Jamaican me Crazy!!!

What can I say about our vacation other than it was GREAT!
Jamaica is an absolutely lush island with spectacular vistas. I consider it the “Hawaii” of the Caribbean. For fear of sounding like a travel brochure, I really mean it when I say the country has something for everyone
For those that just like lounging around the beach with a Red Stripe in their beach chair’s cup holder and for those like me…who require a little bit of variety.

We creeped out into the night at 430am like thieves to catch our flight. Right before I closed the door, I stole one look back at our Xmas tree, at all of Brandon’s new toys scattered around the place and took in the smell of ham and peppersauce still lingering from last night’s dinner and felt a twinge of guilt. Guilt, for leaving the comfort of our little home in the middle of xmas – a time that was meant to be spent at home with family and friends.
That feeling lasted all 2 seconds as the scent of salty seabreeze and sweet sounds of Jimmy Cliff beckoned to me. See ya next year suckers!!! I slammed the door shut and skipped excitedly down to the garage.

And thus our adventure began on December 28, 2005.

Now a lot of you may have heard about the reputation of Jamaican, perhaps even experienced it. I know I have had my run-ins with a few abrupt, well, let’s just say downright RUDE Jamaicans. And then of course their penchant for violence and the reputation they had back in the day of “shooting up the parties”
But let me just start this off by dispelling this myth right away. Much to my surprise, the natives turned out to be welcoming, helpful and well…dare I say it.?....likeable.
This was true of not just the people working in the tourist service industry but regular people we met out in the streets.

A lot of people have asked me if I ever felt unsafe whilst there. But the honest truth is no. In fact, I feel a lot more insecure hanging out on my aunt’s porch on the eastern Main rd in Tunapuna Trinidad that I felt anywhere in Jamaica.
The majority of crime occurs in Kingston and is mostly isolated to the gangs they have there. Only a small percentage actually affects regular citizens, tourists or businesses.

We stayed in Montego Bay but we hired a driver (which is the easiest way to see the sights in Jamaica) and took a few day trips.

Here we are are Dunns Rivers falls- one of Jamaica’s most popular tourist sites. This has to be the longest-ass waterfalls I have ever seen. It must have been about 300 feet winding its way from the top of the mountain and draining into the sea at the bottom. But it felt like walking a couple of miles.


The water is quite cold. A lot of people attempt climbing it forming these human chains and you also need special shoes to walk over the sharp stones. Even harder to navigate holding a 28 pound kid.
The waterfalls form shallow pools of water where you can go swimming at about 4 points in the length of it.

Taking a cool coconut Break.

Here’s one countryside character we met. He’s kind of like that guy you meet in Maracas who sings extempo. A type of improvised calypso that is oh-so sweet to listen to until you realize he’s dissing your husband or father-in-law up.(all the while smiling) and then has the nerve to ask you for a few change which they always count in front of you. In the background, Discovery Bay can be seen where Christopher Columbus first discovered Jamaica in 1494.

Here I am posing up in Negril, the western most part of the island and the place to catch the famous sunsets.

Negril is also famous for their steep 40 foot cliffs as seen in this pic.
The cliffs themselves are made of coral: the imprints of innumerable organisms can be seen if you look close enough.
And then there’s that pre-sunset insanity where flocks of people come Rick’s Café to watch: amateur cliff jumping. Yikes.

Thiefin' de Rasta man's Drinks

Here is Des playing golf at the Half Moons Golf course. His caddy (seen on the left in this pic) was OJ Simpson’s caddy a few years ago. He says OJ was a phenomenal golfer.

At the other course he played at- the Tryall Golf course. From part of the golf course, you can see the enormous mansion of none other than the boxer- Lennox Lewis.

Not far from this course is the resort where they filmed “Where Stella got her groove back”

Here we are on New year’s eve. The resort was perched atop a mountain overlooking Montego Bay. Warm seabreezes , soft steelpan beating in the background and a glass of rum and coke in my hand. Ahhh..can a girl ask for anything more?

Jammin' de night away

Happy New Years 2006

Here I am getting some dance lessons from a local.Now dancing in Jamaica is a peculiar thing.

