A Taste of Patois (Pat-wah)

This will be an ongoing title to a post as we learn a little more of the culture.  The last couple of weeks, we have picked up some Patois (Jamaica) sayings that we think you will find interesting.  The first comes from Church yesterday.  Theron teaches the branch president's wife, Sister Martin, piano.  She and Sister Malcolm (the other student) were talking about when they could play in Sacrament meeting and planning the time.  Theron is going to play two of the numbers and casually said, set a time.  Sister Martin's comeback was, "You don't come straight."  Funny, both Theron and I understood -- what she meant was, we aren't always there, (sometimes we have to travel to other branches).  That prompted this blog.  Here's some others:

"Pimping de system" -- means taking advantage of things.  I think pimping is a great word to use.
"deh deh" -- means it's right here or it's right now"
"Cockroach got no business in da cock fight" -- means mind your own business.  Great term for gossips.
"rally wed di" --means work with it or work with me on this one.
"Yer knockin' his hustle" -- means you're getting in his way so he can't do his job.

Practice at home and throw some curve balls to your friends.  We don't always come straight with this blog because we just had a busy spurt.  Last week we had 3 new projects approved.  The first one is at the Salvation Army School of the Blind and Visually Impaired.  We are going to help them clear, plant and build a water catchment system for a large addition to their gardens.  They want to be self-sustaining in food production.  The second one is Godfrey Stewart High School in Savanna-la-Mar.  We will be helping them build and equip a new computer reading lab.  They have about 30% of their students who are either non-readers or are reading at a 2-3 grade level.  The third project is Ewarton Primary School where we will help equip a computer lab for the school and getting them a new stove for their school breakfast program.  They have a small lab and some of the computers are not working.  This school has a high proportion of poverty kids, who come from single mother homes.  Ewarton is also the ganja growing area of the island and many kids are only have ganja tea for their breakfast meal.

Always like to add a picture or two.  We went snorkeling at Lime Cay this weekend.  Not a lot of fish but quite nice, and yes we got sun-burned. If you look at a map showing Kingston, it's a little dot about a mile or so out from the airport.  Basically, from the pictures you are seeing the whole island.  We loved it here.

Deh Deh - we were right there!

A Fairly Typical Day in Our Lives

Achievers Computer Room Now

Today started at 7:30 a.m. to drive to May Pen (if you have a map, it's west of Kingston) and arrive at 9:00 a.m. to buy paint, paint supplies and ply board to finish some walls at Achievers Multi-Resource Center (the school project we are doing right now).  The May Pen branch was doing a painting service project today.

Pres Collins is at the right sitting.

We left at 11:00 a.m. to drive to Junction where we were supposed to arrive by noon (we didn't get there until 12:30ish) for the inaugural meeting of the St Elizabeth Agricultural Cooperative (if you have a map, it's west and south of Kingston).  This is the group we helped write a grant for greenhouses and the previous humanitarian missionaries helped them get started.  We heard that the grant has the green light and we are delivering tomorrow, here in Kingston, the final land use document.  The meeting ended around 4:00 p.m. and we stopped in Mandeville for a welcome dinner with Andersen's (the CES couple that took over our apartment there).  It's wonderful having a missionary network across the island.  We also dropped off 30 school kits to the Junction Branch.

On the way home, we stopped back in May Pen to pick up the food initiative forms from President Piper and drop off 24 school kits for them.  We give President Piper a ride home; he threw his bike in the back and off we went.  It's now after 7:00 p.m. and we have a good 1 hour drive back to Kingston.  Okay, a day that started at 7:30 a.m. is now ending at 8:30 p.m.  It is amazing that it takes 12 hours to drive a third of the way across the island and back.  Now lest you think this is an anomaly, it's pretty much the norm.  But, you know, we wouldn't trade what we are doing for anything right now.

Pictures of our Activities

I had trouble remembering what had happened since we last wrote in the blog, so I pulled out the camera and looked at the pictures to refresh my mind.  If I get any more forgetful, I'll have to start using a video camera to keep track of the day.

Last week we had a new set of senior missionaries, the Flakes, arrive from Mesa, Arizona.  They will be working with two of the three Kingston Branches.  We had to go to Spanish Town so they decided to travel with us to see a little of the island.  (Below) Branch President Lui (on right) is introducing us to a gentleman who is working to start-up a training center for high school boys to help give them a vocation - plumbing, electrical, farming.  He has a very large greenhouse in which he would like to install a drip irrigation system.  He will prepare a quote and we will see what we can do for him.  We meet some great people who are doing a great deal of good for the people here.

Michael presenting his plans for the youth in Spanish Town.

Shanna and Gail are modeling their new Jamaica dresses that we bought coming back from Ocho last week.  We see quite a few people wearing them only without the "T" shirts.

