Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

[geocox]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

SH,
Thanks for your presence over in the other area of this form; I am sick of getting killed by the Socio-comies.
We need some real patriots over there and you are defiantly one of them.
I love your trip and the direction it’s going. Love it man, keep it coming.

Geo

[Soul Hunter]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

Nina, I'm going to have to plant myself in Jamaica when you're down there on one of your trips. You probably know your way around better than I do. I left Jamaica when I was 15, so my knowledge of the roads and various parishes is severly limited. Only recently did I spend any appreciable amount of time behind the wheel, and so far that's been the road between mobay and ochi - and the drive from Ochi to Spanish Town. I don't know that I could find the airport in Kingston from Spanish Town, despite the number of trips I've made on that route so many times.

That's the beauty of adulthood though - you get to try it again, with a little more appreciation of the things you see, and the paths that take you there. I can't wait to take 2 weeks off and just drive around and explore. Hit all 13 parishes, get a room right on the beach and hear the waves end their journey at my doorstep before retreating and trying again. A lot more trips home are in my future - well hopefully anyways!

[msportmore]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

Originally posted by Soul Hunter:
[qb] In her face I see the struggle in Jamaica. ... She’s seen things, she knows things, she has experienced life and for her it now hinges on her ability to sell a few pieces of yam in a crowded market. How many people visit this market and will never pass her stand? How much money will she make on this day? Will it be enough?

In her face I see quiet resignation. In her stance I sense weariness, a body screaming out for long overdue rest. Yet in her eyes I see determination:




And she had nothing to fall back on; not maleness, not whiteness, not ladyhood, not anything. And out of the profound desolation of her reality she may very well have invented herself. - Toni Morrison

[/qb]

Likkle moas yu mek mi cry yahso [img]/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

Carry on [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[BND1999]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

((SH)) that's just what i want to do... rent a car.. have the courage to drive my own butt around.. take my time.. parish to parish... do my photography.. walk............. it will happen...

look i have been in and around Kingston enough... id say i am familiar with routes.. but one can never really get their sense of direction down as well as they can when they drive..... esp. in the city....im ready to conquer!

[Nanook]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

Soul Hunter, as one of the long list of admirers of your trip report AND photos (why you say they aren't good!), I just want to tell you I feel the same as Bink, please, this is a REMARKABLE trip report. I can see you never tell a boring story, your writing is eloquent. Lazy days of hanging around are great so please don't hold back!

BND, you KNOW you make my heart sing when you said you were going to start driving yourself! Hip Hip Horrayyy, I know you will just love it!

[grandma2]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

very nice SH, enjoying this, thanks

[Bink - the Only]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm .... may i be so bold as to say ..................."Soul Hunter is my new man!"

what an amazing human being ... there is too much for me to say right now. all of the haunts of mom and funerals and markets ....

i put myself up FIRST to say Soul Hunter is NOW my MAN!

Soul, dear, i drive in jamaica ... and do it very well!

[DanielTh]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

Originally posted by Soul Hunter:
[qb]

“She not even thank mi fi di trip weh mi pay so much money fa!” exclaims Mom. “All she de pon," she continues, "is how she miss har Alaskan food an how she no know if she shoulda come ya.” But I gently remind her that this is culture shock for Maggie, and besides, I’m sure Maggie wasn’t the one who came up with the idea of going to Jamaica.


[/qb]

I know I am way way behind on these postings (sorry for that) but I must say - I am from Alaska also, born and raised, and I find such a striking similarity. When I returned from Kingston the first time and was talking to my mother I couldn't explain why I loved it so much. Finally she said "I think I understand. It reminds you of home [Alaska}".

[Soul Hunter]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

mama, i’m singing i love you…
there’s nothing in this world i could ever do, to repay you,
for all the love you have given me, since the days of my youth
seeing that i’m older now i vow to take good care of you…

Morgan Heritage - Mama and Papa

day 3 cont…

Having been thoroughly entertained by the flying threes, we climb back in the car and make our way up St. John’s Road. We pass St. Catherine High and I think back to my days of studying for the Common Entrance exam, wondering whether I would get into my first choice, Knox, or remain here in Spanish Town at St. Catherine High. I ended up at Knox…

We pass Crossroads and continue west, up French Man’s Hill, past Greenacres on our right and Dovecot Memorial Cemetery where my grandfather lies at rest, and finally into Mama’s driveway in Bellevue Heights.



