Tweet
After the Dance.
Where did everyone go? One by one I have had to say far too many “good-byes.” Maybe Orbra has the right idea. She just refuses to do them. She just leaves…and then calls you from the car on the way to wherever and tells you she is gone.
Angie and Sammy and Vi and August and Valerie, and Bianca, and AJ and Marion and Shirley and Barbara and Mr. Barbara, and Belle 50, and Brownie 2 and now Orbra has gone to Negril to meet her daughter, and here I am, all alone in Ochii.
Well this is how it all started, me alone in Ochii. Starting with trip #2, I couldn’t get anyone to come to Jamaica with me, so I packed my little self up and went alone. From the second trip, it was me and Ochii. We love each other don’t we, Ochii and I? So when the first pink light of dawn broke into my room that morning, I decided to pick my heavy heart up and take it running.
I can’t go to Orbra’s room this morning for breakfast, or pop over to Vi’s for girl talk. No Angie to plan the day with…..just me, and Ochii, and my running shoes, and the One Love Trail.
Down the familiar path of the One Love Trail I go, heavy heart and all. It grieves me to my soul that the Jamaican government has decided to neglect the lovely “One Love Trail. It is now so over grown in parts that it is impassable, and I have to take to the street, which is dangerous at best. Some of the lovely vistas that I once could see are now obscured. Where is my rock? The big pretty one with the hole through it that enables you to get a framed glimpse of the azure blue sea. Where is the waterfall…..I mean THE WATERFALL, where on a lucky day I can catch a glimpse of an occasional natural shower taking place ?
This morning is like most magical mornings in Ochii. A cruise ship is coming slowly into port, easing it’s way to dock sideways at the peer. People are out sweeping their store fronts and riding their businesses of trash from the night before. The route taxis are zipping by at the speed of light taking passengers to work who must feel like they just got off an hour ago. Squished in by the hundreds they pass by glancing at me out of the window. What must they be thinking as they see this silly American woman trying to expend energy that she does not rid herself of doing hard honest labor? She must run like a mad person to burn calories from eating too much anyway. Try some steam fish mon.
Down the trail a little piece is an example of what I talked to two young men from Memphis about yesterday at dinner. Men in Jamaica, the ones I know, in MHO, do not sit around whining about what life, “the man”, or circumstances have “done” to them, they get up and DO something.
I remember once I was out with some friends in Jamaica and the traffic was backed up. I assumed that it was a wreck or something, but when we got to the source of the problem, it turned out to be two young men who had mixed some concrete in a bucket and were “repairing” the pot holes in the road. They were then steering the cars around their handy work and collecting donations for their efforts from the motorists. They MADE them a job, and if there is one thing Jamaica has, it’s a lot of potholes.
So down the One Love Trail, there are these young men who haul buckets of fresh water from a waterfall and wash off Juta buses cars etc. I learned from Marshall that they make pretty good money for this. You see, you MAKE you a job. No whining, just MAKE you a job.
On this morning O, one of the car wash guys, decided that running with me was more important than washing cars. He tells me that he has this very special water coconut for me.
“No thanks, I don’t like them”
“Well hookay”
Down the trail a little farther he stops me and points up.
“See that breadfruit, the real big one. It is special. Do you want me to climb the tree and get it for you? Then I will roast it for you and you will like it.”
“Nope, don’t like breadfruit either.”
I am thinking man; all of these “services” are going to have a price somewhere. Why doesn’t this guy go back to washing cars?
I am running in my New Balances, and he is right there, barefoot, not missing a step.
He’s about 6’2”, and can’t weigh more than say 150. He’s real skinny for a guy so tall.
All the way down to the basket shop past Dunn River Falls we go. I decide to walk back, and he is right on me chattering away.
Finally I say, “You know O, I do have a man in Jamaica and his best friend drives Taxi. He usually is on this highway this time of morning. If he sees me walking along at this time of morning with a tall handsome guy( embellishment here) like yourself, and tells my man, how do you think that would look?”
“Oh are you saying that you don’t want me to walk with you?”
“Yeah”
“Oh hookay”
And into the woods he disappears <poof>.
When I get back to the car wash area I think he has gone back to work, but he is nowhere to be found. His fellow car wash guy lifts a baseball cap off his face, peers at me and says “finally shook him huh?”
I just smile.
On down to Fisherman’s beach I have a lovely breakfast at Rohans, and then back up top, as they call it, to Skycastles.
My other mornings O just yells at me, smiles and waves, but does not try to join in my morning runs.
