ok, so i flaked on the houston events calendar for this week – but hopefully 4 Jamaica posts will get panchoandleftey back on everyone’s good side. i mean who wouldn’t love looking at someone’s Caribbean island vacation pictures in the middle of a texas winter? so here you are, part 1 of my study abroad trip to Jamaica:

the trip was organized through my university, and geared towards education majors such as myself. the first few days we were there, the students were still on holiday break. so we took this advantage to explore the town of Lucea (pronounced “lucy”). here is our group + our tour guide soaking it all in. later on the trip we observed and taught a elementary schools – adorable pictures of the school kids in part 2 and 3 …

we walked everywhere, which was challenging somedays (seeing that it was at least 85 degrees everyday and since we were so much closer to the equator – much sunnier) but at the same time exciting to take note of all the little nuances you might not notice if crammed in a tour bus.

this is myself and three of my classmates at fort charlotte, a corral built to defeat the spanish a few hundred years ago. it was never used and is now just crumbling away on the beach.

we ran into this friendly guy fishing while sight seeing. we asked what he was fishing for and he answered, “my sons said they wanted lobster for dinner, so i walked down to the beach to catch them some.” livin the simple life in Jamaica. he caught some squids, a lion fish, and an eel and couldn’t have been happier to pose of some pictures.

there are goats, chickens, and stray dogs everywhere. i noticed the same thing two years ago while in kauai. what is it with islands and farm animals.

don’t get the wrong idea and think i was actually on “vacation” while overseas. the whole group was staying with families and like i said, walking everywhere. the house i was staying in was a 25 minutes walk away from the town center – so i’d say i walked a good few miles each day. we also didn’t have the luxury of air conditioning or hot water – some of the families we met didn’t even have water – they were experiencing a drought. lucky for my i was able to shower regularly at my house.

one of the girls on the trip started describing her experience, once she got back to the states, as a “heavy”. and i totally agree. it’s hard to imagine if you’ve never seen it, and now that i’m home it’s hard to remember to what extent – but jamaica is not really the happy go lucky place it’s stereotyped. in fact the island itself is extremely poor and many of the people are malnourished, mentally ill or homeless. because it’s an island – you can’t just go somewhere else for help. if you are in any of the above situations you’re pretty much just stuck there. i felt vulnerable, targeted (because of my race and country of origin), and pretty much unsafe at least every other minute while in jamaica. people would watch us from behind bushes or falling down houses while at the beach, others would try to lure us into their cars or houses, a few guys even told us they were off duty police men and that we needed to go with them somewhere. i heard stories of scammers and illegal taxi drivers that kidnapped their passengers. the whole trip itself was life changing.