It’ a bunch of wild, seemingly erratic moves that upon closer scrutiny reminds me of those West African dancers. It’s as mesmerizing as watching the scintillating moves of a belly dancer. It’s not as uncoordinated as I thought because when one guy is doing it, it looks erratic but then his friends move in and start doing the EXACT same moves….but when strangers move in and they ALL start doing the same moves, it becomes a little surreal. Almost as though I were stuck in a really bad Indian movie.

Hanging with the local hotties

3am- Time to call it a Night

Here is a typical local dish of Saltfish and ackee. Despite what you’ve heard about Ackee…I loved it and had it whenever I could. It’s a vegetable that has the consistency of scrambled eggs. It doesn’t taste like eggs though..more like a buttery version of tofu. It’s really hard to describe. It’s customarily fried up with onions, garlic, and tomatoes. In this dish, it served as a dinner item with some curried chicken, plantain and peas and rice.
Peas and Rice is served with just about EVERYTHING in this country. At the end of the trip, I couldn’t bear to even see another plate of it, opting instead for French fries or plain rice.

Here is Des sampling the local fare of jerked chicken and festival (fried bread) from a roadside vendor. We later saw him being put into the back of a police truck.

Okay, I couldn’t write about my travel to Jamaica without a mention to my visit to Rose Hall plantation house. A supposedly haunted site.When writing my original journal entry about this site, there were a couple of bizarre occurrences that day. But the last straw came when I was sitting behind my computer at midnight, the lights flickered and then the fire alarm went off and everyone had to evacuate the building. I just x-ed out of my document (losing everything) feelin’ rel scared, kicked Brandon aside (every man for himself) and just buss it out the door in my pj’s.

The day after I mentioned it to a few people including my cousin Jay who up till this day cannot talk about the cannibalistic Japanese man (one of the many nightmarish villains of our childhood) without a hint of quiver in his voice, even my friend Stace who is usually a voice of reason all gave me the same message “Why I messin’ with dat shit for”. . Man, what a bunch of scaredy cats.
So I gonna keep this real short.

Here is a pic of the infamous Rose Hall. It was a bustling plantation home back in the 1700’s which boasted a vast sugar cane field and over 2000 slaves working there. There are only a handful of plantation homes still left in Jamaica, as the majority were burned down by the former slaves.

It was occupied by the “White Witch” Annie Palmer who murdered 3 of her husbands in the very house. The 4th one ended up killing her. It was said that she pined for the bright lights and excitement of Paris but had to endure the hardships of island life.
Her reputation for cruelty to the slaves was notorious and she took great pleasure in torturing them and watching them being killed from her balcony. The cells she kept them imprisoned in the basement have been converted to , none other than His/ Hers washrooms. ??
She was also a big practitioner of the occult (obeah) from which she learned in Haiti from her nannie.

The house closes at exactly 5pm because as soon as the sun sets and darkness envelopes the house, her spirit is said to still walk the halls of the house.

All pictures of her were torched by the slaves because they felt that even in death she still would be able to exercise her powers. And there remains only 5 pieces of original furniture in the house. One of them being the mirror in her room. The claim is that when you take a picture of it and develop it, ghostly apparitions appear in the pic. They have a whole gallery in the house of people who have sent back pictures with weird things showing up in the pic. I took a picture but after getting boofed up by Des after all the weird occurrences , I deleted it.

As a final bizarre note to this, while I was touring the house, des went golfing that day and we were keeping in touch using a couple of those Cb handheld radios.
As I was walking through the gardens of the home, I got a call on the radio. Thinking it was Des, I tried calling him back but he wasn’t picking up. Then a transmission came though that sounded like a young girl. the transmission was “ Abbie..are you there?”
I radioed back saying “no..there ain’t no abby here” I didn’t get any answer nor anymore transmissions from that person that day and completely dismissed it as a crossed signal. After all, there were hotels all around and we couldn’t possibly be the only people in Jamaica using walkie-talkies.

That evening as I was watching the local Jamaican news on tv, I started going over the days events and thinking what a great day it had been. And then I remembered that strange radio transmission I had gotten. Thinking about the young girl who was looking for Abbie…maybe her mom, or her sister..maybe from one of the hotels…then it dawned on me….
I was on Rose Hall plantation garden (close to where Annie palmer’s grave is) when I got the weird message. And the name…Abbie..ABBIE?!!!! So close to the name ANNIE! …the former murderess owner of Rose Hall. What the hell are the chances?!!!
Could I have heard the wrong name and misinterpreted Abbie as ANNIE?!!!!

