability to make positive life decisions, and how to impart their knowledge to their peers. We are also having the kids create HIV/AIDS awareness paintings (on nice canvas with quality paint) to be displayed at their respective schools. The idea is for our kids to then use their new skills to create projects/presentations for World AIDS Day and present them at their schools. All in all we hope to indirectly raise awareness among 3000 or so area school children. Big up to Erin as she dominated the grant application. (This is Erin, I am reading over the blog and I wish to point out that I did not dominate it. I have the ability to dominate it, but I do not feel that I utilized that ability to its fullest.) We are really excited and are hoping our grant is accepted. Keep your fingers crossed.

I would rather take your punch, than not give you a shot.
Patricio

I'm optimistic, because everyday I get a little more desperate. And desperate situations yield the quickest results.

2008-06-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

So last night there was a cockroach in my bed. I had turned out the light and was watching my bedtime Office episode, Patrick was mostly asleep and I felt something on my foot. Immediately I began kicking and twitching epileptically, rousing the half-comatose Patricio. I leaped out of bed and turned on the light… and saw nothing. So we settled back in and five minutes later, what do I see by the warm glow of The Office? A cockroach. Moseying its nasty way down my arm. I am quite upset by this and begin bellowing—with a curious mixture of disgust and triumph—that the cockroach is not imaginary, and it is currently on my person. Patrick grudgingly rolls out of bed and turns on the light to find me alone in the bed. He sighs and pointedly begins searching through the sheets, when he spots it. Running from the bed towards the closet. Man, I felt so freaking vindicated at that point. He gallantly smashed it into a gooey pulp with my shoe. And then he went back to sleep and I stared wide-eyed around me for hours. Really the funniest part is that I am pretty sure Patrick does not believe the roach was in the bed. But I saw it. I did. It was on me. He was extremely annoyed that I kept waking him with my anti-roach flailing. Lest you underestimate me, I’m not too bothered by creepy-crawlies. Even roaches. There used to be a nest of them in the shower drain at our previous abode and it didn’t faze me. But in my bed, that is a different story. Also I was having a “difficult” evening and this just capped it off. Gross. Stay out of my bed roaches.

Toby has been cruisin' for a bruisin' for twelve years. And I am now his cruise director. And my name is Captain Bruisin'.

2008-05-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

If Erin and I did not use quotes from ‘The Office’ to title each blog, I would have entitled this blog:
I, Lead Paint and Technicolor Boogers, I

For those you with a keen eye and quick wit, you probably noticed that this title is in fact a palindrome. And despite Matt’s insistence that palindromes are kryptonite to gypsies, they, in fact are completely harmless when they are also onomatopoeias. And since all palindromes, like my title, are also onomatopoeias (I can provide citation for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PalindromesareinfactOnomatopoeias), I am completely safe. Assuming Matt is not reading this blog… the only real literary danger to a gypsy is the dreaded Semordnilap. Damn you !Stressed Desserts! OUCH! Oi!

Anyway… Erin and I left to go up to the orphanage today around 8 o’clock. We got about 100 yards from our house before “Pssssst. Psssssssssssssssssst! PSSSSSSSSSSSSSST!” Ah, the sounds of a Jamaican flirting with Erin. My first instinct in this situation is to get mildly offended that 1) this dude would blatantly come on to Erin as I walk next to her and 2) that Erin would choose dirty, toothless bum-guy over yours truly (the “psssssst” is very common amongst cat-calling Jamaican males and I am not implying that all those who pssssst are dirty, toothless bums). However my second instinct is to walk over to the guy and explain to him how incredibly idiotic he sounds making that noise. I am pretty sure that making the deflating tire sound at a passing woman, American or otherwise, has never gotten anybody laid. Also calling Caucasian females “Whitey” (pronounced Whyyyy-teeee) hasn’t either. (I can provide citation for this too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/actinglikeObtuseRacistAssholedoesn’tgetyoudates) This has to be frustrating for our special likkle fem-Nazi and I don’t blame her.

The rest of the day was spent at our village laboring for Labor Day, which I am assuming is really is a day off of school to repaint and landscape said school. I immediately claimed painting the monkey bars and “swing song” for the two of us. I dunno why they call swing sets “swing songs” but I like it. I chose this chore because clearing bush (our other option) sounded like the set-up to a dirty joke. Also it sounded hard. Mainly, I never get to paint. My family thinks I am a terrible painter and so instead of teaching me to paint to their standards, they just never allow me around a brush. Not that I can blame them, my lack of patience comes from somewhere. This is Erin now, P.S. I was pretty pleased with myself until I realized we’d have about 20 “helpers,” and our work included scraping old paint off what had to be 2 miles of metal pipe twisted into some sort of playground rubix cube with small putty knives. The scraping alone may have been daunting, but really it was the band of eager 8-yr-olds clamoring for a chance with the putty knife that made this chore more challenging than I originally supposed. There were chips of paint (probably containing lead) flying and sticking to our arms and faces, getting snorted up our noses (thus Patrick’s rainbow snot) and meandering down our windpipes. We decided to only let the children that helped scrape wield paintbrushes. Even with all the commotion, it was easy to tell who had scraped as they looked like they had some sort of rare disease that produces multi-colored sores all over the hands and face. Most of the children only wanted to paint until they actually got a chance, and then realized it was work and lost interest, luckily. However, we never had a shortage of workers. Sometimes I get the eerie feeling that there are no adults in the village. You’ll see scores of children running about maniacally, but no one over the age of 12. It’s spooky. Today was kind of like that. I did see plenty of people over 5 ft, but they all seemed glad to have escaped the assistance the children were so eagerly offering us. So Patrick and I trudged through the day, lone supervisors over a herd of children armed with paintbrushes. Now that I think about it, it went pretty well. Despite the bottle of spilled kerosene oil and the ice fight at the end, there was only the usual whining and bickering. It did take us about 7 hrs to do something that should have taken 3 (and we still have to put the second coat on!) but no one tried to paint anyone else. Oh, they were covered in paint anyway, as they tried to reach through freshly coated monkey bars and sit on paint cans, but it was the result of an honest desire to work and not the remnants of a paint fight. I have some lovely pictures and video to commemorate our toils, but our camera broke! I’m pretty sure it got infected with some sort of high-tech virus (for more info see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/brokenGypsyCameraforSale).

This has been Erin and Patrick with your Channel 1 News investigation.

Yeah, I'm trying to lure these kids into my booth. But, uhh, kids are very weary of being lured, these days. Thank you Dateline.

2008-05-20T08:14:00.000-07:00

Random Ruminations

-A significant portion of my time here in Jamaica has been spent feeling like a big floating dollar sign. Not to get into a discussion about race, but bums will let 15 Jamaicans walk by and only ask me for change. Grrrr to you bum. I also feel this way a bit at work too.

-I recently watched the NOVA special entitled the ‘Elegant Universe.’ I encourage anyone who has not seen this 3 part series to do so. WOW, the implications of string theory have exploded small holes in my brane (I realize this is not the correct spelling of the intended brain, but it is a barely humorous pun that you will get after viewing the show). I suppose there are not really any blown holes in my brain in this universe, but despite the minute probability it is probably happening somewhere. Holy balls Batman! That means my head is in severe peril somewhere else!

-The teaching of small children is incredibly difficult, especially when it comes to teaching computer literacy. Patience is not a virtue that I possess in abundance. Thus when I try to tutor my young wards I grow increasingly frustrated by my feeble explanations and their lack of understanding. I suppose that the great paucity in reading skills causes a rift in my lesson execution. “Okay kids every one left click on the ‘Games’ folder.” I had two frustrating replies to this seemingly simple command. 1) Which one is left? 2) There is no folder marked ‘Games.’ But what makes this enterprise even more difficult is the fact that my lack of patience is dwarfed by that of my pupils. Rather than opening a file/the Internet/a program and waiting for it to open, they click over and over and over and over and… well you get the idea. And since our computers are fairly slow, this fun game overloads the computers and they freeze up. To fix this problem they usually unplug the computer and restart. Wow, writing all of this down makes me realize I have a billion miles to travel before I bridge the gap of understanding. It’s all about the journey though... right?

-For some strange reason since I have come to Jamaica fire seems to follow me. I joined an organization that had recently had two of its buildings burn down. I stayed in the Pegasus Hotel in Kingston. This hotel now has a new lobby since the other was charred beyond repair during my visit. And most recently one of the main buildings on the property of my apartment is now smoldering following a fire that claimed 2 of its 3 stories. I don’t think I have some sort ‘firebug’ curse upon me, but I am still looking for a place to stay during my next visit home.

-Today my goal is to buy a ceramic coffee mug. I have been using a plastic cup… the kind that when it heats up dumps carcinogens into my java. Damn you cancer-inducing plastic!!

-Back to the firebuggery… Why when things are on fire here in Jamaica do machetes appear out of know where? When the Pegasus was on fire, a guy was hacking at a doorknob with his machete. Really dude? What the hell? And when the building near my apartment caught fire, some dude is on the roof hacking shingles with his cutlass. This bring two concerns to my mind 1) Where do they keep their machetes when things are not on fire? Machetes seemingly appear from thin air; maybe they have surgically inserted sheaths in their legs. 2) What exactly is the utility of hacking things during a fire (especially the doorknob)?

- Rather than giving confrontational bums money I am now giving a business card that reads:
GOD LOVES YOU
EZEKIEL 23:19-20
This has significantly cut down on bum harassment, thank God.

-I made dinner the other night. I asked Erin what she wanted to eat and all she wanted was a toasted PB & Honey sandwich. Today I am making Ham and Beans. Soak beans overnight, (next day)put beans in pot, cover with water, put ham hock on top of beans, cook on low for 4 hours. I cannot believe this what has become of my culinary expertise. Oh how I miss the days where I would carry a butane torch in my truck so I could make crème brûlée anytime, anywhere.

People are strange, when you're a stranger...Patrick

Wet cement, outside, it's drying, fast, come on! This is a life long dream. What do I write?

2008-05-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been posting ruminations and other non-informative posts rather than the exciting narrative exploits you all have grown used to. I apologize to those of you who expect more. However Erin and I have our hands in a number of various pots currently and we have let our blog suffer a bit. We will try to do better in the future.

Yesterday I traveled to Kingston for a few meetings. Each trip seems to come with built in oddities, yesterday’s being the sighting of a man dressed in a chicken costume handing out flyers for Burger King in downtown Kingston. I guess this wouldn’t necessarily strike everyone as strange, but in Jamaica, I have never seen blatant commercialism directed at local inhabitants. The ridiculous advertising schemes seem to be solely targeted at tourists.

Reflecting upon the chicken-man sighting left me feeling a bit strange, though the chicken nuggets I didn’t buy from BK my have been the real culprit. I think being here almost a year allows me to include myself in the local population rather than grouping myself among tourists. However, it is obvious that I am not a native Jamaican. So my place somewhere in the ‘Jamerican’ middle ground has allowed me to avoid being advertised to almost entirely. But the chicken-man ploy seemed to be intended for me; the BK chicken-man wanted ME to eat their BK chicken. If there is one thing I hate, it is being the direct object of any sentence (at least ones that require my direct object-ness to be advertised to). Their yellow-feathered gambit was unsuccessful and I chose to buy my vittles from another establishment. This decision was not made because the (Burger) King himself transparently made me the direct object of his ludicrous
marketing scheme complete with a Big Bird cameo… No I made my decision because BK uses meat from local farms. Normally I am in favor of supporting local farms. Though despite having no evidence that the meat BK uses has any problems with it, Jamaica does not maintain the best track record for the refrigeration of perishable foods.

I listened to a Simon and Garfunkel live concert coming home from K-town. I have always respected the duo, but my respect has grown for them in recent months. Mrs. Robinson is a great song. It plays a major role in the classic movie ‘The Graduate’, is applicable even today, and employs the harmonious union of two male voices that only Paul and Art seem capable. What you ask?.. It is applicable today?.. Patrick, are you being seduced by a woman twice your age? No, there are no middle-aged women currently after Tricio, at least that I know of. However the lines:

"Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon.
Going to the candidate's debate.
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Every way you look at this you lose."

The lyrics seem like they were written for the 2008 presidential elections. I am very disappointed in the current candidates as the three viable candidates are:
1) A woman that repeatedly lied about being under sniper fire to garner support , will use any unscrupulous tactic necessary to win and once told her husband during his presidency that he should ‘screw em,’ referring to the white middle class, a sect of the public she is now “championing.”
2) A billion-year-old warmonger who would support a 100 year war in Iraq (if necessary) and who has folded on important issues to pander to a right-wing conservative base.
3) An inexperienced senator who still speaks of changing politics while stooping to the mud-slinging tactics indicative of his opponent and has a proclivity to hang out with nefarious fellows and bails on them when discovered (I have friends whose opinions I don’t necessarily agree with but I would back them up and say that while they might not carry the opinions necessary of the commander-in-chief that I do and that while their opinions may be inflammatory that they are good people/Americans).

I agree with Paul and Art. You got it right boys, anyway I look it we lose. I hope, if nothing else, that we pick the least of all evils.

Where did you go Joe DiMaggio? I would like know. Patrick

Everybody likes new inventions, new technology. People will never be replaced by machines. In the end... computers are trying to murder you in a lake

2008-05-04T15:18:00.000-07:00

Modern conveniences. Bah! Who needs ‘em? Not us. Do you know how I made my coffee this morning? If you guessed coffee maker deduct 15 points from your current score. If you guessed that I dumped boiling water over coffee grounds and strained it through a paper towel lined wire colander, give yourself 15. I realize being in Jamaica that I am extremely lucky to have access to the modern conveniences that I do. Really the only thing keeping me having a microwave, coffee maker, and a clock radio is money. I also realize that by signing up for PC that I was essentially signing up for poverty. Having such rigid budget restrictions has taught me a lot about my spending habits. It also reinforces the lesson about only spending money you have. Ain’t no credit cards here folks. It makes you think pretty hard about buying that 6-pack of Red Stripe when you know that if I buy this now I won’t have enough money to pay for fresh produce in a week or two.

My brain produces some of the most bizarre dreams. I choose not to share most of these. With my dreams as evidence, my lunacy would be undoubtedly proven. Despite these reservations I am going to share with you my most recent dream mostly because it runs a bit more humorous and a bit less crazy. I have a dream…

In my dream I was Barack Obama’s son. I still looked like me and had my same mannerisms so I must have been an adopted son or something. Anyway he encouraged me to campaign heavily for him and I enthusiastically did so. My active role in his campaign allowed me to rub elbows with the US elite and I had a fantastic time sarcastically mocking the other candidates. But when the time came to vote in November, I felt the pull of my political philosophy and voted for the Libertarian candidate. I returned to campaign headquarters and watched the results reported by the major networks. Papa Obama, obviously nervous, was pacing around as some states went red and others pulled blue. Abruptly he stopped his pacing and pulled me aside and asked me if I voted for him. I was completely honest and said that despite being his son and thinking the world of the man that I did not believe in his politics and voted Libertarian. He then proceeded to beat me, like literal biblical smack down.

To bring this blog entry full circle, the modern convenience that I would love to do without is 24-freakin’-hour-a-day coverage of the GD election. It is obviously invading my mind. The ceaseless reporting of the political race, combined with my extreme nocturnal boredom, is most assuredly the root of my baby-Bama drama. I would gladly exchange CNN, CNN Headline news, FOX news, MSNBC, even BBC America for a washing machine. Hell, I would exchange those soulless media channels for a French press. Mmmmm, coffee that doesn’t faintly taste of Bounty paper towels.

want it to be fast, quick cuts. You know, youthful, sort of, um, MTV on crack kind of thing.

2008-05-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

If nothing else being here has provided me the opportunity to experience other musical genres. Before coming to Jamaica I was almost strictly a classic rock kinda guy. I liked jazz, a few jam bands, some folk-y guys with guitars, and pretty much anything with a quality guitar lick. You couldn’t say I had a closed mind as far my musical preferences, but I wasn’t actively seeking any new ear candy. I would occasionally stumble on a new artist or hear about a band from my sister or friends. Also during two formative university years I drove the Green Chick Mobile, a ’94 Dodge Caravan that lacked a radio, and for that matter a heater. Not that having a large van didn’t have its perks, especially when there were 10+ drunkards at your house and you were trying to get them all to the bars in one trip (p.s. whoever now owns Chicky… the mysterious stain in the back is from Dover violently vomiting on his 21st birthday… at 7:00 pm… he didn’t make it too long.) Not having a radio in your primary transportation really limits your exposure to new music, but Big Green did have a small living room in the back complete with couch and Playstation 2.

Anyway back to the point… experiencing new musical genres. Being here, for me, has slowed down life considerably. You know… the stopping to sniff flowers and all. It has also allowed me many hours to listen to artists I had never before listened. To be honest, I would not have been super-interested in giving a lot of the people I now consider staples a chance.

Many of you are fantastically busy and probably never spend any time looking for new music. I have it pretty easy as the strange mix of PC volunteers comes with a fairly wide taste in music and they provide me with new-to-me stuff all the time. I think that experiencing a new band, at least to you, is a positive thing. So I challenge you, even those of you with extra hectic schedules, to take 10 minutes, get online, and turn a couple aural tricks. Right now Josh Ritter is getting quite a bit of playtime on my iTunes. Check him out and let me know the new-to-you musical genius you find so I can check them out too.

Music appreciation is an innate behavior…its evolution…don’t fight it… Patrick

You can buy new stuff but you can't buy a new party!

2008-04-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

I dislike Hillary Clinton. I might trust her more if her face were a bit wrinklier. So the Leukemia Lymphoma Society dinner is fast approaching. As we will clearly not be in attendance, my parents are going in our stead. Someone has to fill in at the sports table. Delicious dinner and free hoarded booze aside, I am a bit relieved to be ending my streak as a volunteer silent auctioneer. I can handle the setting up portion—I cover a mean chair—but then the actual event starts and I somehow end up with scary rich people yelling at me. It’s not difficult work, no one else has problems; I just seem to incite the rage of women dripping sarcasm and diamonds. Also some random girl in a striped dress that glared at me all night for no reason. I wasn’t being paranoid, other people saw it and in fact pointed it out before I noticed. At least my run-ins were with strangers. Patrick once found himself in the food line next to a woman who had recently stuck her fingers in his bum. I suppose I should mention that she was the nurse that had done his pre-PC physical. I am frustrated that Word keeps telling me that my sentences are not sentences. My thoughts are difficult to punctuate. Anyway, my favorite part is the ballroom readying. It’s busy and mindless and I enjoy it very much. I am fairly sure that I am alone in this sentiment. There is free beer in the evenings, but only before dinner. If you were a planner, you might collect more beers than you need before dinner and hide them under the table skirts of the auction table. Come hungry, dinner is excellent. Pay attention to the minimum bids. Even after the price has been marked down, the min bid stays the same. So remember that before you are scolded by a kind-hearted but quite frazzled Sharpie wielder. Most importantly, don’t forget your enhanced breasts and piles of subtle 4-carat . If still unsure about attire, I've included this picture of Velda (at least the important parts of her) from last year. diamonds

Thank you very much, it is from Italy-- actually, no, Bulgaria.

2008-04-21T12:58:00.000-07:00

We have been back in Jamaica for a few weeks but we have been without Internet access for 99% of that time. We apologize for lack of blogs, emails, etc. Our trip home was fantastic and we owe a number of people a huge thank you.

Nancy Skelton~ Nancy is a very skilled therapeutic masseuse and she offered her services pro bono. She spent almost an hour alleviating the giant knot under my left scapula then proceeded to donate some money to help us buy supplies for the orphanage. Thank you Nancy for donating your time and money.

Alan “Pops” Mazi~ My father hooked us up with boxes of Costco goods (complete with Erin’s favorite brownie mix), many meals, and the skiing aspect of our Colorado adventure. He also donated the use of my old truck back to me complete with gasoline included. And to top it all off made a special last minute trip to US Toy to pick us up two boxes of golf pencils, which are the lifeline of our after-school program. Thanks Pops for everything.

Tony and Jill Smith~ What up, parents? We’re sharing the authoring of this blog. I’m pretty grateful that you still let me mooch at my old age. I didn’t even mind that you painted my old room pink. Thanks for spoiling me with Target trips and happy hours. Our plane tickets home were largely due to a sizeable Christmas donation from you, and we greatly appreciate that. Home was wonderful. I miss you guys.

