Chuggin Right Along!

There is so much to share from these last two weeks I’m not even sure where to begin!

We came back to our sites after Gustav- There wasn’t a lot of visible damage however when we went to work on Monday there was nuf nuf damage to assess. We spent the majority of the week visiting farms and looking at the damage caused from the storm. From this a document was compiled and sent to the Ministry of Agriculture which should help aid some of the farmers who suffered the most damage. It is calculated that St. Elizabeth suffered about $25 million dollars worth of loss.

In the midst of all this we moved into another house. We actually ended up moving in with the secretary we work with. She has more space and lives alone which is different from the 9 total people we were living with before (including us!) We have really enjoyed getting to know her and actually feeling like we’re a part of her family!

I went to a farm on Friday because there was a man there claiming to have lost 25 goats. The minute we arrived (myself, my counterpart, another extension officer, and a man from JAS) the farmer was extremely angry. I won’t get into a lot of detail as to why…lets just say politics here can make people FREAK OUT!. When my counterpart went to introduce me to the man he was extremly angry. He said, “I know who she is! She works with RADA!” My counterpart dumfounded said, “Well, why are you so angry about that?” The farmer went on to explain that she is one of those whitey’s here to destroy him, you know the ones from the CIA! I kind of chuckled as did the group from RADA I was with. This was my first encounter with someone who wanted to have absolutely nothing to do with me and the work I was trying to do. To make a long story short- the farmer couldn’t show us his goats- turns out he doesn’t even own any! This is probably why he was so angry with us and why he accused me of being with the CIA- to unveil him being a fraud and taking advantage of the government.

The photo on the left was an actual goat farm we visited- not one a farmer made up...I saw it with my own two eyes:)

On Saturday Will and I attended the first ever meeting held by the women of St. Elizabeth. The organization is called SEW (St. Elizabeth Women) this will be a primary project for me as I will be working with these women in several different areas. One of my first projects is to teach the women how to make products from goat’s milk. I will be teaching them how to make soap, lotion, cheese, and several other income generating products. I will also be doing some training around the parish on composting, organic farming, and environmental education.

This week has been packed full of more exciting things. Will has started working on a project dealing with the Moringa tree. It is the hope that this tree will be grown throughout Jamaica as it has several uses. Our hope is to make oil from the seeds in the pod grown on the tree and market it as cooking /spa oil. We went and visited a woman, who is willing to grow 10 acres of the crop as a test plot while we find an industry to produce and manufacture the oil and a marketing plan which will include education on the product.

The cattle above were a small road block on our way to YS Falls!

Finally we went to Lovers Leap. I will try to make the story short and sweet since I’ve babbled on enough in this posting. Before emancipation there were several plantations owned mostly by the British. Tunkey and Mizzi were both slaves working on plantations located next to each other. It is said that Tunkey and Mizzi fell in love but were not supposed to see one another because the owner (we’ll call him Mr. Slavedriver) of Mizzi was actually in love with her. Mizzi’s brother despised the fact that she would run off every night to visit Tunkey because he knew that if she could be with Mr. Slavedriver he would have a better life. Mizzi’s brother told Mr. Slavedriver that every night at 9 p.m. they meet (at this place where Lovers Leap is currently located). There are two endings to the story but I’ll share the one I hope happened. At 9 o’clock Mr. Slavedriver showed up and surprised them. Looking at one another they realized there was no way out. They didn’t want to be separated so together they decide to jump to their death.

Lovers Leap!