Heroes Day Weekend

Marcus Garvey, Nanny of the Maroons, Sam Sharpe, Sir Alexander Bustamante, Paul Bogle, George William Gordon, and Norman Manley.

     Ever heard of these people?  Well, if you have ever been in Jamaica you should know them as the National Heroes.  These heroes of Jamaica all played an integral role in guiding Jamaica to the independent slave free country that it is today.   And today October 19, 2015 is the National Holiday in order to remember and honor these great leaders of Jamaica celebrated every third Monday in October!
Click here to find out more about the Heroes!

image from http://jis.gov.jm/calendar/national-heroes-day/

      Therefore, due to the holiday today we have had a long weekend off from school.  While I was expecting this weekend to be slightly non-eventful due to the lack of public transportation on any Holidays and Sundays in St. Elizabeth (the parish I live in), it has actually turned out to be one of my best weekends spent a site so far!  This has been the first weekend I felt like I have integrated into my community and surrounding communities and that my friends is a beautiful feeling. 

      The holiday weekend started with a special presentation from our students at school on Wednesday honoring the National Heroes of Jamaica.  This presentation was put on by our culture club at school and feature readings about all of the 7 Heroes as well as dancing and dub poetry performances.  I was very impressed by my students’ talents and plan on having them teach me some dance moves this up and coming week at school.  This performance was the perfect way to start of Heroes Weekend.
      On Saturday, the Treasure Beach Women’s Group hosted a 6k Run/ Walk for Breast Cancer.  I along with two other volunteers participated in this Run and this was the start of me feeling very integrated.  Running is one of my favorite things to do and getting to combine my love of running with integrating was incredible.  Most of the participants in the 6k were locals so it was a great opportunity to get to know even more people from my surrounding communities as well as catch up with some local friends.  And it turns out we had a Peace Corps sweep in the women’s running category coming in first, second, and third!  So to celebrate we headed to the beach!  The Women's Group is an amazing group that does so much to help the Treasure Beach Community and the surrounding communities so Check out the Treasure Beach Women's Group here!

Pre Race

 

We made it to the finish along with one of the race co-founders!

Beaching it to celebrate!



The Treasure Beach Women's Group is located down in treasure beach and does as much as it can to help the community.  The group has a craft store that sells these starlight candles that are hand made by the Women's Group! 

      While, this is already way more than normally happens on a weekend here there is more to come.  On Monday was Heroes Day, so to celebrate my host mom invited me to go with her to an event at a nearby church called an “Old Time Sinting” (Old Time Something).  There was traditional food which was great, I had red pea soup, salt fish fritters, and gizzadas lots of gizzadas.  (Gizzadas are a coconut and sugar pastry fried to perfection).  After we finished eating the community put on a performance to remember their heritage.  It started with the local primary school students showing us several dances set to traditional Jamaican folk music, then several of the church members showed us a dance, there was dub poetry about the Heroes and it all wrapped up with a lovely Maypole dance from the students.  It was a lovely way to celebrate Jamaican culture.  And even though I have been in Jamaica for a little over seven months this was the first time I really and truly felt like I was getting integrated and I can think of no better way to feel integrated in Jamaica than by celebrating their culture with my community!  So here’s to Heroes Day!



Students dancing

 

May pole dance