The Jamaica CourseJOURNALS
Today is Monday, day 3 in Jamaica. We started the day with lectures from Mr. Scarlett and Dr. Karen Webster-Karr. Henroy taught us about water and sanitation issues in Jamaica. Dr. Webster brought us the latest on the Malaria epidemic in Jamaica. Henroy’s lecture on water and sanitation was extremely enlightening. Especially in light of our planned field trip for the day. I would not consider Jamaica to be a developing country. It is far and away a more developed country, as evidenced by the new cars, paved streets and total lack of extreme poverty. It would surprise a person who had never been to Jamaica. We learned also about the recent Malaria outbreak here in Jamaica. They not had a malaria outbreak in over 30 years; really since 1965 when they were declared Malaria-free. Most people would not know that about Jamaica, as it is probably still considered a tropical island, prone to all the tropical diseases, including Malaria. This most recent outbreak really took the entire island by surprise. Fortunately, the first case was diagnosed quickly and surveillance methods were implemented quickly- preventing a huge island outbreak and limiting the number of cases to <343.
We then visited the UWI sewage treatment plant. Meghan demonstrates the one remarkable thing about our visit here. The sun was pretty hot today- our first complete day without rain. Although the temperatures were not extremely high, the sun rays were penetrating. One needs to bring a hat to wear. Despite my precautions, I still got a little sunburned! After dinner, we met in our small groups. I am in the HIV/STD group (which is the largest group). We discussed the week’s plans and Dr. Brodine gave us a brief synopsis of what the group did last year. We have a lot of people from Jamaica in our group; some also from the San Diego group, and a few from UAB. We all seem to have a wide variety of skills to bring to the group. This will be a fun and interesting week. Before leaving the sewage treatment plant here on campus, we were treated to a local fruit growing on some of the trees nearby. The fruit is tangy tasting and has a large pit in the center. It was easily peeled. They called it guinet fruit. Here are some of us experimenting with this strange new fruit. This was a full day of activities and finally we seem to have an idea of why we came to this island called Jamaica. Karen Harness |
After lunch, we left for our first field trip. We visited the Mona Water Treatment Plant. Mona is the area of Kingston that the University of West Indies is located. Mr. Mark Bean, the Water treatment supervisor came and led us on an excellent tour of the facility.
It was interesting to find out that the water that comes into my little cottage here at the University is just as clean and safe to drink as my home in Alabama. The water filtration plant has been around since 1940’s, and has had upgrades along the way. The extent of the water sanitation is pretty remarkable.