And so it begins...

I have finally arrived to Kingston, Jamaica and am starting to embark on my journey with the International Youth Internship Program. We’ve been here for 3 days now and it has been a bit crazy. Let’s begin with the day I left.

Wednesday, September 14th is my 2nd brother’s birthday. I was banned from helping out with renovating on a home project which ended up becoming my savior because I realized I had to go buy things and run errands. I was crazy busy all day while trying to find ingredients for my brother’s request of a carrot birthday cake, lamb and a fruit salad. We had one last family dinner before I headed off and the news broke of his engagement! I am so excited that I have a new sister-in-law! We knew that marriage was on its way and he had bought a ring but he had not done anything official yet until then! He said- I waited until my birthday because I won’t ever forget the date I asked her to marry me. (Cheesy right?) During dinner with everyone, I was feeling super emotional. There are a lot of life-changing event happening in the Chen family this year and I am going to be out of the loop for 6 months. The great thing is that there is skype, facetime, line, google chat which 10 years ago, I would only hear them through snail mail. I know that my family will always be there when I need them and always be supporting me on my adventures.

When my mom and 3rd brother dropped me off at the airport and I met up with the other interns, it hit me that it was actually happening. We got on the plane, and I stayed up late the night before so I passed out the minute I got to my seat. When I woke up, we were about to land and something different that I noticed right away was they all started clapping when we hit the runway. It was a big celebration for everyone. I have never seen people clap on an airplane but the individual next to me explained that it was part of their culture to say we made it! And thank you to God for keeping them safe.

Once we got out of the airport, we split up and went into our respective taxis. Our driver – Simon, was super welcoming and the view was astonishing. Sun, palm trees, coconuts and pineapples. The weather was definitely Caribbean weather! The driving was confusing because they drive on the left side and their seat is our passenger seat. J and I went to Abbey Courts (the apartment we were staying at) and it was quite funny because we couldn’t get in through the security. We had no clue what apartment number we were, no clue about our landlord’s name and simply were not allowed in. Thankfully, Ms. Chin See (our supervisor and contact at CVC) was actually in the parking lot waiting for us. She brought us in and showed us around the apartment which was a great welcome to the house.

We quickly settled in and went across the street to Devon’s House which we did not know at the time was a historical monument. The patty I got was super delicious. I was so hungry though and the food was super expensive. This got me pretty worried about how things would fare going forward. The next day we went to the office to meet everyone and got ourselves registered at the Canadian Embassy. We went to MegaMart, a grocery store close by and found the prices to be outrageous. During training there was much concern about the cost of living in Jamaica but I blew it off and thought we would be okay. After being at MegaMart, I spent 100$ on food that would cost me 60$ in Canada. I am going to have to learn how to budget.

We met our landlord, Mr. Smalling who is an accounting professor. He is a super nice gentleman and he has made sure we settled in well. We also partook in the International Coastal Beach Clean up Day! It was great because I got to meet locals and ask them questions. There was not many garbage to clean up oddly but they said that the area we were in was actually one of their clean beaches. The amount of volunteers they had should have gone to another beach that would have benefited from the assistance.

I start work tomorrow and I am excited for my first day. I miss my family already but I am learning so much along the way. I am scared to explore and go out because I am getting caution and warnings from everyone I meet but I know I will not let that get in the way of this internship! Talk more soon!