15 4th Graders, 3 Days of Conferences, 2 Stage Shows, and a Lot of Roti

One word for this week: CHAOS.  In the absolutely best way possible :)

Last Wednesday, Jasmine, Ashley and I went to a free stage show at the Edna Manley College of the Performing Arts to celebrate Black History Month.  The theme for this particular night of festivities was reggae and dancehall!  They had a bunch of famous artists, with the headliner being Sizzla, a super energetic and awesome reggae performer.  The venue was cool, in an outdoor amphitheater, where we could dance right up at the front!  There were people of all ages and from all areas, singing along to all the popular songs!  We also met the entire "entourage" of Sizzla after, on our way out... a bunch of very nice Rastas :)

Up close and personal with... SIZZLAAAAA!

Horse Gambling?

We ducked out of the concert for a bit to have a few drinks at "Treasure Hunt," a pirate-themed bar that also has several casino games... including this horse-betting game (see left), where there are actually tiny toy horses...

On Friday, Jasmine and I joined Ashley in visiting Trenchtown Primary, a small school based in the town of Trenchtown - where Bob Marley grew up! Located downtown, Trenchtown is one of the more poor communities of Kingston.  The school itself definitely reflects this, with kids sharing materials and erasing old work to reuse their notebooks, and the rooms barely divided between classes.  Friday was "Jamaica Day," where each class prepared a short skit or song to explain why they loved Jamaica!  It was one of the cutest things EVER.

Performing a song together!

Time to pile up on Anita...

For the rest of the morning, we played with 4th graders... writing a class poem, climbing trees, and having a photo shoot.  These kids are SO smart and have SO much energy!  They just want to be hugged and given attention - so they clearly LOVED having "play time" with some older girls.  It is so heartbreaking to see the difficulties they go through, growing up in a pretty dangerous and poor area.  All I wanted to do was hug them forever :)  We are planning to go back next week for "Fun Day!"

Crazy kids...

They love photo shoots!

Ashley running to class with the kids!  One of my favorite photos ever :)

Ash, Jazz, and the 4th grade class :)

Saturday morning, Jazz and I went for a run in the HOT afternoon sun.  It was great, because I really felt like we pushed ourselves to the limit!  Jazz even made me do lots of lunges, to help tone our legs and strengthen our knees :)  There are a few races coming up in the next few months and I definitely plan to join!

Saturday night was one of the craziest adventures that we have had yet in Jamaica (I feel like I say that every weekend...).  I am going to preface the story by saying that we are all completely safe and were in no way really in trouble - I promise!  So we heard about a stage show near Ocho Rios that night, where the headliners included I-Octane, Assassin, Sizzla, Bounty, Kartel and Mavado.  Awesome, right?  Unfortunately, Ocho Rios is ~2 hours away from Kingston.  We were scheduled to actually travel up there with TVJ - a local tv station where my friend works and was supposed to cover the event.  At the last minute, however, the TV station decided to cancel the shoot!  Determined to still get there, the 7 of us - Erica, Jazz, Ash, myself, and Erica's 3 friends visiting - decided to charter a taxi circa 1am to head to Ocho Rios...

Showtime!

Follow di Arrow (what arrow??)

Sizzla!

2 hours and several radio songs later, we got to the concert at about 3am (EARLY for a concert...).  The 7 of us American girls, accompanied by our taxi driver, made our way up to near the front of the stage!  Around 4am, the semi-headliners started to go on... and they were amazing!  The full stadium was dancing and singing along to I-Octane and Assassin and Sizzla!  But then, around 5am, Bounty Killer took the stage.  As a reminder, Bounty Killer is part of the "Gully" music camp.  They are major rivals with the "Gaza" music camp, which is headed by Vybz Kartel.  So Bounty started with some hits but then all of a sudden, decided to insult Vybz.  Next thing we knew, there were beer BOTTLES flying onto the stage and the sound of gunshots in the air, as the crowd erupted and started to stampede out.  Luckily, we were on the side and totally safe.  But it was just quite the sight - I couldn't believe that some young Jamaicans identified SO closely with the Gaza camp that they were willing to express it in a somewhat violent way against Bounty Killer.

Jazz, Ash, Rachel and Me... Decked out in our Concert Clothes!

