My address

Hello all-
Since I won't have electricity, I will be writing letters and I would love to get some too!
My address is:

Jaclyn Watson, PCT*
C/O Peace Corps/The Gambia
P.O. Box 582
Banjul, The Gambia
West Africa

My address will remain the same the entire time I'm there as all my mail will be delivered to me via the capital Banjul. HOWEVER... After January 1, 2009 my mailing address will change to this:

Jaclyn Watson, PCV
C/O Peace Corps/The Gambia
P.O. Box 582
Banjul, The Gambia
West Africa

After January 1st I'll be a Peace Corps Volunteer at my post (well I will be by the time the mail from the states would reach me) and no longer a Peace Corps Trainee.

Peace Corps!

Yay!!  I finally got my placement for the Peace Corps and I'm going to The Gambia!  I will be leaving for my in-country staging on the 3rd of November and leaving for The Gambia on the 6th!  For those of you who don't know The Gambia is a country surrounded by the Senegal in West Africa.  It is Africa's smallest and least developed nation!

What will I be doing you may ask?

I will be an agfo volunteer, agriculture/forestry.  This means I will be living in 1 village  but also working with several others around it to bring environmental awareness to schools, women's groups and the community.  I will also be honing in on other available resources (timber is one of the largest and causing deforestation at devastating rates) for the communities to use as another source of economic input.  My site has had volunteers for the past 7 years and they have created candles and hand-made soap to be sold in markets.  I don't know the name of my village or where it is yet so I also don't know what language I will be learning.  I do know it will be an indigenous African language and since The Gambia is underdeveloped it is very traditional.  It is 90% Muslim as well so the cultural events will be spectacular!  My experience will be heavily determined by my ability to learn the language and integrate myself as quickly and fully as possible.  I will be living with a host family during training and within a family compound during my service, although I will have my own separate hut and sleeping quarters.  I will be sharing a bath house and eating some meals with my host family.  

This is the basic information of what I will be doing and what life should be like for me while I'm there, but I won't really know it all until I get there.  I also got about 2,000 pages of information from the Peace Corps (PC) and am re-reading it all already.

If you are interested in more information about what PC life is like in The Gambia check out:

http://www.peacecorps.gov/welcomebooks/gmwb635.pdf

Love and hugs!

Me

Some people do not have to search, for they find their nich early in life and rest there seemingly contented and resigned.  At times I envy them, but usually I do not understand them... and seldom do they understand me.  I am one of the searchers.  There are, I believe, millions of us.  We are not unhappy, but neither are we completely content.  We continue to explore life hoping to uncover its ultimate secret.  We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand.  We like to walk.  Along the beach; we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power and unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty.  We like forests, mountains, deserts, hidden rivers, and lovely cities as well.  Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as our laughter; to share our sadness with the ones we love is perhaps as great a joy as we know, unless it is to share our laughter.  We searchers are, ambitious only for life itself and for anything beautiful it can provide.  Most of all, we want to live and be loved, to live in a relationship that will not impede our wanderings and prevent our search.  We do not want to prove ourselves to others or compete for love.  This passage is for wanderers, dreamers, and lovers who dare to ask of life everything which is good and beautiful.

**this was found on a door of a deserted store in Colorado by a NOLS instructor and by me at my base

I am a proud wanderer whose heart will never settle in life.

Next course

Hello all!

As most of you know my next course is in Scottsmoor FL, and man is it hot here.  FL is August is horrible and remind me to never sign up for this heat again in summer!  I don't know my co-instructors, they will be new people to me and I have 9 boys on my course.  It is 20 days in the field and 10 days of follow-up.  I will be the only female for 20 days straight!

I am still waiting on the Peace Corps for an invitation and will continue to hound them when I return.

For my fun news!  I am going to China for 27 days! I am leaving on the 12th of September and returning on the 8th of October.  I will be visiting John Ho, my dad's closest college friend and my friend Megan!  It's going to be a blast and I really look forward to it. 

I have no idea what to expect with China so it'll be a great fun trip!

I love you all and hope you all have a great rest of the summer!

Jax

SDA 861-Lowcountry

So, here I am pulled out of the field for a sinus infection while my students and co-instructors are backpacking through the mountains.  I am truly saddened by this.  However, there were lots of memories in the 14 days of course so far.

I'm doing an intercept course through Charleston, SC with 14-17 year olds from all over the country.  I even have one boy from Alaska.  The boys' parents pay for this course unlike my others, it's 6,000 plus airfare for the guys.  In addition all parents are required to attend a conference/meeting at the end where I would sit in with each student and their parents and make a plan for home, so that's another two person airfare.  Talk about money.