Where did everyone go? One by one I have had to say far too many “good-byes.” Maybe Orbra has the right idea. She just refuses to do them. She just leaves…and then calls you from the car on the way to wherever and tells you she is gone.
Angie and Sammy and Vi and August and Valerie, and Bianca, and AJ and Marion and Shirley and Barbara and Mr. Barbara, and Belle 50, and Brownie 2 and now Orbra has gone to Negril to meet her daughter, and here I am, all alone in Ochii.
Well this is how it all started, me alone in Ochii. Starting with trip #2, I couldn’t get anyone to come to Jamaica with me, so I packed my little self up and went alone. From the second trip, it was me and Ochii. We love each other don’t we, Ochii and I? So when the first pink light of dawn broke into my room that morning, I decided to pick my heavy heart up and take it running.
I can’t go to Orbra’s room this morning for breakfast, or pop over to Vi’s for girl talk. No Angie to plan the day with…..just me, and Ochii, and my running shoes, and the One Love Trail.
Down the familiar path of the One Love Trail I go, heavy heart and all. It grieves me to my soul that the Jamaican government has decided to neglect the lovely “One Love Trail. It is now so over grown in parts that it is impassable, and I have to take to the street, which is dangerous at best. Some of the lovely vistas that I once could see are now obscured. Where is my rock? The big pretty one with the hole through it that enables you to get a framed glimpse of the azure blue sea. Where is the waterfall…..I mean THE WATERFALL, where on a lucky day I can catch a glimpse of an occasional natural shower taking place ?
This morning is like most magical mornings in Ochii. A cruise ship is coming slowly into port, easing it’s way to dock sideways at the peer. People are out sweeping their store fronts and riding their businesses of trash from the night before. The route taxis are zipping by at the speed of light taking passengers to work who must feel like they just got off an hour ago. Squished in by the hundreds they pass by glancing at me out of the window. What must they be thinking as they see this silly American woman trying to expend energy that she does not rid herself of doing hard honest labor? She must run like a mad person to burn calories from eating too much anyway. Try some steam fish mon.
Down the trail a little piece is an example of what I talked to two young men from Memphis about yesterday at dinner. Men in Jamaica, the ones I know, in MHO, do not sit around whining about what life, “the man”, or circumstances have “done” to them, they get up and DO something.
I remember once I was out with some friends in Jamaica and the traffic was backed up. I assumed that it was a wreck or something, but when we got to the source of the problem, it turned out to be two young men who had mixed some concrete in a bucket and were “repairing” the pot holes in the road. They were then steering the cars around their handy work and collecting donations for their efforts from the motorists. They MADE them a job, and if there is one thing Jamaica has, it’s a lot of potholes.
So down the One Love Trail, there are these young men who haul buckets of fresh water from a waterfall and wash off Juta buses cars etc. I learned from Marshall that they make pretty good money for this. You see, you MAKE you a job. No whining, just MAKE you a job.
On this morning O, one of the car wash guys, decided that running with me was more important than washing cars. He tells me that he has this very special water coconut for me.
“No thanks, I don’t like them”
“Well hookay”
Down the trail a little farther he stops me and points up.
“See that breadfruit, the real big one. It is special. Do you want me to climb the tree and get it for you? Then I will roast it for you and you will like it.”
“Nope, don’t like breadfruit either.”
I am thinking man; all of these “services” are going to have a price somewhere. Why doesn’t this guy go back to washing cars?
I am running in my New Balances, and he is right there, barefoot, not missing a step.
He’s about 6’2”, and can’t weigh more than say 150. He’s real skinny for a guy so tall.
All the way down to the basket shop past Dunn River Falls we go. I decide to walk back, and he is right on me chattering away.
Finally I say, “You know O, I do have a man in Jamaica and his best friend drives Taxi. He usually is on this highway this time of morning. If he sees me walking along at this time of morning with a tall handsome guy( embellishment here) like yourself, and tells my man, how do you think that would look?”
“Oh are you saying that you don’t want me to walk with you?”
“Yeah”
“Oh hookay”
And into the woods he disappears <poof>.
When I get back to the car wash area I think he has gone back to work, but he is nowhere to be found. His fellow car wash guy lifts a baseball cap off his face, peers at me and says “finally shook him huh?”
I just smile.
On down to Fisherman’s beach I have a lovely breakfast at Rohans, and then back up top, as they call it, to Skycastles.
My other mornings O just yells at me, smiles and waves, but does not try to join in my morning runs.
Comment