Laura Whitaker and the Notorious B-O-B~ My mother and Bob did most of the planning for our Colorado adventure and paid for the beautiful condo. My mother gave me her cell phone for the time I was home so that everyone could get a hold of me when they needed me. I stayed with them when we were in KC and they never complained when it was 58 degrees outside and I was sitting in front of the fire in their living room. They also contributed many meals and made sure I was never without ice cream. Thanks guys for letting me crash your home, eat up all your tasty-treats, and see Flipper again.

Grandparents~ Notorious spoilers, you helped us obtain our plane tickets. Grandma Mean made a whole plate of extra eggs for Patrick at Sunday breakfast, and a giant bowl of frog eye salad for me. I’m so glad that the Smiths were able to get together despite our hectic schedules and cases of pneumonia. I’m gonna go ahead and throw in other family here too. Thanks for the ribs, Uncle Doug, they were delicious. Thanks to all Meschers and Smiths for finding time for togetherness. It was lovely seeing you all.

Jennifer and Jerms~ Thanks for creating the time in your busy, busy schedules to make Colorado happen. It really made the trip to be able to have that time with you guys. Also thanks for being so busy that it required my niece Caroline and namesake nephew J. Patrick to spend so much time in KC with us. They are both amazing kids and Erin and I were glad to met J. Patrick for the first time and relieved that Caroline hasn’t forgotten us.

Little Brothers~ Thanks for getting us kicked out of the bar on St. Pat’s. It was a pretty good time. I’m glad you came to CO with us. You’ll have to come visit us in Jamaica as soon as you get vacation days. I appreciate both of you allowing me the indiscriminate use of your vehicles.

Davis, Hammer, and Willie~ My wrestling coaches took me out for beer and hot wings and actually watched some NCAA basketball with me. I was caught up on all the fun L-Town gossip and told of new babies on the way (Congrats again fellas!). Thanks for making the time to hang out.

Momma Bird and Bruce Lee~ MB and the Bruce Lee provided some dinners and also allowed their house to be invaded. Thanks MB for always acting shocked when the Dover, Shaggy, Jimbo, Mo and I talk about the strange. And thanks Bruce Lee for being a good sport despite Big Buck Hunter Pro proving that I am a far superior sportsman.

The Dover, Shaggy, Mo, and Jimbo~ Thanks guys for meeting Erin and I at the airport. It was awesome to have such a posse greet us as soon as we arrived and to drink beer with in the parking lot of terminal B. Thanks for making time in your real world lives, complete with real jobs, to drink beer, catch a concert (and see Flipper do his Irish dance), play late night Halo, etc. etc. etc.

Sam, Matt, Rachel, Lauren, and Carly~ You guys did pretty much whatever I wanted despite the fact that you are the ones with jobs and schedules. It meant a lot that you made time for me. I miss you a ton.

Evans~ So being home was strange, but I was decidedly comfortable at my grandma’s and Pizza Factory. I think I spent as much time with you guys last year as I did with my family. I’m really, really glad I got to see you even if it was a brief visit. It made me super happy.

Sorry if Erin or I missed thanking anyone. There were so many people who played important roles in the fun times had during our trip home. We miss you all and can’t wait to see you again.

Thanks again,
Erin and Patrick

They say you should never mix business with pleasure. Really. Then explain to me how a put-put golf company operates.

2008-04-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes horoscopes seem to very accurately give insight into your life. The guidance given about my day/week/month is so vague that it could apply to everyone. Really?! I am going to have a 2-star day? Dammit! I am getting so screwed. If only Venus would move out of my sign there would not be a ‘pressure (that) builds no matter which direction (I) turn.’ And tonight’s suggestion: ‘Ever playful,’ what the hell does that even mean?

I think horoscopes have about as much insight into my life as that drunk guy that sat next to you in the bar last week. However, recent revelations about our lives have been conveyed through a very powerful medium… Television.

As some of you know, my life has given many a sitcom enough fodder for entire seasons of hilarity. Case in point… Remember the time I went to the DMV to pick up my new license plates and was given the “ASSMAN’ vanity plates for that proctologist? Or the time that I got everyone to start eating their Snickers bars with a knife and fork? Or the hilarity that ensued when I had a shop that only sold the muffin tops and I had a huge pile of the muffin bottoms and my enemy ‘Newmon’ had to come eat away the problem?

Generally something hilarious happens in my life and later someone turns it into broadcasted gold, but recently something eerie has occurred. Animated cable programs have begun to reflect my life, and even to predict it. How could they possibly know what I am doing here in Jamaica in order to portray accurate versions/visions of my life? It has invaded the subconscious of Erin too!

*Side Note* Today one of the kindergartners mentioned that he thought my name was Hola Patrick. As in Hola as a first name, how did he get that mixed up? Does he think that when I see people I have not yet seen in awhile that I just shout out my own name?

Anyway if you want an animated representation of what has been happening (or soon may happen) in our lives just check out the following shows: for Erin tune into SpongeBob Squarepants and for me episodes of South Park. Recently SpongeBob has been terrorized by a monster moth similarly to Erin’s run in with Jamaican Mothra. He also mirrored her fungal dilemma when he got infested with ‘Ick,’ a fugus covering his entire body. Plus SpongeBob’s best friend is a starfish named Patrick, what are the chances? And to view a microcosm of my tribulations concerning Cable and Wireless, watch the most recent episode of South Park. “Which lights on your modem are on?” Seriously though… just unplug the router and plug it back in, it will probably fix the problem.

On an episode yet to be aired, we had to travel to Kingston for our quarterly meetings. Every trip to Kingston comes with its own interesting story, usually on the bus ride to or from. Well on the ride home I was wedged between the window and una chica muy grande. What makes this situation more entertaining (for you readers) is that my stout seat sharer was pretty into playing corners. The ride from Kingston is wrought with hairpin turns causing the heavily perspiring, plump she-beast to smash me into the window at every bend. She gave zero effort to hold herself upright. I was gravely concerned that I would be shattered through the glass. Luckily the bus window withstood the pressure and I was spared a distressing ejection from my transportation. But my bus buddy was not the only muy grande traveling with us, it was like our bus was headed to fat camp instead of MoBay. There was so much (wo)man-mass that we were riding both axels… BOTH AXELS! The logistics of this are astounding, how is this possible with food prices what they are?

Sooo, what lessons have we learned? When piloting a TV show make it about me and check local listings of South Park and SpongeBob for a little flavor of our life.

Art does really imitate life… Tricio

p.s. If something horrible should happen to any of the main characters, such as dying, be sure to call and warn us. Also should any large amounts of ice cream be in the future, let that be nice surprise.

Not an Office quote, but the much delayed packing list!

2008-04-19T06:17:00.000-07:00

I promised a packing blog ages ago and after long last I have finally had both access to the Internet and time to devote to getting it up. Sorry for the wait. It is still a work in progress and as more volunteers contribute their ideas it should get better (as in maybe I (we) won’t forget to tell you something important). You can go to the address below or click the link on the right.

The TRUTHINESS Will Set You Free!
www.pack4pcjamaica.blogspot.com

Wow, you are a downer. And we were having a pretty nice day. day.

2008-04-18T12:40:00.000-07:00

So I am 24 years old now. Thanks for everybody who sent their birthday wishes. Erin will be following me to this plateau on the 24th. I am a bit freaked out about this birthday. I am now out of the college-aged group of people and have entered into the young working class. Seriously, if I were to go to a ‘Quarter-Draws’ or ‘Penny Pitchers’ night at the bars in Columbia (my college home for those of you who didn’t already know… Columbia, not the bars) I would be that guy who was just a bit too old to be there. I would be too old to take that victory lap known as the 5th senior year and too young to be the cool old guy who returned to college after a few years of world travel and working crazy Gump-ish jobs (the book not the movie). Topically this seems not to be a problem, however all of my friends have asserted themselves into their new roles among the young bourgeois. Hell, one of them is a policeman protecting the public from the criminal and one of them is an engineer actually designing stuff that if he jacked up could cause serious problems. Yep, the guys that (may or may not have) beer-bonged malt liquor with me (or not me) are now designing the bridges you drive on or pulling you over and enforcing those pesky open container laws. Sweet Jesus, my friend Mo actually has a job too (Good job Mo, we are all proud of you).

Even many of my new friends, the ones I have made here in PC Jamaica, have a plan of what they are going to do post-PC. One was pre-accepted into pharmacy school, while another has been promised a mostly free masters complete with fellowship. What am I (Patrick) going to do? Don’t worry, for those of you concerned because you can’t come up with anything, you can rest assured that I don’t know either.

Now some of you might say, “Tricio, live in the moment and enjoy your time living on that tropical island. You can figure everything out when you are back in the states.” There is a bit of wisdom in this advice. Such pearly nuggets as… Carpe Diem! Live in the Now! Blah, blah!

Okay, rock on with the cliché, but if there is one thing that I hate worse than planning ahead is being stuck waiting. If I wait until I get home, I will have to wait another year to go back to school, but if I start now I have to work around minor problems like lack of internet, spotty phone connections, and any other problems I might incur attempting the application process from a different country. Such is the problem facing me (and really for that matter ‘us’… as Erin resides in the same boat). If we want to go to grad school when we get back we have to start the ball rolling now. I have yet to take the GRE, which I probably need to fly back to the US to take. There are applications (and application fees, not an easy hurdle on our $2250 per year salary), letters of recommendation, interviews, and so on and so forth. Remember that your invitations to my pity party are in the mail, so you can expect them any day.

I am just worried about trying to accomplish all of this while teaching and taking care of 100+ pickni dem. And I think our toilet paper is lying to us. It maintains it has aloe in it and I disagree, as it feels superfluously scratchy on my crack. And if it feels coarse on my gluteal cleft on Earth, it will most definitely feel rough on Uranus too.

Galactically Yours... Patricio

WISH I COULD'VE GONE WITH RYAN ON THAT COOL RETREAT! JAN HAS PLASTIC BOOOBS! I HAVE HEMORRHOIDS !

2008-03-07T05:51:00.000-08:00

There is a small child that lives with his family in the apartment above us. He is probably 3-4 years old and has an abundance of energy. Every morning, without fail, the thumping of his little feet running laps around his house awakens me. This usually happens around 5 o’clock, which amazes me because you hear the thud, thud, thud all day long until late at night. How does this kid run on 3 hours of sleep? How does Baby Huey make the thunderous floor pounding so loud? Does he quadruple in size when he crosses the threshold of his home because he is only like 35 inches tall and 35 pounds? Trying to figure out the physics of the huge decibels this track star in training produces, hurts my head. The only thing I can figure is he times his steps perfectly to sync with the previous vibrations and makes use of resonance and amplification… like when a moderate breeze destroys a bridge. For real people, google “resonance AND bridge.” Seriously, go do it. The video is pretty crazy.

Anyway the kid makes a ton of noise. A few days ago, Erin and I think that his parents locked him out on the porch. We feel pretty sure of our assumption as he wailed his little heart out and rattled the iron door grill creating a cacophony that eclipsed his floor thuds. This morning however he has resorted to vociferously hollering while running his requisite house laps. Oi, Ich habe Schmerz in meinen Kopf!

Sorry again for not posting in a while. My battle with Fail and Worthless continues and it seems as though I only deserve to have Internet connection two days every other week.

Erin and I are fanatically excited about our visit home. I can almost smell the wonderful BBQ and taste delicious pale ale. Oh most palatable treats of KC, I can hardly wait to imbibe upon your treasured delights! I am also excited to see family and friends. If any of you can’t wait to see us any longer than you have to, you are more than welcome to meet us at the airport or at Chipotle shortly thereafter.

Maybe Erin will post more when she gets around to writing a blog. I just wanted to post so everybody knows we are still alive.

If the oceans were whiskey and I were a duck, I’d run to the oceans and drink them all up…Patrick Mazi

ps Jesse~ Emailing questions will probably yield you more insightful answers as we are somewhat forced by Peace Corps to self-censure what goes on our blog. So if you want more detailed answers or have more personal questions, feel free to email me at pbmazi@gmail.com. Plus when you, or any other group 79er, know they are coming to Jamaica, email me about what we wish we would have packed. Who knows… if you want Erin and I could probably talk to our friends and post some sort of packing list a la the Tight Pants blog (as it helped us quite a bit, but is starting to get outdated).

pps Scott~ I am at best a very enthusiastic amateur rock climber. I spent a lot of time during my junior/senior year of college climbing. But alas climbing in Missouri is limited to mostly limestone thus my experience is fairly limited. I have gazed longingly at many exposed rock faces and wished I had brought my climbing gear (and more importantly wished I had someone to climb with). Getting to these areas would be a chinch, but getting home would be a problem unless a taxi was chartered. This doesn’t really make sense for me alone, but if you, or other climbers, end in Jamaica I would probably get exponentially more excited about making the effort.

There are four kinds of business. Tourism, food service, railroads and sales. And hospitals slash manufacturing. And air travel.

2008-03-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

I warned all of you not to get used to frequent postings. The reason we have not posted in awhile is we have not had access to Internet. The provider of the World Wide Web here in Jamaica is ‘Cable and Wireless’ and it is my personal belief that this company has the worst business practices EVER. You may be saying to yourself, “Patrick don’t be silly, the worst EVER?! Aren’t you being a bit superlative?” No, I am not over-exaggerating. I have been locked in an epic battle with Cable and Wireless that is worthy of immortality in a Homeric poem. I realize that having Internet access in my home is a luxury not available to most Peace Corps posts. I should be thankful I am able to email friends and family regularly, look up lesson plans, and have a creative outlet such as our blog. But it is incredibly frustrating when I am used to having such amenities and they suddenly go away with no explanation. When I try to call Cable and Wireless (loving called “Fail and Worthless’) they have no idea what is wrong, can give me no idea when I can expect service again, then have the gall to ask me for payment. Why would I pay for a service I have not received?

Not a whole lot has really happened in the past week since we posted a blog. But I will try to provide some interesting commentary so that those of you that check out the ol’ blog with any frequency can get your fix.

Instead of calling February 29, 2008 ‘Leap Day,’ I am going to forever remember it as ‘The Day My Butt Went to Sleep.’ In order to find out what happened to me that caused my derriere to go numb, we are going to do the rest of this blog ‘choose your own adventure’ style.

→Okay so if you think that I spent 10+ hours on a minibus continue reading on in the next paragraph.
→If you think that I got my ass paddled like a freshmen by Ben Affleck a la Dazed and Confused, continue to the p.s. part of my blog… at the very end.

I was scheduled to arrive in Kingston for a 1 o’clock meeting of the PC student council, aka VAC. I left the house at 8 o’clock thinking 5 hours would be plenty of time to travel 110 miles. Who has two thumbs and completely misjudged the unreliability of public transportation in Jamaica? This guy! Two short jaunts in a taxi and 5 hours on a minibus later I get to the PC office only to be told the meeting was unnecessary and had already happened (side note to incoming PCVs… fill out grant request forms correctly so I don’t travel all across the freakin’ country for no reason). Well, Ryan and I treated ourselves to some Wendy’s before catching a taxi back to the bus park. Reluctantly I got back on the bus and though I was dreading the return trip to MoBay I was at bit pleased because I was able to snatch up one of the best seats on the bus.

→ If you think that I gave up such prime real estate to a flustered young mother and her infant continue reading in the next paragraph.
→ If you think I keep my head down and enjoyed what would have been a vastly more comfortable ride… slap yourself for thinking me such an asshole.

Yep. I gave one of the best seats on the bus to the young mother and her baby. What a completely terrible idea. What was I thinking? Damn chivalry, why won’t you die?!

When it comes to public transportation on island, there are good (actual) seats, the very front seat or any seat next to a window. The rows closer to the door usually get squished as more people are packed in. The worst seats are the ‘jump seats.’ They are rickety contraptions of the southern engineering variety that go in the aisles. Not only did I give up my seat next to a window, I succeeded in getting the jump seat right next to the door. So for the journey home I sat uncomfortably squeezed in the aisle on the only jump seat without a back. So yeah, my rump was completely without feeling about 15 minutes into the 5-hour return journey.

This was not my only rear related problem this week. While singing ‘cabeza, hombros, rodillas, y pies,’ I was bending over to touch my ‘pies’ and one of the students proceeded to credit card me with a large seed pod. Those of you unfamiliar with getting credit carded, think about sliding your credit card through the machine at the grocery store, now think about a kindergartner doing that with a seedpod to my gluteal cleft. Though I was feeling shocked, violated, and a bit emasculated, I was to finish my lesson. Note to self… protect family jewels from miniature fists of fury and protect the plumber parts (sorry Tony, with so much crack talk I couldn’t resist) from errant seedpods. The things one learns by teaching 5 year-olds.

We have been taking a bunch of pictures of our kids to share with all of you interested when we come home. Sorry for those of you who want them posted on the blog. Our boss asked us not to post pics of the kids and we are honoring his request. Also our camera situation is a bit of a problem. I am grateful to my father for gifting us Jen’s hand-me-down camera as we have gotten quit a bit of use out of it. The only problem is it takes 5-10 seconds to take the picture once you hit the button, it is larger than what is comfortable to carry in a pocket, and it chews through batteries like that’s its job. These three things prevent us from taking more pictures. The first two make us look incredibly touristy, a label we fight daily, or make us look like CIA. I don’t really understand the CIA thing, but it was told to me. I guess I can see it… a random white guy walking around taking pictures of people and things in places that don’t see many tourists. It doesn’t really seem that big of a stretch when I put it like that.

That’s all I have to say and I mean it… anybody want a peanut? Patricio

p.s. If Ben Affleck ever showed up at my baseball game and tried to paddle my butt I would pound his craptastic-movie-making face in.

Does anyone actually know what Sue Grafton looks like? I mean is she hot or?

2008-03-01T08:18:00.000-08:00

So I have a tooth growing in. I'm guessing that it is a wisdom tooth. Who knows, I didn't get my 12 year old molars until I was like 16, maybe it is another of those. All I know is that the dentist said that I would make it a few more years without having to have my 3 wisdom teeth out. Liar. Now my mouth hurts and and I'm starting to look British. Also I am afraid to scratch any random itches because I am worried it is more ringworm. I had dream about Budweiser last night. Mmmm, nice cold bottles. Yeah, so not much going on, I'm diseased, Patrick is full of pumpkin cake and locked in a battle with the internet company that would make Alan proud. We're trying something new at SOS and it is a ton of work on our part. It's difficult to plan activities for all ages and abilities. I dared to search through the forest of ideas we got during training. All it did was make me feel okay about finally throwing it all away.

I just wanted to let you all know we survived the week, I don't have anything to say really. Perhaps Patrick will want to add more when he awakens from his pumpkin cake coma.

Jesse- As for the wearing of rings, we do not own them and so do not wear them. This is for personal reasons and not related to our service. We've noticed that the other couples wear plain bands. In some cases a wedding ring may cut back on the harassment, but I doubt it helps much. Most harassers don't take the time to notice your jewelry and even if they do, your marital status does not deter them. I don't think you have to worry too much about having your rings stolen. When Patrick was mugged, they were concerned with his phone and cash. Most of the theft is picking of wallets and phones, your rings will probably be safe as long as they are plain and simple.

In the wild, there is no healthcare. In the wild healthcare is 'Ow, I hurt my leg. I can't run. A lion eats me, and I'm dead.'

2008-02-22T04:36:00.000-08:00

They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal healthcare in Cuba. So why do they want to come here? – Paul Harvey

At various times I have spouted off rants about one thing or another on this blog. You have my apologies if I have caused offense, but brace yourself for another harangue. I also apologize as this has little to do with Jamaica. Erin and I watched Barack and Hillary debate last night and made pumpkin pie. The pumpkin pie really hit the spot but the debate has me worried.

For those of you unfamiliar with my political leanings, I consider myself an independent with fairly libertarian interpretations of most issues. In short I think the government should have as little impact on my life as possible. It is my belief that the intentions of the founding fathers was to erect a minimal government that only served to protect the individual citizens when their rights are infringed upon.

There are many things that are great in theory. The most striking one that comes to mind is communism and having dabbled in the works of Marx, Engels, et al. the idea itself is reasonable. However in practice, historically, it has failed to live up to its utopian aspirations. Back to last night's debate... One of the key issues the candidates sparred over was universal healthcare. Up until last night around 9:15 I thought universal healthcare was a great idea. Like I said, "... many things are good in theory." Upon further reflection and reading details of their plans I am thoroughly freaked out about healthcare of the universal variety. Are they serious about making it mandatory? Charging fines for those not enrolled? What if I cannot afford it? What if (however unlikely it is) I place 15% of my salary into an account for future medical procedures, am I still forced to participate?

