Week Sixish through Nineish

FIRE! FIRE! THE FLAMES ARE GOING TO CONSUME EVERYTHING!! EVERYTHING!!!

These were the thoughts racing through my mind as the massive fire ripped a path of destruction through the Jamaican hillside toward JDV last Sunday (March 28).

Okay so it wasn't quite that big or dangerous of a fire, but rational thinking wasn't exactly at the top of my priority list as I vigorously hacked branches off of trees for usage in beating the flames into submission. I reason that since nobody got hurt and nothing got substantially damaged, I can safely say that the story of the JDV fire has been my most exciting experience since arriving here in Jamaica.

As I have mentioned before, JDV is located up in the hills of Manchester parish. During the dry seasons here, water becomes very scarce and much of the vegetation on the hillsides dries up to a crunchy yellow. At this dry state, though the land here is mostly fields of knee-high grass and is littered with rocky patches, it becomes dangerously susceptible to fire. Since the land does not have a thick density of trees, fires here tend not to get overwhelmingly hot (compared to a full-scale California forest fire), nor do they sustain flames much higher than 5 or 6 feet. Though I had seen smoke from neighboring patches of land, and seen the charred remains of already-burn vegetation up-close, I had yet to experience any of these brush fires up close.

The chain of events leading from my awareness of the brush fire to my transformation into a full-on volunteer fire fighter was alarmingly short. Last Sunday, I attended the the 11 A.M. service at the New Life Church for the Deaf. The service ended around 12:30 P.M. and I headed over, with the team (from Lake Placid, FL), to tour the furniture factory right after the service.

After our 20 minute tour, I found myself walking back up the hill toward my apartment next to Chad Huber, the missionary boss-man here at JDV. Immediately after locking up the factory and starting our trek upwards, we both noticed the smoke rising from about 300 yards away from us. Unable to see the base of the fire, Chad asked out loud, "I wonder if that fire is on our side of the road...". After quickening our walking pace and gaining enough elevation to confirm the alarming proximity of the fire to our position and the village, Chad says, "Looks like we're about to have a weenie-roast here this afternoon," as breaks he into a run and lifts his phone to call the fire department and police (this Chad quote has become my favorite during my time here).

By the time Chad and I made it up the hill (neither one of us are stellar long distance runners, and our adrenaline-induced run eventually broke into panting hobble) the fire had already made it up the hillside from the road and was within 100 feet of Pastor Damian's house (and my current apartment). Though the flames in the fire weren't that high, the abundance of smoke makes it difficult to tell what is going on, how big the flames are, or in which direction the fire is spreading most quickly. As I get up to the top of the hill, I see Pastor Damian, along with many members of the work team, in their church clothes, rushing to fill up buckets with water behind the pastor's house. After acquiring some tree branches and distributing them to some team members, I began wailing away at the flames myself.

In those moments prior to my full comprehension of the situation's not-so-fatal severity, the reactions of the villagers and team members were quite varied. Some were on their knees praying for a change in the winds, some were fighting the fire with enraged ferocity, some, like me, were fighting and praying, some were sitting down because they were exhausted from fighting, and others were making sure all of the women and children were safe. Though I would grin about these moments later, during them, it felt like I was in a movie. A movie with an awesome soundtrack. And incorporates a good love story where the stumpy hero with big thighs and patchy facial hair wins the heart of the girl in the end. Perhaps I am foreshadowing my own fate.......? Brilliant.

The primary safety mechanism that kept all of the building at JDV from suffering substantial smoke damage and possibly catching on fire (keep in mind only the roofs here are made of the wood, everything else is concrete) was the shortness of the grass. Around every building is at least a 40-foot zone of shortly mowed grass. When the fire makes it to the shorter grass, the flames are smaller, the fire burns slower and the fire can be smothered out with a tree branch. Upon realizing that we could actually put the fire out with the leafy tree branches, I became much more confident that the fire would not consume everything and everybody, and bring my young life here to an epic, flaming conclusion.