I swear I ain’t lying about this guys just to embellish my story I’m really, really not….but the following thought crossed my mind. Could this transmission have come from the other side…..

Picture of the front room

Scene of the crime

Purported picture of Annie found years later. Fit the description of her. She was only 4'11"

We took a 2 hour drive to the south coast of Jamaica cutting through the Blue mountain range to get there one day.
We took a safari down the Black River. Kind of reminded me of the caroni in Trinidad.

Mama..ah crocodile!!!

Here’s a couple of Indians we encountered. There’s a small community of Indians in Jamaica, mainly owning the souvenir and jewellery stores. Read: Loaded.

So that’s Jamaica for you in a nutshell.

So that’s Jamaica for you in a nutshell.
Although travel with a toddler may seem daunting at first, with the proper planning and the right attitude …it turned out to be an absolutely unforgettable trip.

One early observation I had made when I first got to Jamaica is just how many children Jamaican women have. 25% of girls in Jamaica typically have their first child at 16 years old. These girls are usually unmarried and very rarely go back to school preferring self-employment. They typically end up selling art/crafts they have made or doing people’s hair/ nails.
And so these little kids they have tag along everywhere, so it was not unusual to see toddlers liming the streets of Montego Bay at 130 am or hanging out with their mom and her friends at the local Burger King for a late night burger or ice-cream.

So Brandon fit right in. He was the darling of the locals…he made friends with everyone and people would walk up to him and say “ what ah pretty Bwai!”

Of course this trip was not without the occasional meltdown..here we catch my little guy in the middle of one.

Until next time….

Stacy

Next Posting: " What really goes on at Pujas?"

Christmas 2005

My first post was supposed to be all about our trip to Jamaica, but I got side-tracked. That will be on my next post.
But it really was a super trip..a much welcomed escape from the dreariness of winter, work and sorry to say ....Christmas.
I voice my gripes every year about the increasing commercialization of Christmas.

A perfect example of this over-emphasis on gifts occurred right in my own home on Xmas morning.
We had made a deal this year that since we were going on vacation, we would tone down on the presents this year. We all have just about everything we need and Brandon has more than enough toys. In fact, I should be donating some to the Salvation Army pretty soon.

Well, my husband opened up my Christmas gift to him and held up the contents....a bag of 6 new black socks. With a look of disbelief and to my disdain... he starts laughing hysterically. I'm sorry if my budget this year can't accommodate the new X-box 360 or a fancy upgrade to your pricey phone that you've been hinting about for the past 4 weeks. B..bb...But what about all them fancy dinner parties I organize every year for his birthday, the expensive pieces of jewellery he's gotten or the latest gadgets I'd bought him in the past. Obviously all forgotten

As the humiliating laughter continued, my attention moved over to my precious 2 year old Brandon who was inquisitively trying to piece together 2 pieces of a puzzle. It was just one of many toys I had gotten for him. A puzzle I must say that was well-made , perfectly suited to his age category and ....bought at the dollar store. I watched him patiently try to fit the pieces onto the board, completely oblivious to how much was paid for it. Somewhere in that 2-year old brain of his, I felt he just knew that Mommy had taken a lot of time this year to carefully choose every toy he had received this year, taking into consideration his interests and abilities and most importantly that she loved him.

As I watched him sliding the pieces over the board, my heart swelled with pride envisioning the honorable young man he would grow up to be. It's a pride that every Mother gets when she senses that her values/teachings are rubbing off on their offspring and eventually adopted. It's really not about the material gift itself but the love.

I kept watching him as he explored his new toy smiling to myself. He then calmly picked up the puzzle and flung it 4 feet away onto the living room wall. and as if that wasn't enough, he also hurled a couple of the puzzle pieces too.
Wordlessly, he moved onto the remote controlled mercedes benz car his father had given him. Sigh.
I haytes Christmas.
Here's a pic of him with the offending puzzle.


On a lighter note, here are some schmoozers from Christmas Eve and over the holidays.


Heavy weight Champions. otherwise known as Mom and dad


The Gals


It was a an absolute pleasure spending xmas with cousin Mo from Winnipeg. You charmed the pants off of Brandon...ever considered moving to Mtl???


More heavy weight champions


Another snapshot of the crowd




Uncle Tim-o, Brandon and my mom


Me and my kids