Having healthcare is great and I think it should be a feasible venture for anybody interested. BUT, the thought of the government forcing me to participate in anything severely rubs me the wrong way. To me, it seems mandates such as the ones planned by both candidates about universal healthcare, are actions that begin a descent down a slippery slope.

I have pointed out an issue that is predominately from the democratic party, but neither party is currently sympathetic to libertarian viewpoints (save Republican Ron Paul, though his candidacy is very, very unlikely).

I lieu of a sign off, here are some quotes from people more intelligent than me concerning their libertarian ideals...Patrick

-They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

-One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. – Thomas B. Reed

-No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. – Mark Twain

-There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws. – Ayn Rand

-To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. – Thomas Jefferson

-I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men's rights. – Abraham Lincoln

-The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. – John Stuart Mill

Trash talk is all hypothetical like, your momma's so fat she could eat the internet.

2008-02-18T15:48:00.000-08:00

If by "your momma's" you really mean "Patrick's," and by "fat" you mean "hungry," and by "internet" you mean "pizza that Erin and I from scratch that is muy delicioso," then the title of this entry is about me waiting on dinner tonight. We made a pretty fabulous pizza crust using beer. It is far cry from Pizza Factory quality but not too shabby.

I wrote the following blog Saturday. After rigorous discussion, Erin and I felt as though we should wait a day or two before posting. We don't want to condition our readers to new material as often as we have been posting in case one or the both of us develop a 47 day writer's block. Anyway pretend it is last Saturday and read on...

I just returned from a downtown odyssey, which was a very bizarre experience indeed. My taxi ride downtown was pretty routine except that rather than taking ‘top road’ which is faster, the driver opted to take his passengers the scenic route through the Hip Strip. His reasoning for doing so was that it is tourist season and he wanted to see white girls. He was rewarded for his efforts and proceeded to wolf-whistle and hiss at every girl on the road.

I arrived at my destination in one piece. As I walked through the gauntlet of St. James Street—the main thoroughfare through downtown MoBay—I bumped fists with no fewer than 5 bums. I believe this is a new PR for bum fist bumping in one day, which is always cool despite an incredible urge to wash one’s hands.

Fast-forward to the grocery store. I think that Jamaican grocery stores may have finally one-upped American grocery stores in one feature, free samples. I have not been away long enough to forget that heading out to Sam’s Club/Costco on a late Saturday morning will leave you full until dinner. However, American samples can’t begin to compete with Jamaican samples, mainly because they always involve alcohol. Last week while visiting Ryan in May Pen, we were offered free beer samples and a free beer stein if we purchased a 6-er. Cha-ching! I’ll take two! Today at the store they were comparing hard liquor. I tested Bailey’s versus a local Irish Cream and good ole’ Jack Daniels versus a cheap whiskey. My day was made because 1) having a non-Red Stripe or rum based drink felt pretty damn good and 2) I also was able to find yeast so that Erin and I can make pizza dough later.

Traveling by public transport in Jamaica is a ‘trip’ (pun intended) that must be experienced by all visitors. I personally have a love-to-bitch-about-it relationship with Jamaican public transport. There is bound to be some strange and bizarre twist every time you venture out. Case in point… On my return trip a very dapper man approaches me and asks if I am going to Rosehall/Lilliput. I assumed he was the driver trying to drum up business, but soon realized that he was a loader. Loaders tend to be disheveled in appearance bordering on bum-ish, very pushy, and generally ask you and/or the driver for a tip. Okay so never judge a book by its cover… lesson learned. But, my astonishment was further extended when one of dirtiest dudes I have ever seen hops into the drivers seat. I am amazed because his taxi is fairly new (a rarity in itself) and pristine in condition. How could a man as dirty as this one keep his taxi as clean as it is? Never judge a book by its cover… lesson re-learned.

Maybe I did not notice the smell of the man/taxi because I, only a half hour before, enjoyed cocktails from the grocery store. Or maybe my beak missed out as a result of the extreme breeze that occurs when barreling down the road at mach 3. Whatever the reason, I definitely failed to detect the extreme odiferous-ness of the taxi/driver until we were stopped due to road construction AND forced to roll up the windows due to dust. Holy balls Batman! I nearly blew chunks from the over-powering pong. The driver, being soiled to the extreme, was obviously the only culprit right? Wrong. As he opened his center console, he had a pile of rotting garlic, just sitting there! WTF!? What possible reason for having rotting garlic in the center console could there be? I hope he just forgot about it because he lacks a sense of smell. Thankfully we resumed driving and I was able to roll down my window and hang my head out doggy style.

Today I was reminded that you should never judge a book by its cover. However, judging it by its stench is perfectly acceptable… as is choosing a new book if the one you have smells like crap or rotting garlic.

And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street… Patricio

So, the deal was, Dwight doesn't blow anything up and I wear a costume. And a mustache.

2008-02-15T17:40:00.000-08:00

“Happy Friday!” Erin cheerfully announces while checking on what would be a delicious (surprisingly for those of your who are familiar with Erin’s culinary exploits) dinner in the oven. This makes me feel better as Jamaica was doing a pretty good job of beating me down today. The realization that bad people are everywhere (I mean worldwide not just in Jamaica) sometimes depresses me. What the hell folks?! That piece of crap in Illinois who swiss-cheesed his former fellow students before doing himself is beyond my scope of understanding. Feel free to help out natural selection and remove yourself from the gene pool but leave everybody else alone, tool shed. For what reason would someone possibly have to shoot up his ex-classmates at school? Or for that matter another person in a busy section of downtown MoBay? I am lost on their reasoning, maybe my pragmatism is getting in the way of identifying with bloodlust-ing creepers. “This-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism  All (I am) saying is give peace a chance!” Thanks Mr. Lennon… I completely agree.

Give peace a chance indeed.

So Erin and I attended a little ceremony at our orphanage today. The local Ritz-Carlton Hotel was sponsoring one of our houses and they had a ceremonial ribbon cutting. Erin has never shied away from detailing her situational social awkwardness but I have never lumped myself in with her in that regard. After many evenings spent rubbing elbows with Kansas City “elite” (aka folks that are richer than god) while volunteering at Leukemia and Lymphoma Society fundraisers, I felt as if I could schmooze with anyone. After 8 months in Jamaica my ability to connect with strangers in social situations has completely disappeared. I am not saying this to whine… but as a statement of fact. I used to be able to sell ketchup popsicles to ladies in white gloves and now I babbled on for 4 minutes about the fact the Jamaica is hot. No sh*t Sherlock! I hope this social deficiency is a temporary fault. I attribute this to the bulk of my daily interactions being with people under the age 10 and the occasional crazy-ass bum. So a plea to all, when I come home in March, please be patient as I adjust to proper conversational etiquette.

In the vain assumption that new volunteers are currently or may soon read our blog (I have proof of at least one… thanks for reading and commenting Jesse), Erin and I will post commentary useful to Peace Corps newbs in upcoming blogs. This may be entertaining as it will inevitably show how ill prepared we were at times and maybe give non-PC recruits additional insight into what is required for daily life here. On the plus side, even if it fails to provide useful info or insight, it might provide respite to those of you weary of my eccentric soliloquies.

As American as Apple Pie… Patrick

p.s. Jesse~ You are more than welcome to link our blog. We are glad you got some enjoyment out of it. If you, or your husband, have additional questions/concerns/impatient ramblings about Peace Corps feel free to email. pbmazi@gmail.com

You lookin' for dinner and a movie? Cause you're not gonna find it in that box.

2008-02-12T20:04:00.000-08:00

I feel that, as of late, both Patrick and I have displayed our vanity by rambling on about our thoughts and what you can buy us when we come home. I’ve decided to tell you a bit about what is going on here, and then I’ll indulge my narcissistic tendencies. Today, Patrick got punched in the balls by a five-year-old. He rallied himself and was able to teach 3 classes of kindergarteners Spanish. I think we should all give him a proverbial pat on the back for bravery. I don’t have balls, but I bet it is difficult to walk into a room full of potential ball-injurers after such a traumatic encounter. I may have contracted ring worm…on my eye. Gross, right? Before you condemn me for being dirty, I want to remind everyone that I fight OCD tendencies and wash my hands often. However, I do high five a lot of bums and frequently hold the sweaty hands of small children. So maybe I picked something up there. Who knows?

I’m trying a new thing. Apparently other people use paragraphs. I’m just too random to organize my thoughts, but I’m going to make an effort. I realize that many of you may be shocked by an omission from my visit-to-KC-to-do-list. Usually, both before and after any prolonged absence, I visit Pizza Factory. And I must say, I do miss me some country dressing and I will forever find all other pizzas lacking. However, I do not ‘do’ change. A visit to the Factory without helping Lindy finish the crossword just rings hollow. So there’s nothing I want more than a visit, in fact it would probably be the first place I went, I just want everything to be as I left it—which is impossible because it is now owned by strangers. Basically, all I’m asking is that the whole Evans family shows up for a couple of hours and arrange themselves as if they never left. Not too much to ask, is it? Okay, maybe it is.

Alright, who decided a poodle should look like that? This is not as irrelevant as it seems, we are (kind of) watching the Westminster Dog Show. We’ve been able to see most of the contestants despite the finicky-ness of the channel. This is one of Patrick’s favorite annual events. He was almost as excited about this as he was about the Super Bowl. But seriously, I like the little hair beret the poodle sports, but what is with the little poofs on their hips? Who first thought to do that to a dog? It can’t grow in like that, can it? The beagle just won. It was an extremely adorable beagle, it’s trying to eat the prize ribbon. Patrick wishes me to include that he called it. Congrats, Uno. I bet you wish your owner would quit touching your butt.

I'm petrified of nipple chafing. Once it starts, it's a vicious circle.

2008-02-11T10:14:00.000-08:00

Erin and I have spent the morning cleaning our pad and running to the grocery store. It fails to amaze me the randomization that occurs when stocking Jamaican grocery stores. It is utterly unfeasible to plan to make any recipe because without fail the grocery will not have one or more ingredients. I should be used to this by now… my life is one America’s Next Top Chef task after another, at least when it comes to my culinary endeavors. I believe that meal planning in Jamaica would be daunting for even a highly trained chef. It is not that we are trying to make exotic, Emeril BAM! recipes like a turducken stuffed Amazon river bass in a Sri Lankan cinnamon white wine reduction garnished with rare Peruvian orchids. We sometimes go weeks without mainstay components like milk, sugar, garlic, eggs, etc. This not to mention the price of most produce has risen three fold since our arrival on island (with no raise in our living allowances). Needless to say recipe development is sketchy at best and sometimes we must get creative. What is the maxim I’m looking for…? Oh… Necessity is the mother of invention. I get that, but it doesn’t reduce my desire to hit up a Whole Foods upon my visit to the states in March. Along that line and at the request of my mother, here is a rough list of the things E and I wish to do while we are home. We realize that we have a lot on our list and if everything doesn’t happen we won’t be in the least bit hurt.

Where/what we would like to eat
-Granite City
-Steak ‘n’ Shake
-Margaritas (Bob-dre is in, any other Taco Tuesday takers?)
-La Bodega (I think Sam and Matt call this one)
-Stroud’s
- Ixtapa
-Sheridan’s mmmmm
-chocolate bag
-ice cream ice cream ice cream
-nice fruit
-ribs and German tater salad (G-ma Mean and Uncle Squirrel make the best ☺)
-flourless chocolate torte (P is going to make these last things, he just needs people to enjoy them)
-chili
-stuffed mushrooms

Also we need to stock up on some things like socks and olive oil. So if anyone is down with a Target/Costco trip we’ll be making a couple of those as well.

We’d love a trip to the bookstore, and some good coffee.

We’re going to need to enjoy lots of good beer, preferably while watching basketball. I dunno if anyone is down with helping us do that…

With everything, the more the merrier. If you are super excited about any of the above let us know via phone, email, or blog comment. We are also open to any additional ideas.

Good Night and Good Luck!
Patrick with input from Erin

p.s. Why does Snoop Dogg always carry an umbrella? Fo’ Drizzle
p.p.s. Great news! No longer do I feel the need to beg for blog comments. Leave one, don’t leave one, I could not care less. I (we) still enjoy your input but the new feedjit widget lets me know our blog at least gets some traffic… big brother style. The fact that a couple people are reading is all I wanted to know anyway. Plus I like the flags.

Who are the twins? Um, to be delicate, they hang off milady's chest. They make milk.

2008-02-05T16:47:00.000-08:00

Happy Mardi Gras! A nice quasi-religious holiday of over-indulgence (king cake, booze, boobs, beads, boobs, boobs, New Orleans) that, this year, coincides with ‘Super Tuesday.’ The Super Tuesday political storm has steamrolled over every media outlet and in my opinion has led to a severe over-saturation of the candidates, the ‘issues’ and even the political process itself. I credit the argument that as Americans we should want as much information about the candidates as possible in order to make the most informed decision come ballot day. However this line of reasoning comes with certain ingrained fallacies… that the general public will absorb and use the abundance of information and that the information provided on the most accessible outlets are accurate and unbiased.

The journalistic media is shaded to the wills of media corporations and tycoons, Rupert Murdoch, et. al., and largely by the reporters themselves in whatever shtick they operate. The saving grace is that there is enough exposure leaning one way to counterbalance exposure to the other. There is no getting around biased opinions of the journalist, and I am not sure the general public is savvy/motivated/intelligent enough to sort through to the facts regarding the candidates. It blows my mind that American politics has fallen to those with enough money to pay for the best advertising. Do we really want the same marketing process that sways which fast food we raise our cholesterol with to help sway our vote of the next commander-in-chief? I have reconsidered the electoral process in recent days after watching CNN, FOXNews, MSNBC, and others interview street people to get their opinions of national political happenings. I assume news stations interview at least a couple people and choose the best ones to air (Jen, you can correct me if I am wrong). This scares me because so far I have seen 5 super ignorant people vomit misinformation for every one halfway competent response. I realize the inequity associated with the electoral college, but it comforts me a bit knowing uninformed clowns don’t have a direct say, technically speaking, in the outcome of an election. Not that leaving it up to our currently elected officials is any better. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Anyway I just felt like voicing my extreme displeasure with the stupidity of recent interviewees and my wish to karate chop their minds. Also this continues my streak of discussing things a well-mannered individual never discusses in a public forum. Last week religion, now politics, maybe next week’s fodder should be economics.
Today was my first day teaching Spanish. Surprisingly I think my time spent teaching ‘head, shoulders, knees, and toes’, “my name is…,” and the color ‘red’ all in Spanish was highly successful. My victory is probably a direct cause of my relating to the kids--which correlates as a reflection of a possible infantile regression and a similar sense of humor. Anyway I was fairly discouraged when I left the classes to go help Erin in the library. I felt like I had little control of the class and despite enthusiastic participation by the kids, they learned nothing. But during our homework sessions a few hours later, one of my little pupils came in and pointed to her head and said “bay-sa,” as in the Spanish word ‘cabeza’ (head). That’s pretty close right?! Anyway that made me feel pretty good and like my day was worthwhile. Celebrate the little things, I guess.

Have a good night all you party people.

---Patricio sana in corpore sano---

p.s. Holy balls what an unbelieveably awesome Super Bowl.
p.p.s. I am glad all of you got such a kick out of the photos of me in earlier times. I am just glad I have proof that my dashingly handsome mug is really my face and not some Dr. 90210 patchwork. That’s right… you can’t make a nose like this.

And the best way to start is to hit... Start. And up comes the toolbar. That's what she said.

2008-02-04T07:41:00.001-08:00

As most of you probably know, I suffer from lepidophobia. I know. At times it is nearly debilitating. Like when a bird-sized moth flew into our friend’s house. I tried to hide from it while the boys (who were also freaked out, I might add, with good reason, the thing was a real-life Mothra, its nasty body was the size of a fist) attempted to usher it back into the Jamaican wilderness. Someone finally had the presence of mind to turn off the light, and Mothra went in search of brighter bulbs. I did not sleep all night, thinking that every bug, lizard, and frog bumping into the walls was Mothzilla, returning to exact its revenge on us for swatting at it with hats and dirty t-shirts. This happened months ago and I am still a bit shaken. Anyway, I’ve always been a bit ashamed of my inability to deal with the appearance of grotesque flying worms. Today I was vindicated by SpongeBob. He and Patrick (the starfish, not the lovable human) were terrified when a butterfly got loose in Bikini Bottom. The whole town was thrown into a panic until the Texas squirrel thing came and captured the monster in a jar. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed watching cartoon characters in an uproar over a “harmless” creature. SpongeBob and I both know that the scaly winged terrors are far from innocuous. If you disagree, then you should google “fear of butterflies.” There you will find long lists of losers who have formed help pages and internet support groups for those of us who keep constant vigilance for moths and butterflies. I must say that this didn’t make me feel as good as the cartoon did. I know I am irrationally afraid of creatures that most people find “pretty,” but I see this as quirky rather than weird. Especially since I embrace slimy scary animals. This makes me more interesting than pathetic like the people I googled, right? I may also be a bit scared of cats, but everyone knows they are spawn of Satan. So they don’t count. Man, Bret Michaels likes the hussies. He definitely sent the prettiest girls home first, and kept the scrappy, wily, streetwalkers. Maybe that is why he is so unlucky in love. I guess you guys are probably more interested in what is going on here in Jamaica rather than in Bret’s love mansion. We were able to watch the Super Bowl. Power only went out twice and then only briefly. However, we did not get most of the commercials. Instead, we got the same three terrible Coors (yuck) Light commercials…in Spanish. They looked lame, but maybe they were hilarious, how would I know? Pretty excited about the Giants winning. Both P and I called it. It was a wonderful end to a lovely day. We may not have had cake, Ma, but I did make Patricio a whole batch of cookies for his very own. Now, 12 hours and half a tub of cream cheese mixed with most of a can of chili later, he is incapacitated on the couch. We did make an excellent dinner including surprisingly delicious Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes. Funny story, P was in the back seat of a taxi when two other Jamaicans got in and forced him into the middle seat. The driver looked over his shoulder and began laughing hysterically, managing to stammer gleefully, “oreo cookie!” Heehee. I will conclude this decidedly hodge-podge email with yet another abrupt change of subject. So I don’t know if you all have looked at P big sis’s blog, but you should, the kiddos are pretty darn adorable. Apparently, Caroline’s baby brother is a bit of a chunk. Perhaps, but as chunky as his uncle?! You be the judge. (This is Patrick at 3 months, by the way.)

Although let's hope little James Patrick doesn't share Uncle Patrick's awkward stage. What was he wearing?

I'd like to sincerely thank my source for these priceless photos!

Question. What kind of bear is best?... False. Black Bear

2008-01-27T18:32:00.000-08:00

Despite my track record of delicious culinary concoctions, I totally biffed on the funnel cakes that Erin and I attempted tonight. The deck was significantly stacked against us; our pans have horrible hot spots, the stovetop heats unevenly (not to mention it shocks the crap out of you if your feet aren’t insulated), not enough oil to fry in, and the mysterious ‘extra Jamaican liquid.’ What is this mysterious extra liquid? Well it seems that every recipe I make seems to contain too much liquid, even recipes I have been making for years. For example even when following pancake batter recipes to perfection they always require almost ¾ of a cup additional flour to attain the correct consistency. You may be saying that I may not be paying attention to my measurements or have lost my edge. But I say nay. Some inexplicable phenomenon is hell bent on foiling my food production. The most logical explanation, taking into account my recent Jamaican assimilation, is that a family of recipe spoiling ‘duppies’ (aka ghosts) are conspiring against me. Other possibilities to this ugly problem are; our proximity to the Bermuda Triangle, an unexplained weather anomaly, or Erin is a double agent (the prospect of a subversive, rabid KU-fan alliance partner unnerves me a bit). If I ever catch any of those damn duppies in my kitchen, they will lament they day they only half died.

