Bryan and I, after a year living in Jamaica, have decided to come home to California. We had a LOT of tribulations being there (from sickness, to bad coworkers, to death) and wanted to come back to the states to go on with our education and future together. This was not a light decision, and we put a lot of thought into it. We love Jamaica, we love the people, we love the land... it was just really trying to live and work there.
Our departure was an adventure in itself. We had 72 hours from the day we announced we were leaving to PC to get out of the country. Unfortunately, the PC office failed to tell us some important things that would have helped us out a lot. We spent Monday going to May Pen to say goodbye to Robert (he was REALLY sad), helping Claude get stuff to our friend Andrea, giving our neighbors and friends gifts, and going to Knox to say goodbye. Tuesday we finished packing, and had to arrange a charter taxi to take us to Kingston. We left Spaldings Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. for Kingston; our neighbor, Junior, and our landlord helped us out all Tuesday and waved goodbye as we left (it was sweet.) We had a long dinner with our friend Matt in Kingston Tuesday night. Wednesday morning we woke up early and closed our bank accounts, wrote our description of service, had to get about 20 signatures on a check-list, go to a physician, get an HIV test, etc. All the things the COSing volunteers do, but we only had one day to get it all done because PC picked a flight for us to leave on Thursday at 7 a.m., and didn't tell us the time until Wednesday afternoon!! Somehow we got all that done, had lengthy interviews with Jimmy and Suchet (PC Director and APCD) and parted very amicably (they want us to come back) and then met our friend Elizabeth for dinner.
Bryan and I had spent most of our June living allowance on paying off our ridiculous electricity bill (because a couple of our neighbors have been stealing it, but the electric company couldn't do anything). We had to arrange another charter taxi to pick us up in Kingston Thursday morning at 4:30 a.m. to go the airport. When we got to the airport, all hell broke loose... Coming to Jamaica, the weight limit on our bags was waived. But leaving, all 4 of our bags were way over the limit and the airport said we'd have to pay $100 per bag!!!!!!!!!! It was awful... they made us empty out our bags and try to eliminate things (we threw away/gave away all of our shoes) and everyone in line saw our laundry, etc. It was soooooo embarassing!! Finally, one airline worker had pity on us and got approval from the manager to give us a small box we could put some stuff in for free. We filled it and got all our bags under 75 lbs. each which the lady said was good enough. We finished all this business by 6:50 and had to run to catch the plane before it left at 7:00! Our carry-ons were extremely heavy (probably at least 50 lbs each) because we put our heavy stuff in them so the big bags could pass the weight limit. So, by the time the plane took off, at the moment when I thought I'd be nostalgic and weepy about leaving Jamaica, Bryan and I just wanted to get out!! We had 2 layovers (Miami and Dallas) going home, but we arrived in LA by 5:00 and had a GREAT reunion with my whole family, grandparents, etc. Then we went to a steak house... :-)
Since then we've been helping around the house, catching up with friends, and sending out our resumes for potential jobs. It's been really relaxing and luxurious... This Monday we're going to the beach for 2 weeks for a family vacation, so we're really looking forward to that.
No comments:
Post a Comment