Photodipity

My team, GO! Jamaica 2004. Wonderful people!

More from GO! Jamaica 2004.

First few are street shots from along our walk to the hospice. The rest have captions…

Photos taken at Missionaries of Charity Hospice, in Kingston, Jamaica, 2004. This trip was part of Fordham University’s Global Outreach (GO!) program, a student organization that runs volunteer trips around the world. I participated in GO! Jamaica at the end of my sophomore year at Fordham.

Excerpts from my journal:

Day 1 at the Hospice

“In the morning we were kept busy making beds and introductions, then painting the women’s nails and putting lotion on their hands. The women have beautiful skin, and the coherent ones are really sweet. It’s hard to understand them because many don’t have teeth and speak with a thick Jamaican accent. I talked with a lady named Pearl. She was partially deaf and told me I talk too deep. She said she had a husband and he was good looking, but he was a devil.

We served lunch and I spoon fed a blind woman. After lunch it was slow because all the residents took naps, so we were bored and hot.”

Day 2 at the Hospice

“I talked with a lady named Joyce Wright. She told me she was ready to sleep and be at peace… later Vanessa and I watched her bicker with a blind lady named Dierdre Chin, who they call ‘Chicken Back’. 

Downstairs in the mens ward I talked to a man named Marx? about politics in Jamaica and the Caribbean”

Day 3 at the Hospice

“I talked to a woman who was hunched over in her wheelchair, but nonetheless chatty. Her name was Daphne. After I combed her hair we sang together. The only songs we knew in common were Old McDonald and 3 Blind Mice. I also sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her, even though it wasnt her birthday.

Later I talked to another woman named Rubina McCrea. Everyone else [on our team] who had spoken with her said she was wonderful, which turned out to be true. She told me about her god-daughter, and then about a lover that was good to her at first, but then started to cheat. Suddenly she got very sad and started talking about how she’s ‘ready to go’, and doesnt like it at the hospice. In an attempt to comfort her I suggested she make some friends with other residents, but she shrugged it off, explaining that most of them aren’t all there in the head. We held hands and cried… later during reflection we talked about how it bothered some of us that the residents don’t interact more, and why that may be. Still, it seems their quality of life could be much better if they fostered a sense of community in the hospice. Perhaps a symptom of old age is losing the drive to be social…

Returning to the hospice after visiting the Bustamante Children’s Hospital [the previous day] brought to light the stark difference between the children’s will to live and the hospice residents’ lack there of. Of all the people I’ve spoken to at the hospice, most have commented on being ready for death. Most have lost all their loved ones…”

MJ Fan slideshow cont’d.

Slideshow of MJ fans @ MJ’s 51st Birthday Party, hosted by Spike Lee, August 29th, 2010. Prospect Park, Brooklyn.