***Warning: Actual Job Updates***
I am sure many of you have read Erin’s adventure at the kindergarten, despite your lack of blog comments. Anyhow we reached a compromise with our supervisor and starting this week, in addition to our after school activities, I will be teaching Spanish to 4-5 year olds. While I do this Erin will attempt to do some reading activities with some of the struggling kids. I am envisioning teaching simple concepts like colors, days of the week, and months of the year. Hopefully I may even get to simple sentences, “hello, how are you,” type of thing. I envision this being supertastically difficult as most of the kids don’t know colors, days of the week, and months of the year in English. Keep your fingers crossed.

Speaking of not writing blog comments… I have come to the conclusion that those of you who do not leave comments are bored with our blog. Thus I have decided to incite furious rages and write the first of my incendiary blog passages... The following passage from the bible has been brought to my attention numerous times, most recently this weekend, and I feel compelled to share it with you. The passage is from 2 Kings 2:23-24 (I used the New International Version). It goes as follows:

23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

Really? Bears? WWJD? Would the big guy in the sky really endorse this? Please discuss.

---Patricio Sans Frontieres---

p.s. Man has never been to the moon… the video was a Hollywood fakery.
p.p.s. The Great Pyramids of Giza were built by aliens, aka the Greys, aka extraterrestrials, aka the Vulcans, aka 13 of our ex-presidents (Nixon, Garfield, Tyler, et. al. were most definitely not from Earth)

How would I describe myself? Three words: hard working, alpha male, jack hammer. Merciless. Insatiable.

2008-01-22T09:09:00.000-08:00

Wow. I realize that Erin and I are not necessarily competing with my sister’s blog, but good grief has everybody checked out the new pictures she posted. My niece and nephew namesake are pretty flippin’ adorable. I suppose I may be somewhat biased as they are my blood relatives, but there is still no way that blogging about the ups and downs of Peace Corps service can compare. I feel like a b-list actor whose movie is opening up the same weekend as Spiderman 4 and Ocean’s 15. Anyway for those of you who haven’t checked out my sister’s blog it’s sweetcaroline05.blogspot.com. On to more somber things… I suppose if the US economy is going into recession I probably won’t notice it much living in Jamaica on 17 cents a day. Though there is reason to hope, we might be getting a 4 cent/day raise!!! Erin and I plan to take our newly found wealth and throw that $14ish/year into a smart assortment of stocks, bonds, and other tradable commodities. I hear gold does well when the dollar is weak. Also, no post-WWII recession has lasted longer than 15 months and it seems that oil prices fall significantly for years following a US recession. Not that we should lose focus on implementing viable petroleum alternatives. I am a bit worried that we might return to a dipping economy based on some of the plans I have heard coming from some of the frontrunner presidential candidates. It seems silly to me to essentially have two schools of thought and to have them align with the US political parties. To see a prime example of how rigidly sticking to one school of thought or the other is a foolish venture, one can look at the epic battle between gradualism vs. catastrophism. Evolutionary biologists (along with geologist, palentologists, and other specialties) have long swayed one way or the other with gradualism gaining the upper hand (until fairly recently). Sure it seems life (sediments, fossil record, etc.) will change slowly over time that is, until someone discovers that a comet/asteroid smacked the crap out of the Earth leaving a 120-mile wide crater and catastrophically altering the planet and all life on it. It seems with most things, the truth seems to lie somewhere in the middle. Life will continue to evolve slowly over a vast period of time at least until the Earth gets another cosmic bitch slap. So to the partisan politicians and their all or nothing economic plans, I say to you ‘Booooo!’ I have followed US politics more in recent months and feel well versed in the various nuances more so than any other time in my life yet I feel seriously detached. A double sword that is, the feeling of detachment, on one hand I feel as if I have taken a step back and have gained another perspective. But on the other hand detachment is not a word I feel I want to associate with any of my beliefs, political or otherwise. Combining these feelings with working with the Peace Corps (a hugely superfluously bureaucratic federal government agency… despite its hippie connotations) tempts me to upon my return to the states to live off the grid and send donations to assorted pro-anarchist organizations. I assume living off the grid essentially means to live the life of a dumpster cat. Speaking of dumpster cats… we have inherited one and we do our best to feed it our leftovers. We loving named her Oscar the Dumpster Kyaat. I suppose one could argue that the life of a dumpster cat has great variability. Oscar gets mere table scraps and roams the wild while Shebadda the Dumpster Kyaat lives indoors with us and gets premium mercury free tuna. Not to mention a great wardrobe. I may rethink this living off the grid thing. Off the grid or on it, at least I know I can still lift weights miles from any gym with the weight lifting sacks lovingly sewed and bestowed upon me by Grandma Mescher. Many thanks Grandma! Well thanks again for tuning in to the latest edition; I am going to play with my sack(s).

Eins..zwei…drei…
Patricio

This is Oscar the Dumpster Kyaat with a friend. Oscar is the cat on the right.

This is Shebadda the Dumpster Kyaat sporting a dashing Easter outfit.

Playing with my sack(s).

I am not great with kids, but I want to get better.So I put out a bunch of extra candy on my desk so the kids will come talk to me.

2008-01-17T17:52:00.000-08:00

I taught kindergarten today. It went about how you would expect me teaching kindergarten to go. Only worse because I am in Jamaica, where all the pikni dem think it is fun to hug the white lady and laugh when she starts yelling in her funny white lady accent. I am in no way intimidating to 5-yr-old Jamaicans. Also I went into the classroom thinking (okay really just hoping) that I would be assisting another teacher and not be left alone with no lesson plans and 15 expectant children. Really I would have been excited to have anyone else in the room with me. Although any time another adult entered, it was to restore order to my extremely unruly charges, and that was quite embarrassing. But I was alone, with no instruction and no experience teaching--all day--a class of the wee ones. We colored a lot. It wasn't my idea, they just got into the coloring books and it seemed easiest to go with it. Unfortunately, they are 5, and have no attention span so coloring dissolved into fighting over crayons and ripping up the coloring books. We tried learning about the number 4, but some of the children held up 6 fingers when I asked them to show me four, and I couldn't let it go, so they all started acting out once I made them stand there with their fingers held up for 5 minutes. Simon Says worked for about 10 min, but they didn't understand the whole concept, we played a revised version. I tried reading to them, and that seemed to go the best. Except one or two children would interrupt me and I would react instead of ignoring them. I think my biggest problem, aside from lack of preparation, was that I wanted them all to behave perfectly. But there is always one. Always one. Mostly I spent hours running in small hopeless circles trying to get them to put their shoes back on, sit in their chairs, put away the objects they were thiefing from the teacher's desk and cabinets, quit hitting the girls, stop screeching. Towards the end, they were making huge dog piles on the ground. I attempted to pull these apart, but it was difficult as they were extremely wiggly. It was a colossal mess, folks. On the upside, I did not get hit by any rocks, but I did suffer from a few blows with a stick. I find this especially irritating as I lie to keep the children from getting spanked, the least they could do is not hit me. I mean, come on. I reported my failure to my boss and everyone in the office seemed amused. I don't know why because the children got zero education today. Zero. Some of them think 6 is 4, that is a terrible sign. To top it off, on the way down the hill (a journey I make twice daily) some guys decided to call out to me. This happens regularly, and I am more tolerant at some times than others. Today was not a tolerant day. I choose to ignore their ridiculous hissing (who responds to that, seriously?) and so they resorted to yelling, 'whitey', 'sweetie,' 'sweetheart' and other such nonsense. I paid them no mind at all--it was easy enough as I was brooding about my laughable teaching skills--but my stoic response seemed to irritate them. Then they called me a 'bad ass mother _____.' I'm not sure what to make of this. I know they were making fun of me, but I prefer to be compared to Samuel L. Jackson rather than called 'sweetie' by a gang of creepers. I gotta say though, my day ended on a high note with well behaved homework completers and I stayed busy so it wasn't too bad for a Thursday.

Well it is a little chillier than I had thought. So I have fashioned my hat back into my pants.

2008-01-14T07:45:00.000-08:00

So sometimes we have cable. This means that I occasionally spend my evenings rotting my brain watching the terrible, soul-destroying crap that is on television these days. At the moment, the new American Gladiator is gracing the screen. It features warriors like Venom, Adonis, and Jeff. Jeff? No one named Jeff is going to beat someone named Adonis. I think my least favorite shows are ones that involve trashy people fighting strangers for the love of a famous stranger. On Rock of Love, they invited the girl’s parents to meet Bret Michaels. If I ever hit rock bottom or have a lobotomy and decide that that is the course on which I wish to take my life, please, do not endorse my decision by appearing on the show with me. Geez.. You know what show I do enjoy? The Playboy show. Those girls are funny. Holly is my least favorite. Aside from the fact that they have to share an 80-yr-old boyfriend, they get to do some amazing things. Tonight they were detained by police trying to visit the Prince of Monaco. So I suppose I should qualify that this is a perfectly tame show on E! and it’s real name is The Girls Next Door. It’s not indecent. School has started again. The children were a bit sore that we weren’t up daily during their winter break. I didn’t bring our bag of “incentives” (okay, bribes) one day and they were pretty pissed about that too. They’ve forgiven us though and we had a bevy of little homework completers every day. We have been keeping ourselves busy with PC paperwork. Every few months we have to fill out these long forms. They want numbers, but the numbers are totally arbitrary because everyone is doing something different. Volunteers the world over have to fill out these forms and it all gets condensed into a 2 paragraph report typed up by a Senatorial aide. We’ve adopted a dumpster cat. It is gray striped with a white belly. It likes to curl up on our porch chairs. We feed it on the steps, it is not allowed in the house. I don’t think it would let us get close to it anyway. If we have neglected to feed it, it will come and look forlornly into our house from the back door. We keep changing its name. The name I feel most appropriate is Fillippe, but Patricio vetoed it on the grounds that I already named the bird that used to live under my truck Philipo. I’ll try to get a picture of him. I just keep losing the camera. We should be home in March for a couple of weeks. Woohoo. We’re ecstatic, you should be too. As regards our return to the states, Patrick would like to request that whoever meets us at the airport bring along 1 cold Budweiser and 1 cold Sam Adams. I would like to request Maggie.

We are completely wireless at Schrute Farm. As soon as I figure out where Mose hid the wires, we'll have the power back on.

2007-12-23T08:25:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!!! Patrick made me a tree. We miss you all and wish we were home celebrating with you!

He also made a fireplace. Notice the stockings.

Get it?

Patrick enjoying his Airheads.

Poop is raining from the ceilings. Poop!

2007-12-22T14:32:00.000-08:00

Trying not to bite it on the rocks.

At the beach where the river meets the sea. I feel like a dork labeling these pictures, but I figure you want to know what you're looking at, right?

Yes, that’s right, last week we went to Dumps River Falls where the feces is as abundant as the good times. White people at dancehall is rivaled only by chains of pale, lumpy, skimpily clad tourists attempting to billy goat their way to the top of a waterfall. Although mildly more tan and svelte, I was no less awkward than the hordes off the cruise ships. There was a lot of arm flailing and mad scrabbling for hand holds on the slippery scummy rocks. Patrick had to stand behind me to keep me from plummeting backwards into space. Once I had steadied myself enough to study my surroundings, I noticed that Patrick was making a show out of climbing without his hands. Rather than wading through the occasional pools like our fellow climbers, he would take a decidedly more precarious route around the deep water. When I called him out for showing off, he turned to me, bewildered, “I don’t want to get my wiener wet.” So we made our way upwards evading the masses by choosing the less traveled routes in order to avoid wiener contamination. I was less discriminating, the poo in the water seemed harmless in lieu of busting my butt. Patrick was graceful, but I did whatever I could to get the job done. Alan obliged us for awhile, but in the end, opted for the quickest path out of the water, meaning he had a front row seat to Patrick finally loosing his footing and plunging himself—wiener and all—into neck deep water. Since this occurred two feet from the stairs exiting the falls, Alan was not the only witness. After observing several small children bite it, Karen decided to take in the spectacle from the sidelines. Although she managed to have a Jamaican adventure of her own. In all seriousness, we enjoyed our trip to Dunns River. The falls are gorgeous and the climb was extremely entertaining (both to watch and ascend). Unfortunately, like many natural splendors, the falls suffer from tourism and pollution from upriver communities. Hence my infantile references to poop water, although I should make it clear that, while there is some fecal contamination, there are not turds floating by as you wade. Anyway, all water seems clean enough to me after spending summers in and out of Smithville lake.

Dwight: Smells pretty bad doesn't it? Ryan: Uh-huh. Dwight: It's called bullcrap.

2007-12-05T07:53:00.000-08:00

Really? Intelligent design? Really!? All right, so you see some flaws with evolution, you have unanswered questions. Why would you make up another “science” that introduces even more unknowns? Science is meant to be challenged. That’s how we learn. We review, critique, tweak, and reproduce experiments. Question away, but suggest some way to find answers please. Seriously, if anyone can explain it to me, then go for it. I suppose what I’m really looking for is why some think that it is an appropriate topic to introduce in biology classrooms.

*A note from Patrick- Intelligent design makes a mockery of science. If anyone can please find me one peer reviewed article from a legitimate scientific journal that provides empirical evidence in support of Intelligent Design, then I will fall to bended knee, beg the Intelligent Designer’s forgiveness, and give up the pursuit of rational thought.

You told her she was the only ho for you. And that she was better than all the other hos in the world. And then... suddenly she's not your ho no mo.

2007-12-03T08:28:00.000-08:00

Mizzou should have gotten the BCS bid over Kansas. I understand that a win over Oklahoma last Saturday would have guaranteed a national title shot and Mizzou was in control of their own destiny. However, so was Kansas a week ago and they lost and yet still find themselves playing in a BCS game. The fact that Mizzou has beaten 2 BCS bound teams (Kansas and Illinois), is ranked 6th in the BCS rankings, and has only lost to one team this season and is not invited shows what a crap system the BCS really is. I will not go into details about KU’s cream puff inflated number of wins nor the fact that Illinois got an invite despite 3 losses. I just hold the opinion that the top 10 teams in the nation should play in the top 5 bowl games. Is that just too logical? What the hell?? Also boos to Gary Pinkle for coming up with the most uncreative game plan I have ever seen; cheers to Bobby Stoops for handing Pinkle a coaching bitch-slap; Mangino has my vote for undisputed Big 12 coach of the year.

I am experiencing my first real bit of homesickness. My sister just had her baby, everyone is gearing up for the holidays, and our cable has just tossed ESPN in favor of the Deuce and completely blacked-out Food Network. I know some of you on-island blog readers are rolling your eyes at me complaining about cable and some of you at home did not think it possible a PC volunteer would have cable at all… Oh Jamaica, Jamaica my temptress! Jamaica, you Siren of the Caribbean, you lure me in with possibilities like internet and cable then dash my hope and excitement on the rocks of your shores. Saturday ABC had no sound during the Big12 Championship, so I hopped on the internet to listen to a radio broadcast of the game while I watched, but the internet radio sound delay just caused me to experience Mizzou’s pathetic performance twice--live before my eyes and with my ears ten seconds later. I am not sure I can handle the holiday season without seeing Paula Deen create Christmas ‘Savannah style y’all!’ All we have to look forward this holiday season is crime increasing exponentially. Lastly boos to my family for not posting any pictures of my nephew in which I can actually get a good look at the kid. What do you look like J. Patrick Huffman? Probably an ambiguously pink pile of newborn, but I want to see that blood relative bundle of baby looks like!

I didn’t mean for this blog to be such a downer. You know what would cheer me up? If next time I walked outside, the dumpster cats were performing The Nutcracker for my Christmas viewing pleasure. Who hasn’t ever thought to themselves, ‘I wish I could see a classic ballet put on by feral cats?’ It would also warm my heart to have some comments from home posted. And if that all falls through I can count on one of my kids at the orphanage wanting me to read to them… and when I have them go pick out a book they bring me a math textbook… and insist on me reading one long division problem after another. Of course I shouldn’t discount the unwavering companionship of the gorgeous girl I brought with me who just scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen. Man, she’s wonderful. And she did not get on the computer and add this last part herself. Nope.

three... two... one...
Patricio

Oh, you know that line on the top of the shrimp? That's feces.

2007-11-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

Instead of providing a riveting narrative of Thanksgiving adventures, here is our Thanksgiving Photo Blog.

Ryan's famous catsh*t cookies and me enjoying one.

Here's my turkey progression. Despite having the worst oven on the planet I humbly feel that I dominated the 15 pounder.

Clearly the turkey looks a bit darker than I would have liked, but I can assure all of you that it was moist and not overdone.

Side Dishes: green bean casserole, baked mac & cheese, cornbread stuffing, Paula Deen biscuits, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Everything was made from scratch, even the fried onions that top the green bean casserole.

We had 9 people eating so we had to break out the ZooPals.

Alas I failed to find the necessary ingredients for pumpkin pie, so everyone had to settle for peach pie and chocolate cherry cobbler. There was an epic mishap while creating the weave for the top of the peach pie though it did not involve anyone getting intimate with it (American Pie reference for those more than 10 years behind in their pop culture knowledge).

ThanksGIVING is a time to give thanks and just for some good old fashion giving... like us giving the turkey scraps to Dumpster Cat (there are actually 20 or so dumpster cats). And if anyone wants a cat, Erin and I are perpetuating the rumor that we are gypsies and trying to get people to take our 'pets.'

Enjoying the eats.

The rest are of the gang hanging out watching the Tigers hand the Jayhawks their first loss (complete with pre-game Cuban cigars), relaxing by the pool and some sunsets.

Welcome to the world James Patrick Huffman! Congrats Jen and Jeremy on my new 8lb 6oz nephew born this evening!!!!

-Later gators, Patricio

One day Michael came in complaining about a speed bump on the highway. I wonder who he ran over then?

2007-11-19T18:02:00.000-08:00

I miss my shoes. My lushy green Kate Spade loafers, the pink and brown chair upholstery flats, my hideous and ragged but sinfully comfy Uggs, my obnoxious 80s-pink 3-inch tweed stilettos that I can't walk in, my sage-y corduroy tennies. All beautiful. I miss you shoes, but this is not the place for you. Here you will be scarred by gravel, smeared with mud, and scuffed by tiny swinging Jamaican feet. I'd rather know that you are safe in my closet. Although I bet you spend more time touring NKC school libraries than chilling in the closet--which is fine as long as you don't see the inside of Maggie's mouth (oh how I mourn you, black ankle boots!). I might miss my shoes less if I could make cookies. Alas, I am lacking the ingredients, a car to get more ingredients, a store that sells missing ingredients, and the income to buy the ingredients that the store that I can't get to doesn't sell. You can take your pumpkin cheesecake and shove it, Paula Dean.

About forty times a year, Michael gets really sick but has no symptoms. Dwight is always gravely concerned.

