My oh my…are we busy!!!  Sorry my posts have been so few and far between.  Aside from having our days packed with vocational, cultural and social events, it has been hard to come by a good internet connection during our travels.  Here is a qucik update of what we have been up to:

We spent a week in Kingston, Jamaica.  As has been the case on all of our other stops, we were welcomed into the homes and lives of the most kind and generous group of people there.  Our vocational days were a bit different in Kingston - we all attended each of the vocational trips as a group.  The visits we made on my behalf were to The Gleaner Company (the oldest newspaper in the western hemisphere) and TVJ (Jamaica’s major TV network).  We had a blast at both places, and our trip to Gleaner was covered in the paper the following day.  We also spent loads of time doing fun cultural things like going to the Bob Marley Museum, The National Gallery, Hellshire Beach, and a Blue Mountain Coffee processing center.  As a group, I think the favorite stop was going to the Kingston YMCA and meeting an amazing women named Sarah Newland-Martin.

We also got some time to spend at some of the Kingston Rotary Club’s service projects.

Daphne, David and I were lucky enough to take a day trip to Ocho Rios and climb the Dunn’s River Falls. Thank you to Dassy’s hosts, Locksley and Pauline!

Then we came to the Nassau, Bahamas for the Rotary District Conference at the Atlantis Resort.  It has been a crazy couple days full of fun events and chances to meet up with all of the new friends we have met along the way.  We finally got a few hours here and there to relax together and do things like tubing down the rapids, riding the water slides, and hanging out at the beach. I did not really take any pictures in our short time here, but will hopefully get a few from the team down the line.

We are scheduled to fly back to Jamaica this afternoon, but just found out that our flight is already delayed by 5 hours (until 1130pm!).  So we may be stuck here another day.

Happy Mother’s Day to Raffi and all you other mom’s out there!

More words from the road soon….. 

It has been a whirlwind stay in our third stop in the British Vigin Islands.  We arrived Monday evening and have had a packed schedule since we stepped off the ferry in Road Town, Tortola.  We were only scheduled for three full days here, and they had a lot planned for us.  We spent Tuesday morning meeting with the BVI Heads of State.  We had a lovely chat with the Governor (assigned by the Queen) as you can see in the photo above.  Then we had a nice meeting with the Premier (elected locally) of which I will have to get a photo from one of my teammates.

I have had a vocational visit on my schedule each of the three days here.  I have spent a few hours here and there with the design team at Bolo’s, the largest local print/design shop.  I have actually done some layouts for them!  Yesterday I spent the entire day at GIS (Government Information Systems), with the official design team for the BVI government.  They are a great group of creatives who were thrilled to hear all about how we run things stateside and what we do to stay creative.  When my ride showed up at the end of the day, I was sad to leave and I am pretty sure they were sad to see me go.  Yet again, I have made so many new friends!

This afternoon we are going boating around to some of the smaller Virgin Islands.  Tomorrow morning we leave at the crack of dawn for Jamaica (with a brief stop in St. Thomas for brunch with our friends from over there).  We have a layover in Miami, so I will try to hop on and post some more photos for you all while we are there (I know pics are more fun than my ramblings!).
 

One way or another I will check in again soon.

Over and Out.