So when we picked these guys up from the airport on day 1 all they could do was complain about life, I don't get Coke for 29 days!  What?!  Their problems are far different from STEP boys, 90% have problems with drugs/alcohol, defiance with parents, troubles in school, social anxiety.  So to be honest these are typical teenagers.  

We spent the first 13 days canoeing on the Santee river.  South Carolina this time of year gets to be 110 degrees +high humidity.  The Santee River has NO SHADE!  I mean we couldn't find a tree for one person to get shade under let alone the entire group ever.  It was hot!  Most of the time we camped on sand banks so it felt like the dessert, or what I'd imagine the dessert to be like.  We've had three students get boils from the heat.

We had a thunder storm everyday, so we sit in lightning drill in the pouring rain for at least 1 hour.  One day we had to sit in it for 5 hours and the guys were getting hungry.  Despite going against policy, I went out into the pouring rain, set up a tarp, the kitchen and made dinner for them all.  It took me 2 1/2 hours to complete it all and I finally served them individually their bowls of couscous and veggies.  Their reaction, "Well, this is shitty.  Who eats couscous?  Mine got wet!  And not one thank you!"  I was so angry that I yelled at them, I said, "You ungrateful little punks, you think you are all high and mighty and worth something because your parents buy you $400 shoes and can send you here, but really you are a burden because you don't work and only complain, you wouldn't understand hard work even if it hit you in the face."  So I refused to give the rest of them their bowls.

I went back under my tarp and ate my yummy dinner.  then after 20 minutes one by one they came and got their food.  They then saw that the tarp was only about 2 feet off the ground and in order to cook I had to hunch over the pot and sit on the wet ground.  They got their food, but I still only got 3 thank you's of 10 students.

Needless to say this put me in a foul mood and wanting my adjudicated thankful students back.  At least they understood the importance of food as food.  

But there were some amazing times as well, when I'd check-in with them while they were homesick and be so grateful for me talking to them, I've had several of the guys cry to me.  Some say they need to change schools to get away from their peers who are a negative influence.  Some told stories so heartwrenching that I realized they really can't afford this camp and that this is a last chance for them and their families.  Many have parents who are addicts and uninvolved with their lives.

Now for the funny stories.....

While paddling further down the Santee River we crossed a creek called Alligator Creek.  There were gators eveywhere!  We even paddled it during dusk, their feeding time so they were all out.  We saw up to 14 foot gators everywhere and we had to paddle close to shore because of the winds and tide.  While paddling in the front and navigating we saw a 10 footer 7 feet ahead of us and he wasn't moving so we stopped paddling to look at him and in an instant we saw a baby 7 foot gator pop up right next to our canoe hitting the underside with it's tail.  it's head was literally right next to me where my paddle had been in the water. And then it got scared and dove back down.  That was a thrill let me tell you.  

For some ungodly reason we were scheduled to paddle down the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW) a manmade chanel with huge barges running down it from FL Keys to Maine.  Ridiculous!  There are no wind breaks and it's all tidal because it's connected to the ocean.  So not only are we going against the tide most of the time but also 20 mph winds.  We spent 2 hours going 1 mile and 1/2.  We pulled over for a rest and lunch when a huge barge passed us and a created huge waves.  We had 6 boats, 5 of which were all lashed together in a raft like form and mine was solo because I was listening to the weather radio and not wanting the students to hear.  The barge created tsunami like waves and pushed my entire canoe with me in it 20 feet into land, nearly swamping and crumbling my canoe.  I won't even mention the dangers of it all.

Then realizing we were supposed to get a storm, with no real land to park on.  It was all high grass and alligator city.  We decided to ask a small motorboat to tie onto to get pulled to our destination.  So we found these two old women, both in their 70's offered to tie up onto them and pulled us the 10 miles they could and then we had to get picked up at a different location.  It was an experience let me tell you, but I was so thankful for the ride because our guys would not have made it in time.  

So now here I am back at base and saddened I'm missing the best part of the trip, the trail.  I truly had a great time on this course and I hope to do another one.  Love and hugs!

I get to poop in the woods

It makes me feel damn good

My butt hurts from sitting in a canoe

Yours hurts from sitting at a desk and that's just shitty for you

I won't shave my legs because you want me to

so shut the hell up or I'll give you a boo boo

I'm gonna keep farting and laughing loud

and dad you should be proud.

Cuz my job is just that awesome!

Next course

My next course is in Awendaw, SC, I will be leading a 29 day and it will be 1/2 backpacking and 1/2 canoeing. My course starts June 14th, so if you want to send me mail, send it there. Love and hugs!