2007-11-11T17:02:00.001-08:00

I realize that I just posted a blog the other day but in light of recent events I felt the burning desire to post again. Bear Grylls, the guy from Discovery Channel’s ‘Man vs. Wild’, just whizzed on his head wrap to cool off. Just what I would want to cool off, piss all over my head. Mmmmm. Maybe the urination thing gave me the burning desire… not that there is any association between the two, at least personally speaking. However while I was in the hospital yesterday, I was asked (twice) if anything happened to burn while urinating. “Actually, yes miss I do happen to feel a slight burning sensation when I take a leak… it happens to be the same searing pain currently ripping through my skull, and while I thank you for you concern with my manly bits, if you could kindly focus on why I am violently cookie-tossing as a result of intense nociception in my cranium, I would greatly appreciate it.” This response was not necessarily conveyed at the ‘hospital’ as I was fighting the urge to vomit, clutching my excruciating brain and wallowing in my misery. I use the word ‘hospital’ very loosely; in fact to even call it a hospital is sketch as best especially if you consider a hospital to be an institution providing medical and surgical treatment and nursing care for sick and injured people. The idea that this place might actually perform surgical procedures frightens me. We had to wait for hours and hours on a routine blood test because the ‘hospital’ did not have de-ionized water in which to complete the CBC, a rather simple hematological test I could have done myself in my lab at Mizzou. I guess I should start at the beginning with the headache that began on Friday night and carried over to Saturday morning. I woke up and set out to make Erin peanut buttercup pancakes. My headache grew exponentially as I cooked and by the time we started to eat I was dizzy and could only manage to eat a pancake and a half. What a waste of a deliciously decadent breakfast. Anyway I ended up barfing the pancakes. I mention this not to gross you all out with colorful depictions of the day’s early events, but to rather suggest that if you are going to throw up you should consider eating peanut buttercup pancakes before you do so. Because I did I was blessed with a rather tasty vomit and would recommend it over all other vomit manifestations. The decision was made to go the ‘hospital’ because severe headaches accompanied with vomiting is an early sign of Dengue Fever, which coincidentally is currently outbreaking here on the island. We called our taxi driver, Junior, to take us the few short miles down the road to the ‘hospital.’ Junior is a middle-aged, heavyset Jamaican man with a voice reminiscent of the love-child of Bobcat Goldthwait of Police Academy fame and the guy that says, “hey, hey , hey it’s Faaaaat Albert.” He is a very delightful man that has helped on more than one occasion. Despite my current condition he barely slowed over speed bumps and took corners on two wheels all the while trying to feel my neck (I was in the back seat!) and give me his diagnosis of my condition. While watching Planet Earth on Discovery Channel, Erin and I decided we want a likkle polar bear. And she maintains that they cannot show us cute baby animals then show other animals trying to snack on said baby animals, as she continues to loudly cheer for the baby caribou... I say "Go arctic wolf!" Junior did mention more than once that as a man I could not handle illness anyway. So after the harrowing taxi ride we were promptly met by a doctor, who despite her lacking facilities seemed competent. I have heard a bit of lore regarding Jamaican medical facilities but considered many of the stories to be exaggerated but after having experienced them first hand I would not be surprised by anything. For instance they had a digital thermometer, the oral kind that use the disposal sleeve, but they did not have any disposable sleeves and just used the same one taking your temperature by sticking it in your armpit. Admittedly I was a bit out of it, but I did not see them clean the instrument before or after putting the apparatus in my armpit. Also the hypodermic needles used to inject pain medications and antibiotics into my butt cheek, three shots in all, felt about the size of a meat injector. Not that I was complaining, but the neat baseball-sized bruises on my butt are interesting battle wounds. I must give kudos to the phlebotomist as she was able to get my blood despite my veins retreating as a result of the frigid accommodations. Also Erin was a trooper through the whole thing, fighting hypothermia and frostbite in her fingers, reading her book like a champ and checking every now and again to make sure I was breathing. I feel better today though the headache rages on, but the drugs help significantly. Rest assured, no Dengue, meningitis, or VD (remember the burning??). The blood test indicated bacterial infection and the antibiotics should take care of that. Here’s hoping to a speedy recovery as Erin is tiring of playing nursemaid.

VD free is the way to be… and knowing is half the battle.
Patricio out!

And I had to spend the entire winter in shorts. That is what Ryan is like: A fake brother who steals your jeans.

2007-11-09T16:37:00.000-08:00

Living on Eastern Standard Time is bizarre. Having the US just ‘fall back’ an hour while the time here remains constant leaves me feeling an hour early. To watch the nightly news (we get NYC news) I must wait until 11pm. I suppose this is a bit trivial, but it really affects my food network schedule. We miss Paula Dean and Giada most days. This is distressing as we both derive great pleasure from viewing Paula’s billion calorie concoctions and I generally enjoy watching Giada chop vegetables. The rain here is beginning to let up a bit, which is nice break from perpetual moistness. The rain has brought out the frogs. Remember when Erin blessed us with the knowledge that Jamaica has 17 species of frogs that have no tadpole stage? Well there have been thousands of tiny little frogs hopping about. These brown-speckled nickel-sized creatures bounce around your feet as you walk and remarkably get out of the way before you squish them. Today all the volunteers in the St. James Parish met with the PC regional security officer. I made a strong push to try to get Vespa scooters for volunteers as a safety measure, but the PC did not see the connection to safety that I did. Oh well. Work is going well as Erin and I are getting better at this whole teaching thing. I know this is a bit surprising as neither of us have much experience nor patience. Not that there are no setbacks. Last week one of our kids almost got expelled from school. When his principal ‘licked’ him he hit back and then went for a pair of scissors (with the intent to stab? I know not). After a meeting concerning the situation he is going to be allowed back at school. Recently I became the secretary of the VAC, which stands for volunteer advisory (or action or something else possibly) committee. This is pretty much student council for PC volunteers here on island. I assumed this responsibility after the newly elected secretary early terminated her service. I did not originally run and was not the least bit interested in the committee. I really wanted the ‘member-at-large’ position which is no more than a member who gets all perks and has no responsibilities what-so-ever (as is written in the VAC constitution). But I ended up with the secretary position and will take it fairly seriously as I think there are some things that the committee can really do to help volunteers. A big weekend in college football this weekend. I want everybody to know now that I am picking Ohio St. to lose (BCS mix up!), a close game and narrow victory for the Jayhawks at Okie St. (top 2 ranking?), and a 52-16 MU rout of Texas A&M at the ‘Zou. Erin is going to make chocolate chip scones for dessert tonight. Domestic Goddess???? Not quite yet, but… soon come!!!!

I’ll catch you on the flip side…
Patricio

The eyes are the groin of the face

2007-11-05T08:53:00.000-08:00

I’m fairly sure less work is accomplished during rainy season than any other time during the year. At first I was appalled to learn that many citizens choose to skip scheduled meetings, school, work… due to a little rain. Then I realized how wet and muddy I get walking short distances in the rain, and how quickly my damp clothes and shoes develop a potent odor. Taxis are suddenly jam packed and scarce, and roads flood after 10 minutes of steady cloud excretion. The flooding is almost impressive in it’s speed and scale. Everyone back home should take a second to appreciate gutters and sewers. Really an integral, but often overlooked, component of our infrastructure. The rain (and demonic 4 and 5–year-olds) is what is keeping me from the 400 books that need to be dusted and labeled. The problem is that I am here, more or less dry, on my couch while the books are a soggy uphill walk to the mosquito and rock-throwing-child inhabited basement of a basic school. Otherwise I would currently be contentedly slapping stickers on paperbacks. In an attempt to make use of my morning, I swept and then got down on hands and knees to scrub the floor. After about 2 tiles, my effort became half-hearted and I resigned myself to just hitting the really dirty parts. Domestic goddess I still am not. I just noticed a pile of dirt under the coffee table. I have an admirer. He’s always at the stand I pass on my way to work in the afternoons. He began showing up two weeks ago when Patrick was absent. Every time I step through the hedge next to the stand, he opens his toothless maw and shouts jubilantly, “Teacha!” He usually follows this up by telling me he is back again today (a fact which I can see for myself, thanks) or mumbling something about “baby.” I’m not sure if he is calling me “baby” or if he wants me to have a baby. Either option is likely, and unwelcome. This sudden attention has made me consider running for Miss West Best Fish and Bammy. I think I have a real shot. What a sweet title, right? Who wants to be Miss America if you can instead wear the crown of Miss West Best Fish and Bammy? Not me. Taxi rides always mean a chance to catch up with the fresh new hits on Jamaican radio. Someone hit gold—maybe platinum—with the bag juice song. We were on a bus to Matt’s house when we heard it. Bag juice is sugar water that comes in small plastic bags. It costs J$10 and is the sole cause of diabetes on the island. The dancehall ode praising this adored potable is reminiscent of the peanut butter jelly song. Except that this is no novelty ditty. Oh no, it is serious musical poetry that shares airtime with Sean Kingston and the molestation song. I know it is an actual radio-worthy song because they interrupt it with sirens, air horns, and the Irie jingle. That’s how we roll here in Jamaica.

I did not become a Lackawanna County volunteer sheriff’s deputy to make friends. And by the way, I haven’t.

2007-10-29T17:21:00.000-07:00

Usually our blogging consists of interesting anecdotes or maybe a humorous poem written about one’s bathroom. However, this one is more serious. Not that this is a huge deal… but I would like to share with all of our subscribers that Thursday night I, Patricio, was mugged.

Okay, the story…

I traveled to visit our friend Ryan in May Pen. He is working in his community on a football (soccer) field and community center. This weekend was supposed to kickoff the retaining wall for the field. So naturally he called Peace Corps Jamaica’s resident concrete expert. I went down to see what I could do to help out. Ryan is getting ready to move into a new place, so when I arrived in May Pen, I met Ryan and accompanied him to meet with Ann the Wonderful, our PC Safety and Security officer, who was in town to inspect Ryan’s new abode. After viewing Ryan’s new digs, we went with Ann to visit Tiff-Tiff at her site. By the time we returned to Ryan's, it was around 8:00. As Ann pulled away, Ryan and I realized we were locked out of his house. Having nowhere else to go and feeling some hunger pains we traveled back into town to get some grub. After a quick bite, we caught a taxi back to his street and were dropped off at the bottom of his hill. When I say the bottom of the hill, I mean we were less than ¼ mile from his house. About halfway up the hill a man with a bandana wrapped around his face jumped out of the bushes and demanded our phones and wallets. Ryan emphatically told the man we had no money or phones, but I had just received a text message and was holding my phone in my hand… with all the buttons and screen lit up. I couldn’t really say I didn’t have a phone so I threw the phone to the other side of the street. I forgot to add that he had his shirt over his hand and it looked as if he was holding a gun. This proved to be a pretty scary moment as it would not be that far of a stretch to think a mugger in May Pen would hold you up with a gun. Well the man picked up my phone and demanded what was in our pockets. When he went down to pick up my phone his ‘gun’ looked a bit suspect. When I took two bills out of my pocket I wadded them up separately and threw them down hoping he would try to pick both up at the same time. My thinking was if both hands were occupied Ryan or I or both would have a chance to tackle the man or punt his face. Anyway, he carefully picked up the cash and at that point we saw that he had just been using the handle of a knife to pose as his gun. Which was immaterial as in hindsight, we did not need to get into a knife fight over less than $40 US. Our mugger took off back into the bushes and we tried to call the police on Ryan’s phone. When the police did not answer we walked back down the street to catch a taxi to the police station. When we arrived at the corner we saw our assailant. I yelled at him, threw a rock, and decided to give chase. We lost him around a corner but were able to flag down a police jeep. The body armor clad police complete with their assault rifles took us around the area in search of our mugger. No luck. We spent the next couple hours filling out a report at the police station. Ann turned around and came back to meet us at the station and took us home and made sure we went inside.

So that’s the play-by-play. At this point, there are just a lot of coulda, woulda, shouldas going through my head. I am a bit disappointed that I got held up, especially considering that we gave up two years of our lives to help better his country. WTF? I realize that there are dirtbags everywhere but getting robbed definitely makes it hard to let ones guard down again, which happens to be pretty necessary to get along here. I am super glad that Erin was not there. I would be significantly more upset if she had been subjected to that situation. Sorry Ryan, but I am glad it was you that was held up with me. It is hard enough to come into a new country, new culture, and adjust/acclimate/assimilate without a mugging experience in the back of your mind. It is especially bad right now because I happen to be quite sick. I feel better though being back at our own place and after eating some of Erin’s double-dipped French toast.

i want you to know that it takes more patience than i am endowed with to post pictures

2007-10-23T21:39:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of views from our new place. Both are of our view of the ocean. One was taken from our porch and the other was just 50 feet from our door.

These pictures are of Patricio jumping off of the cliffs in Negril. Everyone coming to visit us should be required to jump off these beautiful rock formations.

It kind of had a funky smell. At Christmas, the tree helped.

2007-10-23T21:18:00.000-07:00

It is true, our new digs came with a funky smell. Although the smell may be from us. There is an odor emanating from our mountain of dirty clothes. Dirty. As in we spend all day sweating profusely and then leave clothes in big, mildewy piles for weeks. I have yet to master the domestic arts of Jamaica. Which is why the clothes sit in heaps. I spent hours doing laundry by hand yesterday. It made my hands bleed and the clothes are still stinky and the pile is still immense. Sigh. We just finished a fabulous dinner. We made our own tortillas, and guacamole. I know. The stove shocks you if you are barefoot. Actually I am having a difficult time concentrating. The Girls Next Door is on. It’s Kendra’s 21st birthday, her boob popped out and she was too drunk to notice. I would like a pimp cup. Our shower here is quite chilly, and this, unfortunately, makes Patrick reluctant to use it. It also doesn’t drain well and the tap is about shoulder height, which makes acrobatics necessary. BUT, there are no cockroaches crawling out of the drain. Nothing makes your skin crawl like plagues of roaches when you’re naked. Our porch kicks ass. You can see and hear the ocean from it. Besides the porch, and the lack of cranky women asking us when we’re getting out of their houses, my favorite thing here is the artwork. Behind the couch, there is giant parrot. It has a lilac plumage. My least favorite part is the MU poster on the wall. Are you going to let this nonsense stand, Dad? I thought not. Speaking of father figures, Alan and Meg visited last week. I don’t consider Meg a father figure. I do like the word inane. Sometimes I act that way. These pictures are of Alan and Patrick launching themselves off of the cliffs in Negril. How cool are elephants? One just crunched Jeff Corwin’s arm with his trunk. Awesome. The kids at our village were convinced that Meg was Patrick’s mom. I’m fairly sure that all white people look similar to them and that our ages are indeterminate. Every time I am with another white person people ask if we siblings. I’m not really sure what the logic behind that is. Luckily, we enjoyed mostly sunny days for the duration of the week. We put those days to good use, making our guests move all of our stuff from our former abode to our new haven. What a vacation. Our Jamaican friends came for a housewarming this last weekend. Matt made a delicious cheesecake that was for Tiff, but which we all partook of. In spite of our anomalously hectic lifestyle, things are going along swimmingly at the children’s village. We have a loyal contingent of diligent homework doers. Both of us feel extremely lucky to be placed where we are. I can’t stress how wonderful the staff is, and the children are pretty much all we talk about. As I wrap up, I would like to once again express our gratitude to family and friends for acting as our pipeline to the States. Alan, it was wonderful seeing you and we can’t thank you enough for acting the part of courier. Moms, the library and school paraphernalia is invaluable. The children are already nuts about the flash cards and books. Jen, the book is wonderful and the Office stuff is prominently displayed on our fridge. G-Ma, I’m told you sent the lovely, soft sheets. This is a relief from the hideously scratchy sheets we picked up here. Aunt Della and Laura, thanks for the kitchen stuff. Meg, I’m glad you came to visit and I’m glad you brought tampons and chocolate. Downside to American TV channels—you see things you can’t have i.e. pumpkin lattes and donuts.

Technically, I am in Human Resouces, and Dwight was asking about human anotomy... I'm just sad the public school system failed him so badly.

2007-10-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

I would like to have a one-sided discussion with myself about the upcoming Oklahoma vs. Missouri game. Before I initiate my dialogue I would like to offer my congratulations to all of you Kansas fans out there (Tony Smith and others). Mark Mangino’s coaching has far exceeded my expectations and I assume he will continue to make decent progress barring a coronary. Todd Reesing has actually blossomed into respectable QB and Aqib Talib is a damn fine athlete that I would be proud to have play for my team. But what does a 5-0 record (4 of those wins and the huge stats are against superfluously lollipop-ish nobodies) get you? I guess a 20th ranking just because you beat KSU in Manhattan. But really do you want to give KSU so much credit that beating the likes of a NCAA violating, underachieving football team like them vaults you from being unranked to 20th? The only other ranked team with as much of a cream puff schedule is Hawaii and they can hardly help that fact considering they play in the WAC. I guess I am just a bit bitter that 11th ranked Mizzou is predicted to be blown out against OU. Really? Really? I agree that it is going to be hard fought game considering it is to be played in Norman. OU is a good team, but not great as some of the OU teams of lore. They already lost a game to Colorado (a solid team but 4-2 nevertheless) and they barely beat a pedestrian Texas squad (who lost to a very pedestrian KSU squad). I am not trying to say that Mizzou is a world-beater, but to predict a blow out, be reasonable. Mizzou-OU will be a good game that should be a good yardstick to measure how Mizzou will fare against good defenses (one that matches up quite favorably for OU against Mizzou’s offense). I am also angry that it will not be televised, not that we have TV’s readily available to watch American football. The shirts we are pictured in are courtesy of the Columbia Meschers. Erin wears hers daily and refuses to take it off unless we are washing it. GO TIGERS! Enough about that, on to all things Jamaica.
The husband of our landlord came home this last week. He is a delightful person with an amazing outlook on life. He laughs regularly and seems genuinely pleased to be sharing his home with Erin and me. He is somewhat of a famous musician as he is one of the heroes of Calypso. He spends half the year now traveling on cruise ships playing for passengers and writing music. His passion for music is infectious and makes me want my guitar sent down. But this half of a year away fell during our initial time here. I marvel to think how different our host family experience would have been different had he been here from the onset.
So instead of a weekend of confinement Erin and I visited our friend Matt. He lives on the south coast in a beautiful area. The pictures that are posted are of views that one would see walking out his front door. The hills in his area are luscious shades of green and the ocean is not too far away. It is nice to get away from the tourist Mecca that is Montego Bay. It was a pleasant feeling not to be noticed as tourists. This change in perception made me very jealous of Matt’s location. It seems to me that he is getting more of the quintessential ‘peace corps experience.’ I guess that getting the stereotypical PC experience is pretty difficult to get in Jamaica, or not as every PC experience is probably vastly different and I should not be vain enough to assume I know what it should be. It is what it is. Anyway, we had a great time hanging out listening to music and eating Matt’s vegetarian meals. The only bad part of the weekend was having to leave.
So Erin and I have a very busy week planned. We continue our after school homework program and we have a retreat this weekend that we are to prepare a session about sexual health/HIV/personal hygiene/decision making/budgeting (we should find out Thursday…hopefully). This week two of our friends, Ryan and Tiffanie, are having their birthdays and subsequent parties this weekend. Also Erin’s roommate, Meg, is flying in on Friday night and my father is flying in on Saturday afternoon. To top it all off we are moving no later than Oct 15th but quite possibly earlier. It will be a hectic especially if we get told we can move in the 13th or the 14th. Whatever happens should be a good time and there should be plenty of stories to write about on the ol’ blog. This is especially true with our first human sacrifices to the Jamaican taxis and the first ones to experience Country Western Music night at the beach café. Well E-Dawg is in a sour mood so I am going to go try and pull her out of her funk for the second time today.

And that’s the way the cookie crumbles…
Patricio

I need to give you your Christmas gift now, because um...well I'll just tell you. The past few months I've been sending Dwight letters from the CIA.

2007-10-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

Santa came to Jamaica today. He arrive a little earI can’t describe to you how wonderful it was! We had no less than 7 packages from home. Crazy, right? It makes us feel so cared for and loved. So this whole blog is a gigantic thank you to any and all who send us things, or shoot us the occasional email, or take the time to leave comments on the ol’ blog, or make ridiculously expensive phone calls. All of those things go a long way towards brightening our lives here. It gives us a taste of home and reminds us of the friends and family we miss on a daily basis. Things are a little crazy in our nook of JamRock at the moment. We’re looking to strike out on our own, and it’s more difficult to find a place than we anticipated. So Christmas in October came just in time. I now have enough chocolate to revive myself each evening after human jungle gym time. Even though this is Patrick's account, this is actually Erin.

I can travel anywhere, except Cuba, and I will travel to New Zealand and walk the Lord of the Rings trail to Mordor and I will hike Mount Doom!

2007-09-25T08:57:00.000-07:00

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs
And as silently steal away.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Erin and I listen to music almost as much as we read, which we do like it's our job. The music I have been listening to here in Jamaica has various purposes. Sometimes I use it to unwind after teaching/herding our pint-sized pupils, sometimes I use it to put me in a better mood, sometimes I use it to put me to sleep, and sometimes I use it for background noise. Whatever the reason, listening to an iTunes playlist makes me feel like Erin and I are not so isolated here in the Caribbean. If you are in need of some playlist ideas, here is what frequently is featured in mine...

Fire It Up
Modest Mouse
We We Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

Going to California
Led Zeppelin
IV

Jazz Selections
Miles Davis
Kind of Blue

Shoot the Moon
Norah Jones
Come Away With Me

All Night, More Justice
Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley
Welcome to Jamrock, Halfway Tree

Imagine
Jack Johnson
Instant Karma

Glory Bound
Martin Sexton
Black Sheep

Tomorrow Comes a Day Too Soon
Flogging Molly
Whiskey on a Sunday

Born to Run (acoustic)
Bruce Springsteen
Chimes of Freedom

Black Rain, Steal My Kisses
Ben Harper
Both Sides of the Gun, Live From Mars

Neighborhood #1, Neighborhood #2
The Arcade Fire
Funeral

While We Cry (live)
Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Ledbetter Heights

Whiskey in a Jar
Metallica
Garage Inc.

