Yeah Mon! KAOS Experiences ‘Life According to Jamaica’

(Originally published in The Merger, October 2005)

What happens when you drop fourteen Kellogg students in the middle of a rural Jamaican town? A week of incredible learning and memories. KAOS ‘Life According to Jamaica’ 2005 gave us an opportunity to discover the culture, customs, and natural beauty of the island nation through the eyes of its own people.

As the lone service-based KAOS trip, ‘Life According to Jamaica’ was centered on the repair of a school for three to six-year old children in Petersfield, a town an hour away from the popular resort destinations of Montego Bay and Negril. We spent two full days and two half-days painting and cleaning to reverse the damage done to the school during Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The work was hard, particularly with the oppressive tropical heat, but the physical transformation we saw was spectacular: in a matter of days, a dirty cement shack became a respectable set of classrooms.

However, the trip was as much about the cultural education as it was the service. We stayed with several host families and attended neighborhood block parties and town meetings. We learned patois, the Jamaican dialect, and amused the locals with our misguided attempts at reciting their expressions and songs. We ate the finest homemade cuisine, such as ackee and saltfish, roasted breadfruit, and rum punch made with the finest local overproof rum. During our free time, our new friends taught us local games like dominoes, cricket, and a name game called rhythm selector. And we embarrassed ourselves trying to learn Jamaican cultural dances to the beats of their freshest reggae music.

In the midst of all of the fun and excitement of the Jamaican culture, we also experienced the serenity of the land. We explored caves, swam in fresh water lagoons, and dove off of bridges into roaring rivers. We lounged at the beach and in the warm Atlantic waters and cooled in the shade of cotton trees and endless fields of sugar cane.

Without a doubt, ‘Life According to Jamaica’ was an unforgettable week for all of us, not only because of the experiences that we shared, but also the connections that we made with the people of Petersfield and with each other. At least for a few days, we saw the realization of the Jamaican motto: out of many, one people. This hope will be a guiding force for the fourteen of us as we continue our lives at Kellogg.