As I open the gate and walk back to the car, memories come flooding back. I spent the bulk of my childhood in this yard. Good memories abound, and unpleasant ones whisper quietly from the recesses of my soul. Days of riding up the road to Mercury, or down the hill to Greenacres to play with friends, interspersed with days of hard work. Waking up at 0600, loading gravel into a wheelbarrow and spreading it over the red soil found in this region of Jamaica. Days of laboring with heavy bags of cement as Mama embarked on some new construction project around the yard. The kind of work the average 9 year old in America couldn’t begin to conceive.

Dark memories, long dormant in my subconscious, also stir. Behind this beautiful plant that rises in sharp contrast against its bed of water starved grass, against that concrete wall erected well before my birth, I watched a neighborhood murder a man. He had the unfortunate distinction of spending the night in the house of a suspected homosexual, and when he exited the house the following morning, half of the neighborhood awaited him. I watched in horror and confusion as the crowd stoned him to death. I watched in disbelief as the Jamaican Constabulary Force arrived, commanded the obviously stricken man to get up from the ground, and when he couldn’t they retrieved shovels from the back of their Land Rover and beat whatever life was left in him into submission. In the face of such barbarity, I learned tolerance.



I fight back my demons and think back to better days of past. Picking guavas with my cousin and then watching with eager anticipation and glee, as she created sweet preserves over an open fire. Growing up in Spanish Town wasn't the easiest life, but it has helped shape the man I am today, and I am profoundly grateful for it.

I get back in the car and drive the short distance down to the house, tap the horn per Mom’s instructions, and await the arrival of this most precious woman. She carries a burden heavier than anything I can imagine, and the pain wears vividly on her face. For a moment my strength abandons me and I steel myself and demand its return. There is no room for weakness in the presence of such strength. Not on this day, and not with the fear of death hovering in the air. I embrace Mama, kiss her, and remind her that though fear may be the price of our instrument, I shall help her bear it.

[Soul Hunter]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

We talk briefly about Aunt T.P.’s condition, but we have company and if you’re old school Jamaican, you don’t chat you business in front a company. Mom asks Mama what’s growing around the yard, and so begins three hours of fruit gathering and eating. Mama has no less than 10 coconut trees on her property, all laden with fruit. She directs me to one and I realize quickly that a career of operating in hostile environments has little bearing on one’s ability to pick a coconut!



David is of the opinion that the average coconut expert simply gives these things a twist and they come tumbling down to the earth. Oh no my friends. The picking of coconuts is serious work, that is, if you are a novice like me. I lug this long piece of pipe with a curiously created y end over to the coconut tree and proceed to demonstrate the most inefficient method of picking coconuts. In fact, so poor is my performance at this simple task, that Mom will later remark, “well, you certainly couldn’t do this for a living…” I manage to get about 6 down, before good old David, who prior to this trip had probably never seen an actual coconut growing on a tree, picks up the pipe and within minutes has surpassed my total…Mama gives me that look that says she’s on the verge of calling me “wutless” and we head back to the front of the yard.

Now if picking a coconut is a laborious task for the uninitiated, cutting the things is definitely a job for the experts. In this yard, Mama is the expert. Follow me and let’s see how it’s done.



First one has to select the right coconut. You cyaan just pick up any an any coconut and expect fi fine wata inna it. And a no every wata coconut have jelly! So Mama goes about this business of shaking until eventually pointing out the first victim:



Aunt M.W. grabs a seat to observe the situation. She’s the second eldest of Mama’s children and yet she’s always been the youngest to me.



No time for distractions though. The business of the business is at hand and Mama goes right into it!



I marvel at the power in her arms, sinewy muscles defying the fact that this woman is only 18 years away from having breathed air in this world for 100 years. Not bad for 82 Mama, not bad at all.





The end result? Sweet satisfaction my friends…sweet satisfaction. Just ask Maggie!

[Soul Hunter]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

David will later marvel at the fact that Mama still has all her fingers. But coconuts aren’t the only things growing in Mama’s yard. We pass a jackfruit tree bursting at the “limbs” so to speak, with fruit and of course, I pause for the cause and consume one. After all, can’t have them going to waste, now can we [img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

I spot a plum tree that has been growing since I was a kid and pick a few for David. Jamaica has at least two species of “plums” that I am aware of. One is known throughout the island as the june plum.



I remember many a day, walking up Frenchman’s Hill from school because I had spent my taxi fare on june plums. Add a little salt to it and we’re talking Johnny on the spot my friends!