Top of the World, Year to the Day
Van Halen
Right Here, Right Now, Van Halen III

Melissa, Blue Sky
The Allman Brothers Band
Eat a Peach

Rock n Roll, Please
Eric Hutchinson
That Could Have Gone Better

Stranglehold
Ted Nugent
Great Gonzos!

I'm OUT!!
Patrick

So I put out a bunch of extra candy on my desk so the kids will come talk to me. Like the witch in Hansel and Gretel.

2007-09-21T20:38:00.000-07:00

What a week. It has been one of those whirlwind types and I am not sure what I should tell you first. One would think lacking the ability to identify a quality starting point would be problematic. It is not. The beauty of blogging is that I am justified in blabbering on indefinitely. I apologize in advance for lack of intrigue, as I enjoy giving more of an anecdotal account of our interesting happenings rather than weekly overview. But due to interest expressed by certain family members about to our daily life, I am going to try to bring you all up to date. So… our library is coming along slowly. We have gone through about 250 books so far, but progress is slow because everything is so dirty and requires cleaning. We are planning on color-coding the books by reading level. So any of you librarian types wishing to donate some colored spine labels should feel free to contact Laura or Jill (thanks Moms for coordinating). Were shooting for 6 sections: Early Readers, Everybody, Intermediate, Advanced, Adult, and Non-Fiction. I can feel all of you out there with library science degrees shuddering at our lack of alphabetization and careless disregard for the Library of Congress shelving system. Sorry about that. Our aim is to create a system easy enough to operate that di pikni dem (children for those of you who didn’t pay attention during patwa lessons) can run the library without Erin and my supervision. If any of you are so inclined on one of you trips to visit us, you are more than welcome to add a true librarian’s touch to our modest work in progress. Everyday around 3 o’clock we leave the library and head to the multipurpose room at the orphanage to begin our homework help sessions. The kids look so endearing in their little uniforms that it lulls you into a precariously elevated sense of confidence about your ability to control one’s classroom. Instead of calling what we do there ‘homework help,’ I think a more accurate expression would be ‘melee in which a modest amount of homework gets completed and even less learning takes place.’ Generally speaking the kids are very respectful calling us ‘sir’ and ‘miss’ and listening to us when we discourage negative behavior. It is only once we have turned our backs that they return to their running amok-edness. Despite being turdballs when we do not give them our undivided attention, they really are quite fun and undeniably endearing. Last weekend when our beach clean-up was over, I walked with one of the aunties to accompany the 10 children back to the village. About halfway up the large hill home 8 of the ten spontaneously and simultaneously scampered off into the dense brush alongside the road. The kids did not look back and the perturbed auntie and I finished our walk with two kids. The auntie, still fuming, storms into the director’s to find the social worker (2nd in command) and detail the blatant disobedience we experienced. Just then one of the hooligans walks in with a june plum in each hand and a mouth full of the same. The social worker and the auntie took him outside and were preparing to give him a stern talking to when they were interrupted by the blaring horn of a 2-ton flatbed truck. As the truck rolled up, reggae music cranked, the remaining 8 troublemakers could be seen gyrating to the music, each sporting a large Cheshire grin and holding a box full of ‘borrowed’ june plums. It was hard to not crack a smile and marvel at the audacity of their arrival (so I lied about the anecdotes). Anyway… We are struggling with how to deal with the disparity amongst the children in their learning. Some kids can function at their grade level and some kids that are supposed to be doing fractions do not have addition/subtraction understanding. But that is why we are here. Today we meet with the principal and counselor of a nearby school to discuss starting a HIV/sexual health/life skills program at their school. They were very excited and even volunteered us to join the ‘Guidance Committee.’ Throughout the week we have continued our search of new living arrangements. Hopefully by the time we have company coming to visit Oct 12 we aren’t homeless.

Patricio out!!

And I know what you're thinking. Won't that just shed more light on the penises. But that is a risk we have to take.

2007-09-16T17:42:00.001-07:00

For a change, Patrick and I are writing this blog together. This is because our weekend was peppered with one spectacularly awesome incident after another and we couldn't decide who got to write about it. So we're sharing. Both the writing and the bottle of white rum. Kidding. -Ish. Well, first off, a series of unfortunate events forced us to search for a new place to live, hopefully of our own. We're optimistic and supremely excited to have more freedom and privacy. Patrick feels oppressed in our present situation as he cannot wander about the house in his underwear. This includes venturing into the kitchen to fetch a swig of juice. I must concede that I myself wouldn't mind more scantily clad migratory behavior as Jamaica is quite warm. Cross your fingers for us, we are hoping some of our leads pay off. And a big thanks to the other volunteers in our area who have been instrumental to our housing search. So our living arrangements have been a pressing concern since last Thursday. Luckily, we've had an interesting weekend and thus have been granted a reprieve from our domestic concerns. We began our weekend with a trip to a local seaside bar/restaurant with other volunteers and a visitor from abroad. The restaurant was literally right on the water with the omnipresent white plastic patio chairs and cheap beer and reasonably priced entrées. But what really makes this establishment special is the live music. To our extreme delight, Friday nights are country western music night!!! You may be asking yourself, “Do Jamaicans like country music?” The answer to that is a hearty, “yes.” Throughout the night we were treated to music from the greats including Jimmy Buffet, Kenny Rogers, and Johnny Cash. Let’s not forget “The Rooster Song” which Patrick sang at boy scout camp, “No Balls at All” a particular favorite of the Jamaicans present, and “The Pum Pum Song” I do not know the real name of this song, but the chorus goes “pum, pum, pum” and in Jamaican slang “pum pum” means girlie bits. Perhaps the best part of “The Pum Pum Song” was listening to the band and the Jamaicans discuss whether the rest of the restaurant understood “pum pum.” They then proceeded to enlighten the table of gay, foreign men using food analogies. This incident cleared up some confusion at our table as to whether we had accidentally stumbled upon a gay bar. So the band. Haha. The band was two pieces of beef jerky holding guitars with microphones attached. Patrick felt that the band members were Hispanic Jamaicans. I agree that their Patwa was exceptional, however I think they were just tanned and leathery white people. Regardless of nationality, they were brown and wrinkly. Just like beef jerky, if it were dressed in western shirts, worn Levis adorned with monstrous belt buckles, well-loved 10 gallons, and dusty cowboy boots. Oh yes, these boys took their job seriously. Not only did they bother to learn all of their songs, they pre-recorded drum beats on their keyboard. We were just wondering, in the land of dancehall, how often does a country band get to perform? We say, “not often enough!” Great night. Everyone who visits will be treated to country night. Quite the incentive, eh? The next morning, we participated in international beach clean-up day. The two of us, plus several other volunteers trouped down to the nearby fishing village with about 20 kids. We filled 15 large garbage bags before the kids lost interest. After that, we bravely ventured into the water with the children. We almost drowned. At all times, we would have at least 4 kids dangling from our necks and arms. I spent a good deal of the time attempting to keep my swimsuit in place. It couldn’t withstand the kids literally crawling up me, or them pulling at the straps to marvel at how white I was. It was a long, exhausting day. All of the white people burned their noses. We did enjoy a fabulous lunch courtesy of a local Rasta. Thanks for your comments last time! We enjoyed them. Miss you all! -Patrick and Erin

p.s. It was me, Erin, who picked the phallic quote. All issues concerning the appropriateness of the phallic quote should be directed to me.

I swore to myself if I ever got to walk around the room as manager, people would laugh as they saw me coming, and they'd applaud as I walked away.

2007-09-10T12:42:00.000-07:00

Hokay, so… The first picture is of Joe, Tiff-Tiff, Ryan, Matt, and of course Erin and me (from left to right). This was taken before a fun night of ‘bleaching,’ a term used to describe partying in Jamaica. Jamaicans party late, and when I say late I would be vastly more accurate in saying very early. One does not really go to a party/club/etc. until 11 o’clock (late) at the earliest and the party does not get hoppin’ until 1 or 2 (early) and it will last until 4,5 or 6 o’clock (also early by most standards). Partying that late (or early??!#$... I’m confused) then forces one to sleep all day and never see the sun, leading to a lack of a good tan, hence ‘bleaching.’ And for those of you that think our PC adventure-o-fun is nothing more than an extension of our college experience (you know who you are Jill Smith, though you are probably not isolated in this assumption based on stories and pictures), we merely engage in acts such as ‘bleaching’ in an effort to thrust ourselves into Jamaican culture thereby assimilating rapidly to assume our rightful status as Ja-mericans. Picture two is later that morning. Picture three is what you might see if you walked out of our driveway and immediately turned 90 degrees to your right. The ocean is in the background about 300 yds away. Picture four is Ryan and me bobsledding. I know most of you know that the Disney Corporation made a wonderfully touching movie about the heroic story of some non-stereotypical Jamaicans that became Olympian bobsledders and here there is a restaurant to commemorate the cinematic magnum opus. I am sure we will take all of you who come to visit to the Bobsled Café because it actually has pretty good pizza and decent veggie burgers. The final picture is of our beach that happened to be captured on a day that was very windy and thus the water is cloudy and not all that pretty. My apologies.

The more I ruminate about the ‘extension of our college experience’ section of my post, I feel it necessary to offer you this nugget of wisdom… Less than 1% of the world’s population has been enrolled in university level education. I am fortunate enough to have a college degree and to have acquired a wealth of knowledge during my career at Mizzou. This in mind, I experience obligatory urges to share the gift of a college experience with those not providential to have had one of their own. This develops mostly in the form of imparting practical knowledge and skills to others, but every now and again in the form of dancing as a result of the ingestion of alcohol.

Thank you if you take the time to read our blog. If you can spare uno momento to leave a comment, please do as we would love to hear from you. Even if you can only spare the time to leave a comment such as, “I read your blog. Love Bernard” it lets us know people read our entries and makes us feel loved. Hope all is well for you.

Patricio

Pam? How do girls your age feel about futons?

2007-09-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

It has come to our attention that individuals are dissatisfied with the information that we choose to post in our blog. I am atempting to remedy this now. I don't want my mother to think that this is just an extended college experience. It's more like high school really. Lots of rules and everyone is in everyone else's business. You know what I have come to love while in Jamaica? Jalapeno Pringles. Delicious. I've really taken to Jamaican cuisine, as you can see. Okay, onto what we are doing and where we are. Forgive me any redundancy that may occur. Our main project is to start an after school homework/literacy program at a local private orphanage. We will have children of all ages and grade levels. There are about 100 children at the orphanage and they attend myriad different schools in the area. School starts on Monday, and we'll be there when the kids get out to help them with homework. For the first couple weeks, the plan is to assess the children and get them to show up. After a bit, we would like to begin carrying out lessons of our own about literacy, life skills, health, etc. We're also hoping to have the orphanage library open in October. It will depend on how soon we can get it fumigated. I am sure I have written about the library, but here is more about it anyway. It's in the basement of the kindergarten that is near the orphanage. It is smaller than a colllege dorm room and there are a lot of mosquitos. Once we get rid of the termite poo, I think it will be quite lovely. I think we're going to arrange the books by grade level and have the children color pictures to decorate the walls. It faces a dirty, but melodic little creek, and it's fairly cool as it's always in shade. We're going to teach some of the older children to keep track of check-outs and they are going to run the library for a little pocket money. The set-up of the orphanage is unique. It is arranged in a little village. There are about 12 houses, each one has a mother and an auntie and 8-10 children of mixed ages and sexes. It is long term care, so they try to find children that probably won't be adopted. The village serves as a community for them, and their adopted mothers and siblings as family. It's an interesting idea. We really enjoy the mothers. They are friendly and clearly insane. They have to be there 24/7 taking care of up to 10 children. Very selfless. They humble me. There are, of course, general rules, but each mother is the head of her own house and they all run things a little differently. She does her own shopping and cooking and whatnot. It's not like an institutional orphanage at all. The village is at the top of a hill. It's fairly scenic. There's a creek that has the potential to be pretty, and a lot of green. The concrete buildings all match, they're painted blue and beige. They kind of form a horseshoe shape on the side of the hill. We are currently living at the bottom of the hill, about a 10 minute walk from the village. The road we take to get up there is one lane and rapidly disentegrating. It's mostly a giant bumpy pothole with a few patches of asphalt. It's lined on both sides with dense vegetation. At first I thought it was really secluded, but then people started popping out of the bush with machetes and goats and I realized that the vegetation is not that dense on one side and that there are houses nearby, You can still, however, get the illusion of isolation while walking as long as no one is blaring dancehall music. It's devestatingly hot if you attempt to summit the hill around noon. Other times, there is some shade. There is a lot of horse poop and dead frogs in the road. I feel bad for the frogs. I like them. The children try to kill them. The kids are funny. They really like Patrick. The little ones want him to throw them, and they climb all over him. They come to me only when his arms are already full. If I come without him they ask where he is. They scatter when I attempt to chat with them. Most of the older children are polite and a bit uninterested in us. The little ones get pretty excited and they are totally unintelligable. We have a hard time even catching their names. The house closest to the road is full of little boys and you can hear them all yelling right as you enter the village. It's amusing. Alright, did you appreciate this? Or was it boring? Provide me with some feedback, please.

Uh, no, I only give my organs to my real friends. Go get yourself a monkey kidney

2007-09-05T12:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the poem to my bathroom. I realize that is a bit bizarre, but hey that’s me. It really is quite funny the things one miss when they are removed from their home. I figured it would be more like… well I stared that thought thinking I could verbalize my expectations for my homesickness, but alas I cannot. I guess it would be more accurate to say that I am surprised how much I miss American grocery stores, my bed, black beans, Bob Jones, etc. I definitely miss people more than things, but I was just unprepared for consciously missing some of these things. I am not too beat over the absence of these things, but I wanted to make Chipolte type burritos and couldn’t find black beans anywhere. I was prepared to look for ‘Frijoles Negros’ but was unsuccessful on that front as well. Grrrr.

So the elections here were interesting. To give y’all a frame of reference… imagine a democrat voter getting a verbal lashing from a republican voter and deciding to get a rock and chuck it at the republican. More rock throwing ensues and both leave their debate ducking for cover. Not everybody is so politically violent, but many people here are very passionate about their politics. The voter turn out here was only 60%, which surprised me because everybody has A LOT to say about Jamaican politics. The JLP won the election and I guess there are some hard feelings about it. But it did not stop some JLP supporters from having a party in downtown MoBay, and pretty much getting smashed in Sam Sharpe Square. Hopefully things return to normal soon as Erin and I really want to wear some green outside without making a political statement.

We read down here in Jamaica. I feel that ‘avid reader’ should be included in PC required skills. We have read all of the books we brought with us and have started to borrow books from other volunteers. There is an organization here that distributes donations from the US called Food for the Poor. We much of what they get in the form of books is trash that didn’t sell in the states and the publisher wanted a tax write-off. They received something like 450 copies of Madeline Albright’s memoirs. ‘Yes’ to your next question, I resorted to reading the 500-page autobiography of the former secretary of state. It’s a pretty dry read but hey it’s has words and pages and fills in some of the vastness that is my spare time. I would not recommend it to anyone that could get their hands on any other type of literature. Well enjoy the pics and my poem to my bathroom.

One Love
Patricio

Yay, Kevin! Woohoo for Kevin, for stinking up the bathroom.

2007-09-05T07:08:00.000-07:00

**** Warning! This blog entry contains humor of the scatological variety. Read at your own Risk ****

An Ode to My Bathroom (the one I deperately miss in KC)

Oh throne room in KC, I thought my missing of you would wane,
But it increases ever so, for here roaches come out of the drain.

I love you for your ability to always have water that's hot
For on this tiny island, water is most often not.

The height of your toilet is the perfect height for me,
'cause it fits just right for either poop or pee.
I miss you KC toilet, my toilet here's too tall
I must dump from such great heights that I'm afraid to fall.

Your water pressure rushes forth and flows at comfortable speed,
Acrobatics to get wet, for that there is no need.
To get pressure in my showers here I have to coax and beg,
and even then the water feels like someone's peeing down my leg.

My memory of you, my W.C. friend, it is fading fast,
the last time we were together is in the far away past.
I miss family, I miss my friends, but mostly I miss you
I can't wait to fly home so I can take a poo.

**p.s. Contrary to what it says in my poem, I miss my family and friends more than I miss my bathrrom. You know chaps... poetic license.

Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica

2007-09-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

Ryan is convinced that we have a ghost in one of our rooms here. It kept changing the volume on his iPod while he was trying to sleep. It most be a recent addition to the ghostly realm since it knows how to work an iPod. The party was in Mo Bay this weekend. We had four of our friends staying with us and our neighbor had several volunteers staying with him, and still more people were visiting others in the area. Friday night we went out to Pier 1 because Matt needed a Buddha statue and some decorative pillows. Haha, no, Pier 1 is not a store where one can buy overpriced items to clutter up the house, it's actually a club. It's on a pier and that means that everyone throws their empties into the water. What is wrong with people? Does the ocean look like a landfill? Or a toilet? Well, it is not. Anyway, Americans are goofy. It's fun to watch a group of us seizing in the midst of rythym-endowed Jamaicans. I had a lovely time making an ass of myself. The rum helped. We went to the beach a couple of times. Ryan stepped on a sea urchin. The water was rough and cloudy and smelled a little bit like New Jersey. Usually it is smooth and clear and salty-fresh. It was entertaining to watch the boys attempt to ride the waves though. Everyone got a sunburn. People keep asking why I don't look tan, it's because I don't go to the beach often. I am here to do work, you know. Matt and Joe left on Sunday, but Tiffanie and Ryan are still here because of elections. They were yesterday (Monday) and Sista P and the PNP lost. Except that the are doing a recount, so it will be a few days before it is all over. People may be a bit high strung about the outcome, and it's somewhat safer here than where Tiff and Ryan live. It's wonderful to have company, but we're kind of stuck in the house because of elections. We actually resorted to watching Varsity Blues one night. So about a month after our arrival I had reached my yearly quota of peas and rice. We were eating a lot of peas and rice. Recently, in an effort to cut back on peas and rice, we have begun experimenting with tofu. I say we, but we all know that Patrick has the culinary skills. We had some pretty delcious stir fry one night, and some fried tofu strips antother night. He made them just like chicken strips, and it tasted kind of like mozzarella sticks. I recommend them. The boys made chicken lasagna one night. It was also quite tasty. School starts next week, so hopefully we will have more interesting things to report.

So you know who turned out to be kinda a creep? Ben Franklin. And, Elizabeth, the stripper, gave me great advice, which rhymed.

2007-08-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

The thing about a $78 million embassy is that it should not leak. I realize that there were only a couple leaks and we were in the midst of a hurricane. Would I be so far off base as to assume that if the federal government spent that amount of money on an embassy in a country that regularly gets hit by hurricanes, that they build a hurricane proof building. WTF. So at the embassy we had the first of our two swearing in ceremonies because the ambassador was hightailing it out of Jamaica ASAP. So Ryan and I got all duded up in our suits and big pimped our swearing in. This was especially funny because while Ryan and I rocked tailored suits, everybody else was in their pajamas having not showered for three days. When I went to shake hands with the ambassador she looked at my boots and asked if I was from Texas. “No ma’am! I from Kansas City, Missouri, the BBQ capital of the World!” Although I was originally was going for a pimp suit of sorts when getting my suit made, most everybody said I was more Tony Montana or a Colombian drug lord. I guess that suits me fine… pun intended.

