Jamaica, January 2017

For my January Term of 2017 I had the incredible opportunity to visit Falmouth Jamaica for two weeks. In those two weeks we participated in a plethora of fun and motivating activities. When we first got off our flight we were introduced to our living quarters, a house on a hill on the Goodhope Plantation, where we would be staying for the next two weeks. The first day after the flight we toured around Goodhope and got to learn more about the history of the area. After a day of touring we started our routine of journaling about our experience of the day. I was also in charge of photo's for the blog which entailed that I upload the photos from the tours and write a brief description of what was going on in each photo. The next day we set out to start our activities of choice. The first activity I was assigned to do was to work on a 3D modeling program, which entailed taking measurements of a door within the building we were in and putting those measurements into the program which crafted the door. The next activity I got to choose to do for the rest of the time we were there, I chose to go to dig up ancient Taino artifacts on Spanish Hill with an archeologist Dr, Conoly and his assistant Rem Goodin. Choosing to dig up Taino artifacts has helped me in identifying certain types of rocks and soils and has even helped me find out about the Taino people themselves. The Taino people were an indigenous people to the Bahamas and parts of south America. Cristopher Columbus got stranded in Jamaica when he first came across the Taino people which he thought were Indians. They brought him gifts and goods until he was found and taken back to Spain. But Columbus returned to collect Taino volunteers for a special program created by Columbus. He would have teenage volunteers accomplish near impossible tasks, the volunteer who failed to bring the required items they would cut the hands of the teen off and leave him to die. Many Taino revolts were conducted when they discovered what this program did to their youth. Some were successful but a lot were not. after all the work we had one final night of fun and headed off the next morning. I'd be lying if I said Jamaica didn't change my life in some way, I have defiantly learned to work as a team and better myself at working collaboratively with other people towards a similar goal with the excavation project. I also was very conscious of my decisions and actions when out in public especially in a foreign country, to try to be as respectful as possible which in the end was successful. I hope to have another experience like this again.