About halfway through our battle with the inferno, Chad informed me that the fire station's only fire truck was out of commission and that another fire truck from another station was going to come eventually. "Soon Come," is the phrase used down here when something is going to take a long time, or may not ever actually happen at all.

As we stamped out the fire successfully up the hill from the pastor's house about 200 yards, we started to find ourselves in much deeper grass and beyond the point where the fire would threaten any JDV buildings if simply let it burn. The primary area I started to watch at this point was the road that ran between the fire and the large apartment building here. I figured that if we just made sure the fire did not jump the road, it would burn itself out on the other side. It was while watching this road that I saw the first Jamaican fireman arrive. As anybody would, I first had a positive reaction upon seeing a fireman decked out in a black and yellow fire-proof suit, complete with helmet, boots, and gloves. All comfort and relief that I had attained in that split second was immediately lost, however, when I noticed that the fireman WAS FIGHTING THE FIRE WITH A BRANCH SLIGHTLY SMALLER THAN MINE. I just wanted to rush up to him and ask, "Hey mon! Shouldn't you have like, ummm... WATER?!" But to be fair to the firemen, they did hook up the hose to the firetruck and help put out the fire that was burning up next to some of the buildings down the hill.

In the aftermath, other than some smoke-filled lungs and a few rooms scattered with ash from the smoke, there were no serious injuries or damage at JDV, other than a number of fence posts that we will likely replace this week. I did find out the next day that one of the neighbor's cows died in the fire, as it pinned itself in a corner of tall grass and inhaled too much smoke. All-in-all the fire consumed approximately 20 acres of brush, one cow, 60 fence posts, and one afternoon me playing of Heroes of Might and Magic V (It's a computer game). Though I never found out if there was a confirmed source of the fire, many said that a neighboring Jamaican was burning tires and lost control of the flames. Though I did not take all these pictures, I did take more after the fire than at any other point on this trip [Patting myself on the back].

Before: Some team members watch with uncertainty of the fire's intentions,

not knowing that they are in the way of DESTRUCTION.

After: A burnt wasteland.

Well, actually the grass will grow back pretty fast.

I fell in to a burning ring of fire.

I went down, down, down, but the flames went higher.

Here, you can see were the fire burnt out the fields

across from the road that runs above the apartment.

Winds pushed these flames up the hill away from JDV.

Some of the little ones were almost as scared as I was.

Here, you can see the divide between good and evil.

Some Snickers bars sent to me by Leigh Austin.

As you can see by the bottom empty wrapper,

I snarfed one really quick to give me fire-fighting energy.

Why wait?

Silhouette of the the fire fighting, machete-wielding, gladiator.

Moments later, I would be yelled at for taking pictures

during a 20-acre brush fire, instead of helping.

Some fence posts that will need replacing.

The wall on the left is the back of Chad's house.

That fire was all up in our grill.

Aftermath of fence posts looking down toward the maintenance shed.

A shift in the wind was all that kept this brush

in the foreground here from going up in flames.

Here is the road I helped watch that kept the

fire away from the apartment.

Some volunteers finishing off the last

flames on the hill above JDV.

Hooray! The fire truck finally arrives!

Notice the fire is out in the background.

Hillside above some of the buildings.

All the fire in the picture was put out with branches.

This is just a cool picture.

We stopped the fire here - about 30 feet from

Pastor Damian's house.

In previous posts, I have worked harder to integrate pictures into the body of the text, so I apologize for not doing that on this post. Hopefully, my ratings will not suffer because of my laziness.

Prior to my arrival at JDV last Sunday and the great fire, I was at MoBay for three weeks, none of which have I mentioned yet in my blog. Although I take primary credit for my groundbreaking procrastination in waiting over a month between posts, I would like to also give credit to my spotty internet connections and my faithful followers, who have barely said anything about my long posting break, leading me to believe nobody is reading so I could put this post off for a longer period of time.