Fast forward to after the Pegasus fire… After our fun with the fire we spent the next 8 hours in a room full of Peace Corps folk at the hotel next to the Pegasus. Our second imprisonment of the week was vastly shorter than our time in the embassy, but we were not prepared for this sentence. Our downfall would be this lack of preparedness for we had nothing to do for most of the day. The hotel staff did bring us games after a few hours. I dominated the game of ‘Life’ but that can only sustain me for so long considering I have the attention span of a goldfish. Finally they did find places for us to stay for the night and Erin and I, accompanied by Ryan and Matt, headed over to the Hilton Hotel. The lobby of the Hilton was very nice, but the rest of the hotel was a real $hithole, I was very surprised. Also those Hilton bastards refused to serve us dinner. We had to go back to the hotel where we spent all day and finally managed to get some pizza at 11:30. We were pretty tired and the four of us zonked out shortly following our meal.
The next day we were moved to the Knutsford Court Hotel. This hotel rocked. The staff was very helpful, the rooms were nice, and the meals filling (and had enough protein in them to keep me from getting headaches). Also there was a troop of British soldiers staying at the hotel that had been undergoing 6 weeks of jungle training. Many of our Peace Corps girls were quite enchanted by the boys from across the moat with their clever little accents. I thought they were good chaps until they started arguing which of our girls they were going to try to get with. I was okay with this until I realized that the girl at the top of their lists was Erin (rightfully so considering her majestical beauty and fantasical charm (I originally had not made this part about Erin sound so sarcastic as I do think she is quite attractive and charming… but she thought I was making fun of her and asked me to change it. I did so, only adding a bit of sarcasm)). I made it very clear to them that she was off limits and was meet with prompt apologies. I did play a bit of matchmaker and set up one of the Brits with a breakfast date with a girl from our group. I’m pretty sure he crashed and burned but hey you can’t say I’m not all about multinational cooperation and the globalization of dating.
The rest of our stay was fairly boring; we had our final tests (which I have major comments I wish to make about them but feel compelled to self-censure for big brother reads our blog!!) and had our final Patwa oral exam. All of which went fine and our week culminated with our ‘real’ swearing in ceremony at the Peace Corps office with all of the staff present. Ryan and I again looked stunning in our suits and Erin even got dressed up for the occasion and looked amazing. And although my favorite language trainer Dania left her home in Jamaica to study in America, she saw pictures of Ryan and me and was ‘proud’ of us and thought we looked quite ‘dapper.’

Our blog entries definitely do no justice to our experiences as of late… be sure to check out my book available fall 2009 for the best and most dramatic representations. PEACE

I understand that loyalty and patience are virtuous qualities, but sometimes you just need to grow a pair.

2007-08-28T15:35:00.000-07:00

These pictures are of us during our captivity. Look at how um, nice, Patrick's noncreepy mustache is...

Well wouldn’t you be cranky at the thought of being shut up indefinitely with hundreds of other people during a natural disaster? I was picturing fights to the death for the last package of crackers while chaos reigned outside the walls of the embassy. In reality, there was plenty of Ramen to go around and the mountains shielded us from the worst of the hurricane. So basically we spent two chilly nights on the embassy floor watching Jamaican boys attempt to play soccer in pouring rain and high winds. Aside from a few leaks, we were highly sheltered within our ambassadorial fortress. The noise from the wind and rain didn’t really reach us. I’m glad that we are all safe, but it was a disappointing way to experience your first hurricane. The embassy was none too excited to have all of us residing in staff cubicles, so they ushered us out as quickly as possible. The evening after Dean visited we rested our hurricane weary bodies on posh beds at a fairly high-end hotel (it was all that was available, we all realized what a rare opportunity we had been given.) But, the next afternoon the hotel caught on fire and we had to leave. Yep. That was no fun. I was in the hotel at the time, preparing to leave for lunch with two friends, when our phones began ringing. People outside, Patrick included, were calling to tell us that the building was on fire, and that we should consider making a hasty exit from said building. We stood there slightly baffled for a few moments. Looked out the window to see if there was smoke, looked out in the hall to see if there was a ruckus. Nothing. So we went to the stairs, made it down one flight before smoke came billowing up the stairwell. Once again, we all stood there and contemplated our predicament. This was too much for me—I had recently read accounts about a factory fire in which a lot of people perished on the stairwell—I felt that the rather large and slow moving women in front of us were not moving away from the smoke quickly enough so I encouraged them to speed up. The girls I was with later made fun of me for yelling at people to run because there was smoke. Whatever, it sucked. Luckily, we had noticed a stairwell at the other end of the hall, so we went back up a level and over to the other stairs, yelling and banging on doors to warn people. The other stairs were smoke free and everyone exited the building with few mishaps. Thus began our week of homelessness in which we never slept in the same bed more than twice. If you ever need to stay in Kingston, give us a call because we visited 4 hotels in 5 days.

Reject a woman and she will never let it go. One of the many defects of their kind. Also, weak arms.

2007-08-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

The highs and lows of last week were poignant to the extreme, but we have persevered and are now able to write about it. We will break up the week into multiple blog entries so make sure to read them in order.
Rewind to last Friday the 17th… We had our friend Brandi stay the night with us so that we could leave for Kingston at 4 AM. We stayed up all night because we were supposed to have 4 hours or so upon a luxury bus to rest and we stayed out until midnight as well. Well 4 o’clock comes and our taxi man is nowhere to be found. I suppose one shouldn’t expect punctuality from taxi man that has been on Jamaica Time for his whole, especially one named ‘Tex.’ After waking up our entire household trying to get Tex’s phone number and giving him a multiple calls, this dude rolls up at 4:35. Keep in mind that we needed to be at the bus park at 4:45. Well Tex was pretty determined that we would make our bus and set a new Jamaican land speed record over the currently under-construction roads in what proved to be the most harrowing car ride of my life. But to his credit, Tex did manage to get us to our destination only five minutes late and we did make our bus.
Erin is really excited to take visiting family and friends on public transportation. This little bit of sadism worries my a little but just telling you public transport stories doesn’t really do the trick and you really do need the experience. Anyway after going from the most terrifying rides to the bus park, we were rewarded with the most pleasant of bus rides to Kingston. We rode on a greyhound type bus that we had our own seat (no ‘smalling up’), could safely put our luggage in the storage space under the bus, and received a complimentary bottle of water. Our seats even reclined so that we all napped all the way to Kingston. The usual trip to Kingston takes about 4 hours, give or take a half hour. Our trip took about 2.5 hours and so we started our weeklong Hurricane, Embassy imprisonment, hotel fire, good eatin’, test-taking road from Peace Corps Trainees to Peace Corps Volunteers on less than 2.5 hours of sleep. And 2 points for those of you that can guess who was very cranky at this lack of sleep. Here’s a hint… Her name starts with an ‘E’ and ends with ‘rin Courtney Smith.’

Stay tuned for more adventures of Pato and Cranky-Pants
******SORRY FOR NO PICS. WE WILL TO POST THEM WHEN WE GET THEM FROM RYAN THIS WEEKEND******

My name's Dwight Schrute and I would like to buy a purse

2007-08-22T09:33:00.000-07:00

So nothing too interesting has happened here. I mean, there was a hurricane, and then our hotel caught on fire, but other than that... yeah, this is just a teaser. We're going to have to spend some time writing to do this story justice. But we were in a hurricane and then a fire and we were sworn in as volunteers and we are currently in Kingston, awaiting our fate. At least until Saturday. Thanks for all your thoughts during the storm. We miss you, more later. Plus pictures. Patrick has a disgustingly creepy mustache and Matt stunk up the bathroom. Ryan wore a shower cap to breakfast. His head is shaved, which made it even better.

2007-08-17T07:47:00.001-07:00

Erin is much better keeping current with our blog writing than I am. This can also be said for keeping up with Peace Corps paper work. The thing about the Peace Corps it truly is a product of the federal government. Seriously kiddos, the shear volume of forms, sheets, flow charts, and handouts, many of which are unnecessary, that PC gives us boggles my mind. The only time that bureaucracy of Peace Corps rears its ugly head is in the amount of paperwork. Along with Erin’s new mission of reducing her trash output she has taken it upon herself to hug trees. Now I am all about hugging trees, but she has taken to publicly hugging them in front of Peace Corps officials. During one training session we were asked to come up with a motto for the PC (currently it is: Life is calling, how far will you go?). Erin’s motto was, “Peace Corps… Killing trees for 46 years.” This is especially funny because up until that comment, Erin has been very quiet during our training sessions opting to laugh at my ridiculous comments. So the first thing she vocalizes is a grade A zinger and the training staff collectively gasped. The gasp was soon followed by an assortment of embarrassed titters. She is now reminded on an almost daily basis of her infamous zinger by PC staff. She receives calls about whether they can send us one copy of materials for the two of us to share so that we save paper and therefore trees. And sadly, we only get one copy of Newsweek to share. She really does have a point though. Between the two of us we have two full 1.5 in binders and two full 2.5 in binders. Not to mention our huge stack other folders, manuals, and handouts and that is on top of all piles of papers from before we left.
Back to the blog writing… At one point as I literally wrestled with our computer, I swore that I would not write another blog until the computer’s battery worked and I could type without being plugged in to the wall. Grrrrrr. Anyway the process of getting Apple to replace my battery is hitting some hurdles because we are in Jamaica, so if any one has an extra battery hanging around for a power book… I guess I will just stew in my contempt.
We only have a week left of training and then our final exams. Assuming we pass we will be sworn in on Aug 24. Woohoo!! I am so excited about swearing in because it will be the unveiling of my pimpin’ pinstripe suit. To compliment my suit are some rocking red low-top cowboy boots and some mirrored aviators. To complete the look I have been growing my facial hair for a few weeks and will style it appropriately for the ceremony. Right now I am thinking fu man chu, but that may change. So get excited for those pictures. Just so you don’t get too anxious awaiting those here are some pics of where we live. Enjoy.

Indians do not eat monkey brains! And if they do... sign me up! Because I am sure that they are very tasty and nutritional.

2007-08-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought about the amount of trash that we produce daily? It is disgusting. When we walk down the main street of the nearby large city in the morning you can see people clearing the trash away from the day before. It is disgusting. You would not believe how much amasses during 24 hours. I am going to start a personal crusade against adding to the amount of trash in the world. Silly humans. On a completely unrelated note, we were able to see the library at our Village this week. I am quite exited about the room. It is shaded and there are ample windows, so it is not too hot. There is plenty of wall space for children’s artwork, charts, and library rules to hang. The shelves are sturdy. There are some great books in there too. Alas, there are also some random books that will not pique the interest of any child. And the books have been languishing in open, soggy cardboard boxes for some time. Needless to say, some of the books did not survive. Many fell victim to the infamous chi-chi ants (termites). With the “help” of several boys, we were able to get all of the books off the ground and sweep out the room. Our supervisor is hoping to get the place sprayed for bugs and we are hoping to scrub the shelves and dust off the books. The boys seemed eager to sit and look at the books, and several asked to take some home. I feel that this is encouraging. They also threw the books and occasionally jumped on them, but we’ll work on that. I eat so much peanut butter when I am away from home. I wonder what changes about my diet. My freshman year at school Lindsay and I had peanut butter at least twice a day. Meg and I demolished a 3 lb jar in a month when we got to Ireland—just the two of us. I have it at least once, usually twice a day here. There is some sitting right here next to me and I am fighting my desire to stick my finger in it. Mmmm peanut butter. You both sustain and satisfy me. I succumbed. I was trying to think of something interesting to write and I needed the peanut butter to help me think. So it has been raining a lot here the past week or so. When it rains it is serious business. I need to remember to take a picture. The roads are transformed into muddy, rushing rivers, which you must wade across to get anywhere. The taxi drivers cannot see, so it takes forever to get anywhere and you are a bit worried that you either will not survive the drive, or that you will not be able to tell him where to stop. We’ve managed so far though. The rain sounds pleasant from inside, and it cools everything off considerably.

Gimme Gimme Gimme

2007-08-10T19:27:00.000-07:00

Here are the items on our wish list. Please do not feel at all obligated to actually get any of these items. We will always update this posting with new stuff. And if you actually want to make us vibrantly happy please post what you are sending in the comments section of the post so multiple people don't send the same thing. Thanks and we love you guys.
Patrick and Erin

PLEASE SEND THINGS USING THE US POSTAL SERVICE!! FEDEX OPENS AND TAXES EVERYTHING AND THEN THE PEACE CORPS OFFICE REFUSES TO PAY AND WE CANNOT OBTAIN OUR PACKAGES. WE HAVE SUCCESSFULLY RECIEVED THINGS FROM THE US POSTAL SERVICE.

-powdered gatorade, any flavor
-Stickers or any small give away prizes (I am visualizing US Toy stuff) for use as sort of literacy scooby snacks
-Comic Books as a way to make reading interesting
-A Reading Assessment... okay teachers and library folk, we are struggling a little bit with how to gauge reading levels of our children and any tips or advice would be great, so send us an email. Also if any of you have some sort of actual assessment tool you could send, that would be great as well. Just remember we have 97 kids that will soon be increasing to 117.
-***any thing along the lines of granola bars, power bars, pop-tarts*** really anything to mix up flavors. While the flavors of Jamaica are wonderful and rich and spicy, a good ol' dose of old fashion American processed fake food hits the spot in between helpings of peas and rice.

This thing is huge, my middle name is Kurt, not Fart, and I am not a security threat!

2007-08-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

If I am going to do something as cliché as join the Peace Corps in a ‘effort to find myself,’ wouldn’t one then expect me to do something as cliché as grow my hippie mane complete with ZZ Top beard. So in response to Erin’s astonishment to how hairy I have become, I would like to exercise my divine right to due process and free expression of democracy by calling an election. For all of our faithful blog subscribers, I purpose a vote of hairstyles. On the ballot is my Grateful Dead groupie panache or Erin’s suggested Rasta Locks. I cannot speak for Erin, but I will adhere to the decision of the general public. May I serve to remind that they only way to change hairstyle once you have locks is to shave one’s head. And besides, maybe after two years I will be able to give my hair to Locks of Love.
So on our way back from Kingston, we stayed over with some friends. I stayed with Ryan, a KU Grad, in Clarendon (another parish) and Erin stayed with Tiffanie nearby. Ryan is very, very excited about everything KU and though I find Erin and him hating on Mizzou quite often, he is still cool to hang out with and discuss how cool the Midwest is. Anyway Ryan and I went out to Juici Patti for dinner and a beer. I think Erin mentioned pattis before, they are like fried hot pockets, and Juici Patti is one of the big chains. The Juici Patti in Maypen is by far the biggest Juici Patti I have seen yet and comes complete with game room, sports bar, and pool hall upstairs. And just for frame of reference, that is like eating at a Taco Bell with all the above mentioned accouterments. That night we played Monopoly with Ryan’s host family brothers (3 of them). Monopoly here is extremely cutthroat and I was made aware of new rules that were sketchy at best. Not to brag or anything, but Ryan and I dominated. We had to call a tie between the two of us and chalk up a big victory for Team USA. After our disappointing loss in the 4x100, we have now tied it up at one all. And just for the record, I never thought we had a chance a beating our Jamaican language trainers in a 4x100 relay… had the race been a 4x400 or straight 1600 we might have fared better. We went to bed fairly late considering we had to get up early and meet the girls, but we had the Mexican version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch waiting for us at breakfast. So after punishing a large bowl Erin, Tiffanie, and Brandi meet us and we set out for Denbigh.
Denbigh is a town in Clarendon that happens to host the largest agricultural festival in the West Indes. The closest thing that we have in the States to the Denbigh festival is a state fair. First of all everybody there is certain that we are tourists and for the most part treat us as such. Not like being treated like a tourist in Montego Bay, as most people in Denbigh seem to speak mostly English to us and only chuckle mildly at my attempts to speak patois. There is a picture of me standing next to the biggest cock I have ever seen, and I am not talking about Ryan (just kidding buddy). Erin is a bit timid when it comes to taking and posing for pictures. I think this comes from the intense desire not to be viewed as a tourist. It is my opinion that in some situations since everybody thinks we are tourists anyway, you should go ahead and pose with huge bundles of green bananas and snap away. This last comment is for Jill… I really, really appreciate you sending me the air pump and I wanted to make sure that you knew that I was able to find some balls (see above picture).
Well until next time… Likle Mor!

I want to give Michael all the urine he needs.

2007-08-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

Dang it, I just lost half of a blog. I hate when that happens! Patrick’s computer battery is shot, so you have to keep the computer plugged in at all times, which is tricky because the cord is attached magnetically and comes off when you move about too much. Neither one of us can sit still, so we are always pulling the plug, which turns off the computer, which means we lose whatever we are doing. Though I probably shouldn’t complain, as we are lucky to have a computer at all. You know what I would trade our computer for? Toilet paper. We returned to our site last night, and both of us are fairly positive that we left almost a whole roll. Strangely, we were greeted by the sad remains of an empty cardboard tube. This was upsetting and puzzling. Taking someone’s toilet paper should be a punishable offense. Most unfortunately, we arrived in on a Sunday (when shops are closed) and today, Monday, is a national holiday (when shops are closed), and Tuesday we have to stay close to home because of politics. This is the sort of thing my dad plans for. A catastrophe of this kind would never occur at the Smith household. From now on, I will defend my dad when my mom makes fun of him for stocking up on TP. Upon further rumination, we feel that the lack of toilet paper is evidence for a shower dopi (pronounced duppy). A dopi is a ghost. Our friend is warned not to shower at night because he may be attacked by the shower dopi, who will give him a cold. I wouldn’t be adverse to the idea of a shower dopi if only he would clean the shower whilst he haunted it. We are back at our site. Woohoo. It was a relief to see the ocean again. Both of us are starting to feel comfortable in our town. Do you see how hairy Patrick is becoming? One of the kids at the Village told him he needed a trim. There is a lot of horse poo on the street we take to get into the Village (where we work). They take tourists up there on horseback to see the children. This bothers me on several levels. Therefore, I feel no shame in taking pleasure while observing how uncomfortable most people look astride a horse. There was a particularly distressed looking woman this morning. You know what distresses me? The way they ask you here if you want your food for here or to go. The cashier will ask you, “ya ‘avin’ it?” Um, yes, yes I want my food, please. I feel that by simply asking me if I am having my food, they are not making it clear that they are asking where I wish to have it. Every time I stare blankly back at the cashier. The question catches me off guard. They speak so quickly and I do not expect that particular query. Why would I be ordering food if I did not want to have it? Also, just because I want to have it does not mean that I want to have it here. I wish they would just add the “ere” onto the end. That would clear up all the confusion.

Pam's advice was good, but Jan's were bigger

2007-08-02T18:19:00.000-07:00

So we have posted a couple of blogs from earlier, so scroll down a bit before you read this one. It is the most current. Did you listen? If not, then you will be confused. Here we go. For two weeks, we were at our sunny little site. It is hot as heck out there. We bought a fan on the second day and now we spend the majority of our free time sitting in front of it. We worship the fan. The road up to our orphanage is hilly and my clothes are just demolished with dirt and sweat by the time we reach the top. Sometimes the power goes out during the (frequent) rains, and this makes us both unhappy as there is no more fan. Another great way to cool off is to visit the beach that is less than 10 minutes from our house. Woohoo beach. I will post pictures at some point. It's technically a private beach, so there are rarely more than a few people on it at once. Fantastic. There is a reef that is great for snorkeling a couple hundred yards out, perhap we'll get to that next week. Goodness there is a lot to say. I'll start with our town. It is small and more of a collection of homes, we have meet a few people here and there, but not many. We go into the large resort town nearby for most of the things we need, like chocolate milkshakes. The orphanage is at the top of the street we live on. It's actually a pretty little place on a hill. Quite warm though. We spent two weeks mostly observing the chaos that is daily life with 100 children. There was a group of American volunteers putting on a summer camp. They were extremely welcoming and helpful. They invited us to lunch and dinner at their 5 star hotel. It was insane. We were blown away by the air conditioning, let alone the giant pool, fluffy mattresses, and full service spa. Ya'll should save your money for a visit. We're picking up more Patois, more of the kid's names, and meeting more current volunteers. The picture I posted is from the Christmas card workshop that we attended with the "aunties" at the orphanage. Can you tell which ones are Patrick's? He is super proud of them. As well he should be, they are most lovely. The reindeer was my idea. One of my favorite things here is the fruit. We have what amounts to a fruit sampler platter every morning for breakfast. It's amazing. The bananas here are crazy good. We often have papaya and mango, as well as cantalope. The second week we tried nayseberries, which are not berries. They are about tennis ball size and really, really sweet. The texture is a little strange. I don't know exactly how to spell them either. My apologies. We also have sweet sop, which is a green bumpy fruit filled with little black seeds that are covered with a mild white fruit. It's labor intensive like the guineps. Currently we are back in Kingston for training. We will be here until the weekend. It has been a tedious week. It's great to see our fellow trainees though. Please accept our sincere regrets for our lack of posting as of late. We don't have a routine set yet or easy internet acess and the computer is being finicky. We'll try to do better though. We love and miss you all. Keep the emails coming, it's great to hear from everyone. Thanks to all who sent care packages, I can't tell you how fabulous it feels to get something from home!!! I hope you followed my instructions and read this post last.

If by 'me' you are inferring that I have B.O. then I would say, 'That is a poor choice of words.'

