Go read my other post from today first...

The Jamaica posts begin... NOW WITH PICTURES!!!

Tuesday 12-28-04
I woke up at 2:30 this morning and took a shower and finished packing. Melissa Kae picked Lori and I up at 4:15 and took us to the airport. Our flight was delayed 20 minutes and we were supposed to connect in Philidelphia but there were a lot of planes coming in and so we were in a holding pattern for another twenty minutes. We arrived ten minutes or so before our next flight was supposed to leave and so we hurried all the way to the gate, but the plane wasn't leaving yet. We arrived in Montego Bay at 3pm - an hour later than we were supposed to. Then 14 (out of 17) of us waited (after going through customs) for an hour - until 5:00 pm for Moose (one of our leaders), Jason, and Crystal, because Crystal and Jason's luggage got lost. Then we loaded into this bus.



Our luggage took up the back two rows and then it was seated two on one side, one on the other side and then the aisle had fold-out seats. We rode into town and stopped at KFC because we hadn't eaten all day. Then we got in the bus - forever it seemed - four hours later we got to Mandeville at the church we were staying at. The pastor forgot we were coming or something and no one was there to let us in - we made some phone calls (the phone number Tri-S had given us wasn't working) and finally some one let us in. I don't really feel all that safe here, and it's not good living conditions. Worse than the Mexico trip.



We have bunks like in Kentucky with AUCME and there's cokraoches, the shower is a hole in the wall and I think I liked the solar showers better.



Some of us are talking about not showering until Montego Bay. I just keep thinking about how much better our villa is going to be. The bus ride here, although really long, was neat. It was dark so we saw some Christmas lights on houses - unlike America they're all just thrown on haphazardly. We drove through the mountains on a really curvy road (and on the left side). It was totaly random - people walking down the road, little shack stores, big houses and everything in between.