On a Jamaican Mountaintop

I don't know when I first realized I wanted to join the Peace Corps, and i don't know why -the desire just seems to have always been there. When I finished my bachelor's degree I applied, not knowing it could be a year-long process. While the application was pending, I decided to go to graduate school and was accepted at Oklahoma State University in Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations. I spent a year learning Latin and Greek, and reading some really old books. It was fascinating, but the interaction between my professors really turned me off. They fought, and lived what I thought were pretty insulated lives. I knew then that I wouldn't be a professor, I couldn't live the rest of my life that narrowly.
After a year, my Peace Corps invitation arrived - I was headed to Jamaica. I was not thrilled at all, many of my friends had been there, and I wanted to head out across the world. Despite my reluctance, I accepted the offer to teach Educational Psychology at a teachers college in Montego Bay. The thought of teaching at a college was interesting, so I steadily grew more excited about the assignment.
After two weeks of training in Kingston, I was told that the teachers college had closed. The Peace Corps officials would look for a new assignment for me while I finished my training. After five more weeks, nothing had materialized. I went in to see my supervisor, and he suggested I take a bus up to Montego Bay, look around and see what I could find. I jumped at the chance. The next morning I headed off in a bus to Mo Bay. I found a really nice cheap hotel and made my way around the town. It wasn't very big, but it was very friendly. I spent a good part of the day explaining I wasn't a tourist and asking for various educational institutions. Later in the afternoon, I drifted down a backstreet and saw a very colorful sign that said JAMAL - The Jamaican Movement for the Advancement of Literacy. I walked into the building and up a long stairway where I met the most engaging man in Jamaica, at least I thought so. His name was Errol Drummond, and he supervised the literacy programs on the western side of the island. I explained my situation, and he suggested I might like to visit an adult literacy class that evening. We made arrangements to meet later and I headed off to freshen up at my hotel.
Later, near sundown, I returned to the office to find him waiting with another man in a Landrover. I climbed in and he told me it would take a few minutes to get to the class. An hour later, we were deep in the cockpit country of Western Jamaica. The ride was bumpy and rough, but we had fun talking, and I learned a lot about the literacy work there. Finally, we began driving up a very steep hillside and he told me the class was at the top of the ridge. As we crested the summit, I saw a very dilapidated shack in the distance. It seemed to be leaning to the right precariously, and I could see light from the inside pouring out between the rough-hewn planks. We pulled up near the building and he and I got out. As we approached the doorway, he nodded and had me go in first. When I stepped in, I was alarmed - the room was full of Jamaicans. They were crammed around desks, a few sat in the rafters, and they were all staring at me. The desks were pushed almost up to the blackboard (the front wall painted black) and I barely had room to edge my way to the other side. I got to the wall, turned around and pressed myself to the wall, there was literally room for nothing else. I expected my host to come in and to teach the class. He didn't emerge right away and I nervously turned and looked into what seemed to be a sea of dark faces. I nodded hello, and about a million teeth became visible as they smiled and greeted me in the dimly lit room. The light by the way came from a few hurricane lamps tacked crookedly to the walls. After about thirty seconds (or three hours, if you had asked me then), a piece of chalk came flying in from the darkness outside and a remote voice said "Teach them something, I will be back in a few hours."
Stunned, I stepped up to the board and began writing words. I decided we would review verbs: Run, Leave, Flee, Vacate, Bolt, Escape, etc. They didn't get the connection, and after a few minutes I settled down. The following few hours flew by and I had a wonderful time. We laughed, I answered questions, we talked about Jamaica and the USA. They wrote everything down in their little workbooks (at least what their language abilities allowed)very neatly, and I waited patiently as they did so. I discovered in that first evening with these students what four years of my own schooling in teaching education had failed to accomplish - I knew I was a teacher, and I knew what I would be doing the rest of my life, with passion and love. I became a teacher that evening.
I spent the next year teaching adult literacy classes in the evening while teaching at an orphanage in the day. The second year I stopped teaching full time at the orphanage (they had found a Jamaican teacher which was appropriate), so I increased my role at the literacy agency. I became a field officer, travelling around the western side of the island setting up and supporting literacy classes. It was the best year of my life. I didn't go to Jamaica to teach adult literacy, but I left Jamaica with a lifelong passion.