MANDEVILLE, JAMAICA — The rhythmic pounding of hammers mixed with the barking of stray dogs that share Mandeville's streets with wild goats, roosters and the occasional pig.
On Monday, volunteers with the Peru Community Church Jamaica Mission began laying out the framework of what will become 67-year-old Luther Atkinson's new home by week's end.
The modest structure, built into a red dirt hillside overlooking a lush green Jamaican valley, will replace the hovel of a building, held up with logs on one side and stones and rope on the other, that Luther used to call home.
TOUCHING LIVES
Reached by cellphone, members of the volunteer mission agreed that what they are building on the outskirts of this city of 30,000 people is much more than just a building and that they will be coming back home with more than just sunburned skin.
"You can send money down to have a house built, but to come down and touch the lives of people and have them touch yours, that's why I'm here and why a lot of us are here," said Michelle St. Onge, a volunteer from Peru on her first mission to Jamaica.
'BUSY ANTS'
While some members of the group have experience in carpentry, for others, it's their first time working on a building project.
With a small generator as the only power to charge batteries and power a single circular saw and working with only the tools they could transport in their luggage, the Americans are making do the best they can.
But for all involved, sweating in the breezy, 80-degree heat is a welcome change from the North Country winter.
"We went to church first, then we all came here and started breaking ground and going for it," said Phil Madore, of volunteer from Plattsburgh. "We're all working together like busy ants. It's all good."
CONTRASTS
Along with building Luther's new house, mission members are teaching dental hygiene and other topics at a local school and will be helping out at an orphanage, to name just a few of their community projects.
The yearly mission to Jamaica builds more than just homes; it constructs a bridge between two distinctly different worlds, and the missionaries feel they come back with much more than they left with.
"It's humbling, very gratifying," said Sarah Davis, a volunteer from Peru. "It's overall an awesome experience, and I think every American should do it in some shape or form because we have a really easy life in America.
"I like to bring that home to my son and teach him that he's got it really good."
Davis and her mother, Barbara Wagner from Bridport, Vt., have done humanitarian work in other places around the world. Wagner finds that the people in Jamaica, like those in the numerous places she has worked, appreciate the little things they have much more than people in America do.
"People are just happy with what they have. They don't have all the little handheld gadgets. The kids go out and play with a soccer ball and ride bicycles, like ours should be doing," Davis said with a chuckle.
FRIENDLY
The group arrived in Jamaica on Saturday then attended church on Sunday in Mandeville. The three hours of prayer and singing left quite an impression on the volunteers.
Monday was their first full day of effort on the house; they will work through the week on that and their educational projects, then have a day to relax in the Jamaican sun before returning to the North Country.
Though their mission is relatively small, the reaction from the Jamaican community has been anything but. Neighbors have come out to help or just to chat with the hammer-swinging strangers and get to know them. Before construction began, neighbors even built a new outhouse, complete with a window, for the volunteers to use.
ROLE MODELS
St. Onge sees the trip as a way to get to know people of a different culture and help them to get to know and understand Americans better. For her, wearing a tool belt is definitely a part of that.
"Women in Jamaica typically don't do much more than stuff in the house, and so American women, I think, typically make a pretty different impression on the Jamaican people because we're out there with power saws and hammers and all the tools, and we're just like everybody else, really."
BACK HOME
The welcome the volunteers have experienced has been universal. It has left some in the group hoping that the same holds true when Americans host the Jamaican migrant workers who come in the fall to harvest apples around the region.
"I've felt a very overwhelming welcome and a thankfulness from the people," Wagner said.
"I hope whenever the Jamaican pickers come to New York and Vermont that we treat them as well as they have treated us, because they sure treat us with respect, and I hope it goes both ways."