2007-08-02T17:32:00.000-07:00

We found out our assignment. It may have been the excitement of just getting out of UWI (University of the West Indies), or something to do with a change from 12-hour days spent watching power points, or just natural excitement of an upcoming adventure, but our entire group was energized. Erin and I are located in a small village outside of Montego Bay. This is helpful for those of you who plan on visiting us because we are just a short distance from the main airport in Jamaica. You will also have access to many area hotels, resorts, eateries, and generally the touristy part of the country. Our job will be to set up an after school program at an orphanage. The main goal is to increase literacy for the orphanage’s 97 pikni dem(children… for those of you that don’t read the patwa lessons). Our other projects will include setting up a local library for the pikni dem (Mom and Jill we may be calling in your expertise on this one) and traveling to area schools to teach about HIV/AIDS and sexual health.

So you can see the ocean from our host family’s ginormous patio. It’s pretty amazing. I saw a mongoose on the way to work this morning. I was excited. Mongoose hold great significance for our training class. We were told during staging that there are no mongoose on the island, so we all take great pleasure in spotting them. I haven’t seen a snake yet. Lots of lizards. They are in our room here. Black ones, albino ones, green ones with blue tails… They are fast, but I am an expert, I may catch me one. I don’t want to traumatize them though. We bought these fast drying towels. They are great for packing. But they’re pretty much giant shammies. It’s kind of weird to shammy yourself. Also no amount of water consumed seems to have any effect on the color of our pee. Jamaica is a good place to sweat off a few pounds, man.

Yankee swap is like Machiavelli meets...Christmas

2007-07-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

Yeah, well, Americans are slow. Patrick and Ryan, another of the trainees, decided it would be a great idea to race our Jamaican trainers at the University. It was so not. Originally it was supposed to be a 4x400, but the trainers backed out unless we made it a 4x100. Tiffanie and I somehow got dragged into the scheme. None of us are sprinters, I do not know what we were thinking. I feel that the handoffs were our downfall. We would’ve lost no matter what, but it may have been less embarrassing without Patrick almost bowling Tiffanie over. Someone videotaped it. I bet it’s on youtube. As a team we got roasted, but Patrick made up some ground. It’s irrelevant really, we lost miserably. Disgrace to our country. I think that the girl I raced against felt a little insulted that we were even trying. We should’ve made them stick with a longer race. Anyway, after that we went to the beach!! Yay beach! It was crooowded. But it was gorgeous. White sands, aqua waters, partly blue skies. Lovely. I swallowed so much salt water. We had delicious vegetarian food from a stand ran by a Rasta man. So good. I had my first guinep as well. Guineps are fruit. They are pale green and grow in clusters. They’re a bit bigger than a grape. You peel the skin off and pop the whole thing in your mouth. And then you grimace because it is weird and slimy and stringy. You suck all of the pink skin off the giant pit and then spit out the pit. Then you eat another one even though you are not sure how you felt about the first one. Mostly the slightly sour taste is fun, and it gives you something to do. Like chewing sunflower seeds.

Your pencils are creating a health hazard. I could fall and pierce an organ

2007-07-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

Peace Corps training is brutal. There is so much material to cover that we spend damn near 12 hours a day at the training area. We do get some breaks but overall the days are grueling. I understand that there is a ton of material to get through in a short time, but it doesn’t make the days go by faster. In fact at times I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day because the scenery doesn’t really change, much of the information is repeated, etc. But all of the PCV (Peace Corps volunteers) say that training is the worst part of the experience. If that’s true Erin and I should have a pretty fun time.

Also I should not say all of training has been horrible. In fact most of our nights have been split up playing football (the soccer kind) with some Jamaicans, playing poker, and hanging out with new friends. In fact last night we ordered Dominos buy one get one free pizza, drank a Guinness, and watched Boondock Saints on the wall of our dorm courtyard on a projector we borrowed from PC staff. On the subject of Guinness… it is very different here. It is still dark and delicious, but the texture and taste are both different from other Guinness I have had. Red strip makes a stout called ‘Dragon’ something or other. It is not my favorite beer but its alcohol content is like 9% or something crazy which could account for the 'different' taste. I would like to note that here in Jamaica people don't really drink to get drunk. That would be socially unnacceptable. So I would just like to elaborate that we (Erin, Patricio, and the rest of our group 78) have been drinking responsibly, mainly just sharing a 6 pack amongst a few people to cool off from the heat.

There was a lot of debate before I left as to whether or not I should bring my nice sport coat. Well I ended up with it but will probably never wear it. At the end of August we will be swearing in and I will probably be dressed in a salmon-colored three piece suit with matching snakeskin shoes. I’ll give everybody a minute to come up with the visual… Alright so maybe not the salmon color but another volunteer Ryan, from KU, and I are heading to a tailor on Saturday to have suits custom made. And the remarkable thing about this is that the guy who had this done last year said it only cost about $5500 J (which is the equivalent of about $80 US). So I am pretty excited about showcasing my primo style at the $72 million dollar US embassy. I am actually posting twice tonight because I wrote the first one the day after Erin posted. Since then Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller, aka Sista P, announced elections. Erin and I should be able to wear green again by the middle of September. Woo Hoo!!

Patwa Lesson 2: There is no plural suffix for nouns. In English we would add an ‘s’ to the end of most words. But in Patwa they follow the noun with dem to show that it is plural. Here are some examples:
carts kyaart dem children pikni dem
boys bwai dem
Hope you enjoy the Patwa. I miss you all. “And that’s all I got to say about that”
Patricio

Can I trust Jim? I don't know. Do I have a choice? No, frankly, I don't. Will I trust Jim? Yes. Should I trust Jim? You tell me.

2007-07-11T18:46:00.000-07:00

Waagwaan (what’s up) All right, Erin has posted a couple of times and now it is my turn. Just so I can get it out of the way early… the quote at the beginning is about Dwight stuffing himself in a box, which directly relates to sending Erin and me packages. If you want to send us a package we will try to update every now and then of a wish list of sorts. There is a ton of stuff that we can get here in Jamaica and therefore don’t need that we figured we would in the beginning. But based on recent revelations, we can wear flip-flops, jeans, t-shirts, etc. so there are things we could use. We don’t want anybody to feel obligated by any means, but if you feel so inclined… Here is our address:

Patrick Mazi
c/o Country Director
Howard Anderson
US Peace Corps
8 Worthington Avenue
Kingston 5.
Jamaica, West Indies

This address is mainly for packages. Packages are actually okay because being labeled through the Peace Corps gets them a sort of free ride through customs. HOWEVER, please make sure that you fill out the declaration section and post it on the package or it will get opened and cause a huge hassle for everyone involved.

Thus far there are three things that I am working on to make my adjustment into a Jamerican (that’s Jamaica crossed with an American for those a bit slow on the uptake). They are as follows:
1) The heat. Not that the heat is all that oppressive. I would much rather be hanging in Kingston in July than in KC. It is not as though you walk outside and the humidity smacks you in the face like in the Midwest. However, the heat here is omnipresent. At breakfast it is hot, at bedtime it is hot, and definitely during the day it is hot. There is no escaping it and this manifests itself in increased fatigue. I realize many of you are thinking, “ But Patrick, you worked outside for the waterproofing company. Aren’t you used to the heat and being outside?” Well, yes I am and I am. I feel like I am acclimating myself more efficiently. The problem is just that there is just not much of a break from the heat. Like say the air conditioning in one’s car. No we walk everywhere here in the gorgeously bright but hot, hot sun.
2) Breakfast. Here Breakfast is a big deal. I realize I capitalized the B in breakfast and that was for subtle emphasis. So subtle I thought it best to point it out. Breakfast here consists of saltfish and Ackee (Jamaica’s national dish), fried plantains, boiled bananas, fruit of all kinds, toast, juice, Kallaloo which is fried greens and they’re spicy, and chicken frankfurters. Basically it is a large mostly hot meal. So being used to cereal and coffee, I am making an adjustment. But the coffee here is wonderful so that makes things easier.
3) Good Night. Good night here does not really mean ‘I am heading to bed.’ It is the greeting one uses when it is dark. Like good morning before noon, we use good night as a nighttime hello. I rather like the usage but it is new and I am getting better at remembering to use it.
Well before I head out Erin and I wanted to make sure we teach y’all some Jamaican Patwa/Patois. I figured that I would teach it in no particular order that way upon our return we can talk about everyone at parties and family gatherings without you guys knowing what we are saying.

Patwa Lesson 1: When wanting to express emphasis much like the English use of the word ‘too,’ patwa speakers double the adjective. Here are two examples:
The child is too fearful Di pikni fredi-fredi
They greeted me half-heartedly Dem did griit mi fenki-fenki

Well I love you all. Waak gud!

Patrick

No, this is what advice is, "never bring your purple belt to work beacuse someone might steeeal it."

2007-07-09T18:05:00.000-07:00

So there is a cow getting molested behind our dorms. It’s what wakes us up in the morning. Well, that and the Celine Dion that is blasting from some loud speaker. I forgot to mention that in my last post. I’m itchy. Perhaps the internet isn’t the best place to air my medical concerns. Being here, you learn to appreciate the “likkle” things, like cold showers (the best part of my day) and breezes. A slight breeze is the difference between comfort and misery. Today we got rain for the first time. Apparently Kingston doesn’t get too much rain. It only lasted a few minutes but it felt heavenly. We met a guy with a flat screen who gets football games, we are hoping he also gets college basketball and baseball games. I don’t miss TV at all, but it would be a travesty to miss another march madness. We eat a lot of chicken. Fried chicken, BBQ chicken, sweet and sour chicken, curry chicken. I wish we could eat the cow behind our dorms. For fast food here we have pattis. I didn't spell that incorrectly, by the way. Pattis are these fried flaky things with chicken, beef, lobster, shrimp, or veggies inside. Kind of like hot pockets. They are arait. Also not a misspelling. I am struggling to learn Patwa. Mostly it is an oral language and I am becoming frustrated at my inability to spell it. I meant to bring some to post. See what ya'll can make of it. I forgot though. Lata perhaps. So not only did we arrive in the midst of hurricane season, it is also election time!! Sista P (the Prime Minister) is supposed to call elections sometime in the next few months. The place we are in now is a fairly volatile political area, so we can't wear the colors of either major political party around town. These colors include red, yellow, GREEN, and orange. Yeah, I am so screwed. We are all hoping that elections will be called soon so that we can quit wearing only blue and white. I also forgot our address, but I will kindly ask Patrick if he would like to post something later this week and perhaps include our address, or we may email it. Things I would enjoy having sent include, more Bullfrog (sunscreen), dressy slippers (this means flip flops that are leather or just nicer than the $3 Old Navy ones, although I wouldn't mind a pair of those either, I can't believe I didn't bring any!!!). That's really all for now. We miss you!!

Why do I like Hooters? Two reasons, the boobs and the hot wings.

2007-07-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

So I woke up this morning covered in a rash. Literally covered. I was not amused. I am pretty sure that it is heat rash, and one of the volunteers said that her friend had it all two years he served. If this is the case, ya'll will be seeing my spotted white hide very soon. I do not want to be the weird speckled white girl. Today we were allowed off the campus where we are training for the first time. Right into downtown Kingston. We were the only white people there. Let me say that again, the ONLY. Small children were pointing at us because they had never seen a white person before. The lottery here uses symbols instead of numbers and one of the symbols is a white person. Apparently the random appearance of 60 "whiteys" in the middle of the market was seen as an omen, and everyone rushed to include the white guy on their lottery ticket. Awesome. A helpful gentleman we encountered upon disembarking from the bus warned me that the "sun'll burn ya, baby." It was thoughtful of him to share his concerns for my welfare. So it's hot here. Not really any hotter or more humid than Missouri in August, but more unrelenting. There is no air conditioning in which to duck. I actually gathered the energy to run today. I ran circles on the grass track at the university while Patrick played football (the real kind) at a nearby pitch. Mostly I got embarrassed by this wee Jamaican girl of about 6, who raced me for a lap. She was wearing a jean skirt and she had no shoes on and she was maybe waist high, and she definitely kept up with me. And Patrick was kicked in the thumb. We're almost totally surrounded by mountains where we are now. It is gorgeous. Last night we climbed a palm tree (almost definitely against some rule or another) and grabbed some coconuts to pass around. Our rooms are kind of cool, the windows are open and have shutters to let the air in. There are four bedrooms and one shower and kitchen per little "cluster" and the clusters are arranged by fours around a courtyard. Our courtyard has been the scene of most of the action the last few nights. I really can't say any more. Euchre can get pretty crazy.

I suggested we flip a coin, but Angela said she doesn't like to gamble. Of course by saying that, she was gambling that I wouldn't smack her

2007-07-02T18:26:00.000-07:00

Goodbye USA. In about 12 hours we will say farewell to you and step onto Jamaican soil. WooHoo! I just know it is going to be a land of lollypop street lights and gumdrop mailboxes. A land where all drinking fountains spout chocolate milk and the goats lactate beer. I suppose then they would not be lactating at all but you all get the picture. Anyway this is a pic of a newspaper elephant mask that I had to rip into shape behind my back. I think it turned out well. Plus everybody loves an Erinphant.

To infinity and beyond!

Yeah, I went hunting once. Shot a deer in the leg. Had to kill it with a shovel. Took about an hour. Why do you ask?

2007-06-30T21:17:00.000-07:00

So the last couple weeks went by in a blink of the eye. It seems that it was just yesterday that I was coming home from work with tar in places that should never require scrubbing with paint thinner. I was able to visit many of my relatives all over the country and even meet some some new ones down in Arkansas with Erin. So to everyone that I was able to see thanks for the great visits. To those of you I didn't have the time to see, sorry and you just need to come to Jamaica to visit me. I will miss all of very much. Just remember to keep on truckin'.

Fast Forward.... So we left this morning and it was pretty difficult to say goodbye. I must apologize to Sam and Matt as I barely acknowledged them being there at all. Sorry guys, thanks for coming. I sure feels good to have friends that will wake up at the butt crack of dawn to watch us get on a plane. So thank you to Shaggy, Jenny, Dover, Jim-Bobson, Mo, Sam, and Matt. You all are pretty fantastic. Also thank you to all the family members who where there too. I will miss you all. Bob, be sure to take good care of my mother. Pops, try not to work too hard and have some fun every now and again. Jennifer, I will miss you like crazy. It is going to be hard to think about Sweet Pea growing up and not being able to see all of it. Give her a big hug and kiss everyday from her Uncle Pat-ick.

Sorry that was bit sappy. I am in the hotel with Erin and we are both exhausted. Our plane was a bit late getting into Miami and we were rushing around trying to make registration. We made it, only to sit through damn near 5 hours of boring lectures. Considering I had not eaten anything significant all day I was growing very cranky and was beginnning to fantasize about punching fellow volunteers who asked ridiculous questions extending our meeting and keep me from dinner. Erin is saying the questions we good questions just not relevant at the time they were asked. But someone seriously asked if the 'emergency action plan' outlined what we did in the event emergency. Anyway we are waiting on our room service and will probably head to bed early. I love you all and will update when I have something else to babble on about.

Just as I was ready to submit this entry I witnessed a proverbial train wreck. The lady bringing our room service in biffed and dumped cheese sticks, marinara, and shattered glass all over our floor and Erin's khaki's. I wanted to go down to the front desk and have them clean her pants but she didn't want to get the room service lady in trouble. Whatev.

I have been Michael's number two guy for about five years, and we make a great team. We're like one of those classic famous teams. He's like Mozart and I'm like... Mozart's friend. No, I'm like Butch Cassidy and Michael is like Mozart. You try and hurt Mozart, you're gonna get a bullet in your head...courtesy of Butch Cassidy. Or instead of hurting Mozart you spill marinara all over her pants... you're going to get smoked.

Peace

The thing about me is, I'm better at hiding than deer are at vision.

2007-06-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

I am not going to miss the grocery store. There are too many brands and nothing is organized according to my wishes--I can never find the Cheez Whiz. Plus you have to dodge the small children on leashes getting yanked back from the Power Ranger fruit snacks like star-shaped yo-yos. The realization that we are seriously leaving tomorrow hit me a few hours ago. Patrick has everything packed, no thanks to me. I sat in the corner coughing and feeling sorry for myself. My backpack is twice as wide and almost as tall as I am. So I am insanely excited, but also a bit sad. It is hard to say bye to you all! It was easier last night when I was slightly inebriated. I started to get all teary-eyed after leaving my grandma's, but then I randomly thought about when Joe Barnes told me that ugly girls join the Peace Corps and that made me laugh. I am going to go eat my cheesy potatoes now. Tomorrow I won't have to worry about leaving the house with dog hair all over my butt, because I'll be in Miami. I wanted to give some quick thanks, but then I realized that would be sappy and also it wouldn't be quick. So I love and will miss you all, and I want you to know I appreciate your support, especially this last week (Saint Samantha). I leave you with this thought from Michael Scott: "I was thinking that we could all leave tomorrow and do a convoy, you know? Convoys are really fun. Pull up next to each other…give each other the finger…moon each other… " How wonderful would it be if everyone was leaving? I could moon Dover all the way to Miami, it would never get old.

I have my own crossbow range... it's a perfect situation for me

2007-06-04T12:30:00.000-07:00

Alright, so Erin may very well be the practical one, so I guess that would make me the impatient one. I have gone crazy waiting for clearances, invitations, assignments, but I have sunk deeper into my neurosis awaiting the 'Welcome to Jamaica' packet. I am totally cool not finding out where we will be living, what our monthly allowance will be, what we'll eat, and all that. But what the heck am I going to wear? The packet I await should at least give me some idea of what I should be packing. I read that business attire is the norm, but seriously who in their right mind is going to live in the Caribbean and rock out pleated khakis, a polo, and a pair of leather loafers? I get the whole concept of dress to impress and attire earning instant credibility... but seriously folks do you really think dressing like a preppy J. Crew model is going to help me resolve the AIDS epidemic?! If the Peace Corps was really worried about credibility gained from my attire, they would probably have better luck sending me out in my hospital scrubs.

Okay so like Erin I must apologize for any grammatical mistakes, verb tense non-synchronicity, and so forth. Just so everybody knows, I am planning my blog attack to be more of a Patricio stream of consciousness than a great literary work. So now that everybody is on the same page...

Getting back to Erin being the practical one... One would think that a blog about us on our Peace Corps experience to Jamaica would be titled with some sort of reference given to hmmmm... JAMAICA! Not that it needed to be Erin and Patrick's Jamaican Adventure of Fun, but how 'bout tossing Rastafarianism a bone or some kind Bob Marley ode. Not that I don't like the title, because I do, but if she claims the she's the practical one... how practical is our blog title? And Erin when you read this: 1) I do like the title and 2) just so you know I quoted Dwight K Schrute in my post title as well.

We are currently sitting a T minus 26 days until departure and as much as I will miss you all, I am very, very excited about leaving on this adventure. Well I figured since Erin posted I would too. Hopefully I won't be Jamaican her too crazy as we prepare to leave.

Patrick

I just hope I don't run into Dwight on his connecting flight to Mordor

2007-05-24T20:45:00.000-07:00

Today, after months of incredibly impatient waiting, Patrick and I learned that we are serving in Jamaica! Once I heard the news, I immediately thought of all the important things that we have only a few short weeks to complete. Out of all those things, I decided that the most pressing was setting up a blog. Prudent, I know. And I'm the practical one! Anyway... Jamaica came as a surprise for both of us. We knew that we would be doing HIV/AIDS education and support, and most of the positions in Jamaica involve environment conservation. Did not expect to be sent there. There was some disappointment expressed due to the fact that Jamaica's official language is English. The disappointment vanished quickly when some googling revealed that it will probably be far removed from any English we have heard. On a side note, I want to clearly state that I have no intention of monitoring my verb tenses and fully intend on using all forms indiscriminately. My apologies if this irks you. So we're both excited. You can't really tell that I am, but that's not unusual. When we first found out, Patrick was going nuts and trying to find out everything he could, while my reaction was to discover that I was ravenous. We went to Chipotle and I felt better. It was on the way there that he decided it would be cute to say, "Jamaican me crazy." It was not. Nor was it cute when he repeated it 2o minutes later. These next few weeks are going to be even more difficult if he doesn't stop. We're going to Jamaica. We have about four weeks to get ready. They are making me dress up when all I wanted was to run through the jungle in cargo shorts. I guess I'll have to do that in my free time.