You really need to click on this next picture to enlarge it so that you can fully appreciate the hair sty (oops, I left the "le" off from "style") hairstyle.  Yes, we see a lot of amazingly beautiful hairstyles and a lot of dreadlocks and some "deadlocks" like the beggar below.  The dreadlocks are part of the Rastafarian culture/religion - it is somewhat like the Jews not cutting the corners of their hair.  Some require the hair to be in a hat (which requires a very large hat for some of them) and some just let it hang down. 

I don't think he is Rastafarian.  I think he is just unkempt.

This is a blurry picture of Elders Tanner, Schaefermeyer, Cheesman, and President Hendricks singing a hymn in our mission conference on Monday.  The picture is blurry and the harmony was probably a little blurry also.   Elder Wilford Anderson from the Area Presidency in the DR came over for a mission tour.  As i look at the picture, I see that my stomach isn't as large as the other two seniors and I have as much hair as Elder Tanner so I guess I'm doing okay.  This was the first time we've heard anyone singing harmony since we came on the island.  Elder Anderson wore a suit all day and President Hendrick kept saying, "I wish he'd take his jacket off, so I could!"

This is a picture of Patrick Rohden's new wheelchair repair facility that was built for him by Food For The Poor.  It is the same plan that they use in building homes for the poor here in Jamaica.  They are currently building about 200 homes like this each month.  We have several members on the waiting list.  The cost to build each house is about $5,000.  Most of this money is donated by churches in the Southern and Eastern US.  LDS Charities' contribution to the island is very small by comparison. 

We are providing the tools and supplies for Patrick's repair shop and for a second repair facility that will be operated by a Catholic organization's home for handicapped and orphaned children in Spanish Town called Jerusalem Center.  We are also working on a water collection project with another of their centers called Jacob's Ladder.

Patrick is a paraplegic as a result of a random shooting that occurred as he was driving.  He carries no anger and accepts his situation and is making the best of it.  He is working and employing several other wheelchair enabled persons in his repair shop on a part time basis. 

Patrick has a van that he has equipped with hand controls and a hydraulic lift so that he is completely self reliant.  He draws quite a crowd when he gets in and out of his van.  He had quite a laugh when I mentioned that more people stared at him than they do at us white folk.  He is wanting to provide mobile repair so we were able to buy him a generator, welder, drill press, chop saw, grinder, and a good supply of hand tools, most of which can fit in his van.

Lots of Patrick's neighbors came over to help unload the equipment.  They were pretty pleased with what we were able to provide.

 

So, I guess we had a pretty good week.  At least what I remember of it.

 

This week we are picking up the Food Initiative Forms from the 13 branch presidents.  The first packet we got had 40 projects that were requested - now the work really starts.

From the Fair to the Villa

When one project closes (Guys Hill) another is ready.  We received approval for our Achievers Multi-Resource Center School, we have the Salvation Army project submitted awaiting approval, and will submit Godfrey Stewart High School tomorrow.  This means we have been writing and working in our office (apartment); therefore, not a lot of excitement.  It's our planning time.

We did travel to MoBay to see Curt's friend John Hamilton and his family.  They were vacationing in Jamaica and staying in a beautiful villa.  Now the long of the story is that I ate a meal from a deli and it really didn't agree with me; I was ill, got sick up there, and didn't eat.  But, Theron was able to eat their gourmet Jamaican dinner.  We do thank John and his family for being so kind!

We did do one great activity, we went to the Denbigh Fair - it's like the State Fair without funnel cakes or a rodeo.  You all know we are working on the food initiative, well week before last was the fair; the largest in Jamaica and all the animal, plant, and farm learning you have ever wanted.  We really should have had Theron in a white shirt and tie and me in a dress, but we wore P-day clothes as we tromped through the mud - we're in the rainy season you know.

The chicken says it all.

A container garden in old tires.

We learned about square foot gardening in Jamaica.  We met more people that we knew than we have ever met at the Utah State Fair - we met people we had worked with from RADA, two district presidents, and the project director for a grant we helped write.  They were putting up the zinc on the cow pens that LDS Charities had provided in previous years.  It was old home week for us!!  Here's some pictures, enjoy the fair. Green Acres, eat your heart out. 

This was the food court.

The fruits and vegetables of Jamaica.  (We hope our projects are not reflected in wording of the poster at the rear)

Sugar cane display.  The machine in the back shreds the cane and extracts the juice and then they take the juice to the boiling house where they cook it until it's quite thick - delicious molasses.

The zinc donated last year by LDS Charities.  They remove the zinc each year to prevent it from being stolen

Square foot gardening display.  Using sticks for the dividers.

We have approval to start two small demonstration gardens at two of our chapels.  We hope to show the members a little about square foot and raised bed gardening.  They don't seem to understand what we are talking about so we will try to demonstrate.  (I hope our tomatoes grow better than their support stakes)

We had to include baby chicks.  We'll be buying lots of these in the future!!!

Happy 35th Birthday Adrian and Happy 60th Anniversary Mom and Dad Spendlove.