Back in early March, my brothers were here for a week. It would've been an awesome week, but unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, my brothers were there. Haha, we had a grand ole' time! There were many things the I experience here that will be difficult to explain when I get home, and I am excited to have them help me give more life to my Jamaica stories. For example, they had the opportunity to work it Dayveeeed Mon all week and the fun of trying to understand his Patwa over and over and over. They also had to meet and work with Glenford and gain an understanding of why he is my hero. They met many of the children that have made my time here so awesome. Working with us that week was a group from Pennsylvania called Hands and Feet Ministries. At some point in the week, one of the high-school students in the group pointed out that I am a harder worker than Kolt and Chase (which is not that difficult, as they set the bar pretty low), a comment that made good for many jokes as the week went on. But all in all, I was proud of them and the work they did for the ministry and kids. I was happy to have part of what I missed back home come and visit me here.

After Kolt, Chase and Pennsylvania group left, we had a short break before Hope College showed up the next Friday! Among that group stepping off the plane were: my former soccer coach, his wife and kids, my former college roommate and his wife, two players that I helped coach when they were high schoolers at West Ottawa, a former hockey teammate, and a smattering of other familiar faces. Catching up with all of my established relationships and making new ones made that week awesome. As Hope does not stay on the school campus, I was able to join them for dinner off-campus at their place of lodging: Chattham Cottages, 200 yards from the beach. Every night Warren and I would head over to join the group, they welcomed us with open arms, and did not hit us with their hand bags, for which I was most grateful!

Though it was socially awesome to have some people in my age group to interact with during the Chase/Kolt and Hope weeks, they were the two hottest weeks I have yet experienced here in Jamaica. It was vvvvery hot, mon! Up through that point in my trip here, I had been able to work pretty hard throughout the day and, providing I took enough water breaks, I was able to keep a good work rate going. These two weeks were different. Whether it was my body hitting the physical wall of being here for two months or the heat simply draining the energy from me, I found myself really digging deep to find the energy to keep working every day.

Unashamedly contributing to my exhaustion is the vocational building waste pit. During the PA's group's time at MoBay, we finished putting the cap on the soak away pit I showed in earlier pictures. Before liquid waste goes into the soak away pit, it must first gather in the waste pit, which is located about 40 feet uphill from the soak away. Prior to PA group, the waste pit hadn't been worked on in over a year. As it stood, it was only about 10 feet wide and 10 feet deep. We need it to be 15 feet wide and 13 feet deep. Though getting started on the project was smooth, it became apparrent it would be quite a difficult project as we started pick-axing and shoveling the rocky soil. Ten hot work days of teams hammering on that pit for 7 hours a day and we still have not hit our mark. Toward the end of the Hope team, I found myself avoiding the pit altogether, knowing that I could, in fact, die in that hole, which the Hope team came to call "The Pit of Despair." In my head, I also called it the Pit of Eternal Peril, the Hole of the Undead, the Lion's Den, the Octagon, the Dungeon, Gravedigger, the Widowmaker, Tears of Darkness, Summon the Kraken, Luke I am Your Father, and Icky, Icky, Icky, Kahpungow. Picture to come in next post.

Now that I have caught up with things at MoBay, I can say that my time here at JDV since the fire has been rather uneventful. I have done lots of work mixing concrete, pouring concrete, and setting blocks. After my last day of work last week, I threw down a three-hour nap on my tile floor, in my work clothes. It is my proudest nap since I've been here. I didn't even take my shoes off. It was that serious.

As I wrap up my last two weeks here (I come home for a 3-week break on April 17), I grow very excited to go to the cinema when I get back into the States. I have watched a few movies here (I just watched Pride and Prejudice, the greatest love story of all times), but have not been out to the movies since I left home and I'm missing it! I am going to see if Celebration Cinema can just rent me out a few seats in the back of a theater so I can just live there for a few weeks. Keep your fingers crossed!

I hope to get a blog in before I get home, but I make no promises!

Take it easy. Much Love!