Then there’s this kind of plum, which when ripe is just amazing. This tree has always been full of them, so much so that one need not pick any from the tree. You could just bend down and pick up handfuls from the ground.





One of Jamaica’s sweetest fruits can also be found in Mama’s yard:



There are very few fruits you will find growing in this world that are sweeter than Jamaica’s sweetsop!



And then oranges – no less than 8 orange trees can be found in the yard and David will quickly learn that not all oranges are created equal!



There’s an orange that grows in Jamaica that locals call seville orange. Looking like a cross between a grapefruit and an orange, it’s size implies lots of wonderful juice. But the seville orange (so named for it’s cultivation in Spain having arrived there from Asia) also has another name: sour orange. And I can assure you good people, this thing rivals a lemon on the bitterness scale.

Now everyone has that list of things they would like to do at some point in their life. That list is probably subject to much editing depending on one’s circumstance, but David finds himself in a unique position to check one box on his list. He wants to eat an orange that he’s picked himself. And while we’re off doing something, and he’s out and about exploring, David encounters the biggest orange he’s ever seen in his life…you can guess what comes next…

In one afternoon David embraces fruit eating disaster the likes of which Spanish Town probably hasn’t seen since Spanish settlers started biting into everything…He bites straight through the rind and into a seville orange. What follows is spitting akin to a baseball player chewing on tobacco. He will later comment that he’s never tasted anything that bitter, that stayed with him that long, ever in his life. In the midst of Mama and Moms laughing to the point of tears, I point out the real deal to David and he chalks the experience up to a lesson learned.

[Soul Hunter]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

Time is my enemy today, and Mom soon starts loading the car up for our departure back to Ochi. Mama will join us next Thursday for her party – or so we think – but David and Patty are due back in Montego Bay tomorrow, so this is strictly a day trip for us. I take one last stroll around the yard and snap a few more pics. Despite the turbulent times, life remains resilient, and continues to impose its will.










MG, is this sinkle bible? I’m pretty sure Mama has been calling it sinkle bible since I was a kid. It’s a different color than the pic I took of that similar looking plant in Ochi.




almonds anyone?

I remember talking to Mama on the phone as Ivan raged outside and distinctly remember her saying “lawd dis a man ya a blow wheh di hol’ a mi banana tree dem!”

She now asserts proudly that: “dem a come back nice nice.”

[Soul Hunter]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

A few more shots and I find Mama to give her a goodbye hug.





I hug Mama goodbye and resolve right then and there to calling her at least once a month to check up on her. I am notoriously terrible when it comes to telephones. The closest person to me is my brother, and I haven’t spoken to him over the phone in years!

With the moon guiding me, I pull out of the yard and get about 5 minutes down the road when Mom requests that I make a pit stop at a friend’s store in Greenacres so she can pick up something. I take the opportunity to snap a few more pics:




the two staples of Jamaican late night cuisine: Jerk chicken, and


a bar!

[Soul Hunter]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

Mom is a mango fiend and we stop just before Flat Bridge to purchase more of her favorite, East Indian, before crossing the Rio Cobre for a second time and making our way back into the hills. We stop at a favorite jerk spot, a rest area of sorts, that is frequented by travelers making the trip from Kingston to Ocho Rios and points west. I get some jerk chicken, Moms gets jerk pork, and I buy a slice of coconut bread (like Banana bread, but a heck of a lot better!) and the train keeps moving…







We arrive home fairly late in the evening and everyone’s exhausted except yours truly. If you haven’t made that drive from Spanish Town to Ochi at night, exercise caution! Poor Patty had fingernail marks dug deep into her palms, so nerve wracking was the experience. Rural roads in Jamaica are poorly lit, and the local speed limit (aka if mi no get deh as soon as possible mi a go dead!) doesn’t slow for darkness. All in a days work for your driver though [img]/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Mom is worn out and calls it a night, though not before “refreshing” the fruit basket:





Tomorrow, Patty and David return to Mobay before departing to the States on Monday. I will likely spend the night there hanging out with cousin R.E. The camera should get to stretch its legs and the return trip will be my first time alone for any substantive period of time.

I am grateful for the opportunity, as it will allow me to clear my thoughts. Tonight I retire to bed with Mama on my mind as an angry wind, howling with the fierceness of a banshee, whips fiercely across the bay of Ocho Rios…

[grandma2]

Re: Coming In From The Cold...an unremarkable trip report

wow....i sit here in trance....so wen yu a go rite de book

by de way mi teif some picha....hope yu nuh mind