Tomorrow We Leave

The five of us will be flying out at 12:25 tomorrow from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. I will remember NOT to wear too many bobby pins this time and to wear shoes that are easily taken on and off. Hopefully all of us will be able to sit together, or at least not have to sit next to someone disgusting.
I am excited to go, but also a little nervous. It helps that I went last year and I have some background with security (that lady and I are pals for sure) and that we will even be in the same hotel as last year. But for someone like me, who prefers to have a plan and a set agenda, Jamaica is a place that requires a lot more flexibility than average. It's not as though the agency and groups are disorganized, merely that that's just the way things are in Jamaica. We are in the same time zone, but it is not by any means the same kind of society run by clocks and schedules. We just call it Jamaica Time, and everyone sort of runs at his or her own pace. We can show up to a site and have no one from the church there yet, or they could have been waiting for an hour, no matter what the agreed upon time was. It's difficult to explain unless you've experienced it. It's just different.
At this point we don't know with which group we will be working. There are several down there at a time, spread out to different locations, and as interns we will be hooked up with any group. Our team from Kenosha will be coming down the second week, and we will be with them then. But for the first week, it's pretty much up in the air until we get there. It all works out though because all the groups know the same basic songs, skits, and puppet shows, and anyone who's been training can just sort of jump in. How good they are though depends entirely upon them, so that is the toss-up. Last year was our first year for Fellowship, but Dick told us that we came in like a third year team. At the same time, one of the other groups couldn't even start for a few days because they just didn't have the preparation. So, we will see how that goes.