Minutes later, everyone settled down and headed back into the stadium.  Vybz Kartel took the stage for... maybe 5 seconds.  Those few seconds were awesome, with everyone jumping up and down and clapping for Kartel!  But soon enough, bottles started flying toward the stage, this time thrown by "Gully" fans.  Clearly, the show ended abruptly as everyone left to head home (now about 6am).  I was so upset that we traveled 2 hours to see some of our favorite artists (Vybz and Mavado) and saw NEITHER!  I do, however, consider this one of the more telling cultural experiences that we have had... to witness firsthand how deep the divide in the culture extends, purely based on music industry, was unreal.  We made slowly our way back to Kingston, with our bodyguard/taxi driver, going to bed around 8:30am... what a night!  This article describes the ridiculousness of the event a little bit more in detail.

Sunday, though exhausted, we made it to our friend Simone's apartment for her birthday party.  She had cooked an entire feast - with veggie soup, salfish fritters, and yummy garlic fish.  We played games (like one where we had names of different people who influenced black culture - for black history month - on our back and had to guess who by asking questions), and ate a lot!

Jazz, Rachel, and Katie... Trying to guess their "Name"

Erica and Case playing some sort of patty-cake game

YUM

After, I went with my friend Rani to the annual ROTI festival!  This is hosted by the Indian community - many Jamaicans but also Trinidadians - to celebrate the West Indian ties to India.  The food, as expected, was delicious... with roti, pickled mango, curried chicken, and chickpeas.. YUM!  There was also entertainment in the form of "chutney music," which is Indian words sung to a more Caribbean beat.  I can't believe I hadn't heard of this genre before - it's amazing!  The event had flown in performers straight from Trinidad, with whom I had a chance to talk about their Indian traditions in the country.  Overall, a very cool event!

The Chutney singers, from Trinidad!

Rani and me, with the Chutney singers!

Monday began the 3-day conference related to my Fulbright project.  I have been conducting my research with the Ministry of Health, but also under the Pan American Health Organization's (PAHO) ProVac Initiative, which focuses on building a case for vaccination in LatAm/Caribbean.  So this week, my colleagues at PAHO from London, DC, and Boston flew in purely in order to... discuss my project!  Clearly, the last few weeks have been nerve-racking, just in preparing for this, but the meetings went phenomenally!  Each of the team members are incredibly accomplished, working with various institutions in the US and internationally around public health initiatives.  Some focus on HPV, some on cervical cancer, some on immunization, and some on cost-effectiveness modeling... so together, we had the perfect team!  I luckily got to spend much time with the PAHO team outside the office (through dinner at the popular jerk joints, Sweetwood and Truck Stop) and really get to know them - they are such amazing and accomplished professionals!  It definitely made concrete my desire to also work in public health.

Working away with the team!

We spent Monday going through PAHO's cost-effectiveness model and entering in/evaluating all the data I have been collecting in Jamaica.  I am so glad that they were impressed with all my work!  I guess I even surprised myself in how much I have learned/accomplished in relation to my professional objectives here... so it was very cool to see it all come together.  On Tuesday, we invited Jamaican professionals from the Ministry and the University to discuss the project and policy decisions around HPV vaccination.  I had to formally present around the data collection process... I was so nervous, but it was very well accepted!  In fact, my supervisor thanked me in front of everyone (yes, all these big whig professionals) for the work that I had done not only to improve Jamaica, but also the entire Caribbean.  Apparently my data and methods will be shared with the other countries so they too can evaluate introduction of the HPV vaccines nationwide.

Presenting to the group!  Eek!

I think that was the first time I realized that the work I've been doing here really has the power to influence policy, and moreover, save lives lost to cervical cancer in Jamaica.  As the country really does have the highest disease burden in the Caribbean, it is a huge issue and so it feels great to be working toward a widespread solution.  Wednesday, we presented our findings to the Chief Medical Officer at the Ministry (as well as other policymakers).  I was interrogated about my findings, but defended my work strongly!  Overall, the group came to the decision that controlling cervical cancer is certainly a national priority and something that Jamaica can hopefully allocate funding toward soon.  The 3 days were an incredible learning experience for me, and I am so excited to see my project through to the end, over the following months!

The team (PAHO and MOH), with The Ministry of Health's Chief Medical Officer

To celebrate a successful conference, I went out with my friend Krista on Wednesday night to a bar/grill called Medusa.  We hung out with a whole group of her friends from med school, who were from all over the Caribbean - Bahamas, Barbados, Trinidad, etc!  We also made a visit to the pan chicken man and Burger King, and then ended the night with some dominos :)

PAN CHICKEN!

Joe, Krista and me at Medusa!

I hope at this point, you too are convinced that the best way to describe this week really is... CHAOS!!