B952

Hello all-
I just got done with graduation yesterday, the boys are gone and now we're wrapping up paperwork until Tuesday. Some highlights and lows of the trip:
I had 10 adjudicated youth for 30 days and we paddeled 208 miles down the Suwanne River.
The first week was hard because we were setting the structure for the rest of the trip. Getting to the river, teaching them how to canoe, how to camp, how to build a fire, how to poop in a hole in the woods.
We had 1 student who was bipolar, 1 on physcotropic meds and the rest just thinking they were perfect and had never committed a crime in their life. The laziest students imaginable. We had two takedowns of a student because they were being so physically uncontrollable. We spent 36 hours straight paddling 37 miles, into the night, even cooking dinner on the canoe with a stove. Of course after so many hours into the night the students refused to paddle and the sleep deprivation even led to a fist fight between two students. Imagine two students going at it on canoes, one was 300 lbs and over 6'5" the other 5'3" and 140 lbs. Trying to settle that was a night to remember.

Every week we had 3 of 4 nights where us instructors were to bed after 3:00 a.m. and up by 6:30. As most of you know I dont' do well with sleep deprivation. Both of my co-instructors said this is one of the worst courses they ever had. I also have never been so cussed out in my life, the students would threaten us and then 15 minutes later hug us because we, "showed them so much love they don't know that to do with it." So with all of the struggles came the laughs.

We have this thing called hard core points that students can earn for going the extra mile and those points will add up in the end to a party, we had a meal with lasagna. We had one student who ran 5 miles backward, and another two students who partner pooped. Meaning one student held a plastic bag while the other pooped into it. Not only did they do this, but they did it while on the canoes! 10 hard core points there.

We spent 1 afternoon at Manatee Springs, a beautiful spring with the clearest water you could imagine where in the winter there are manatees swimming everywhere. We passed by a small boat that was gator catching. They caught an 11 foot gator and had it ALIVE and tied up in the boat. Of course the three year old little boy by the gator's head wasn't afraid at all. We got to touch it! We also volunteered at an endangered animal park where we got to pet a baby cheetah. They are the loudest purers ever! I ran 7.6 miles sweep, meaning I could only go as fast as the slowest runners. This means I had to run for 1 hour 30 minutes straight. I couldn't feel my legs anymore. I had to run into target after dropping off the last boys at the greyhound and I have never felt so much culture shock. Hippie girl who hasn't showever in weeks, wearing tie-died pants with dragon flys on them and a brown shirt that was supposed to be earth green. This was possibily the craziest 30 days of my life, but I survived through it and am scheduled to do it again in June. Oh I love my job!

Love and hugs from sunny Florida!

New blog for continued adventures

Hello all!

I hope that you all can use this blog as a tool for keeping updated on my life, where I am, my stories and what I'm up to.  Sometimes I forget to email people so it is simply easier to post on a blog.  This is for your enjoyment.

I begin my second Outward Bound course on Tuesday the 15th and should return the 3rd week in May.  There are different levels of courses which I will explain to help you all get an idea of what types of programs we run.

There are FINS - families in need of services programs.  This works with students 13-16 and their families on proactive measures.  For example, kids can be missing school, cheating, stealing, beginning gang involvement or anything else that would lead to juevey.  We lead then on 20 day canoe expeditions with 10 days of follow-up to help prevent them from making the same negative life choices.  These courses can be male, female or co-ed.  They tend to be run out of Key Largo, Scottsmoor, FL and Fairhope, AL.

There are re-direction courses that are for the same type of kids, except no parent involvement.  They are run in Lowcountry - Charleston, SC and are backpacking trips.  These students have either been in juevey or seriously suspended from school and need to be 're-directed' in life.  These can be male, female or co-ed.

Last but not least are STEP - short-term expeditionary program.  This is based in Yulee, FL and this works with teens 16-18 who have been seriously convicted, are on parole or conditional release status.  These are 30 day canoe expeditions and if these students do not pass they will go to big-boy jail.  We either have male or female courses only, co-ed would just create problems.

There are always three instructors and up to 11 students on each course.  The average number of students on a course would be 8 or 9.  

Luckily for me, my second course gets to be an all male STEP course!  This means that I get my ass kicked everyday by these kids.  They are the tough of the tough.  So wish me luck as I begin this wonderful journey, as the kids would say, "the tree-huggin hippie girl."  I have to say I love my job. 

Please feel free to leave comments and ask me questions.  I should have an idea about my life the rest of the year after I get off course so if you are wondering about the Peace Corps, traveling or continued OB work, my mind is yet to be made up.  We shall see.  

Love and hugs from the woods!