3-in-one Jamaica trip report

[Peasie]

Really love your writing and photos. Love the photo from Digicel building with clouds laden with the promise of rain on a parched land while you try to figue out landmarks

Waiting for more

[Blackstar*]

Hello mountaingal and my condolences on your family's loss.

I'm looking forward to the rest of your report.

[mountaingal]

pz, black star, great to see you i'm a bit stuck trying to figure out how to upload the videos without utube

[CeaBee]

Following along MG.

[My Looh]

Really nice thread mountaingal!

Sorry to hear about your grand auntie.

[mountaingal]

first, a correction. i arrived on a Thursday, not Monday (as mentioned above, i departed on a Monday). So the next day was Friday, and that night was "set up". My mother had to keep correcting me when i tried to call it nine-night, she said nine night happened after the body bury, and set up was on the eve of the burial. okay, ma.

started the day with my mother, one my cousins and i visiting my mother's childhood friend, a woman that is a legend in our district (she's the one who called the big-wig an outsider). I'll call her D. she's one of the few people from the old days who make bammy from scratch, and she does them to order. here she is scraping the burnt part off bammy. she says the scrapings are can be sold for porridge.

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you can see here some of the bammies she just finished baking, and the cassava meal in the big container in the foreground.
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i should have taken more pictures of the process where she sprinkled the meal in the containers - one for thin bammies (my favourite), the other for the thick ones that have become more popular on the market. She gave me one of the thin ones. first thing i did was inhale its musky smell deeply, then tore a piece and chewed it o so slowly. so delicious. my cousin, who did not grow in country, tried a little piece but didnt like it - she used to the fried, not fresh, bammy.

okay - D is a legend not because of her bammie making skills, but because she has always been "mannish". as a young woman, she smoked cigarette and rode a bicycle. today, the "L-word" would have been readily applied to her, people are so ready to throw labels on each other. however, D has five sons and one daughter, and has been married.

i dont know if its because she grew up being judged but she is extremely particular about who she calls her friends (my mother and, i'd like to think, me). but if she nuh like you, u salt. and if she think you do her something, dawg nyam u supper. she and someone got into contention over her goats, which would get weh and go into the person yard. one of the goat dem dead one day, and D was convinced that it was the person poison her goat. she don't ask no question, she just tek time poison the person dawg, and freely admit it whoever want to know.

she's rough in her mannerisms, and you will see from her funeral outfit that she hasn't much changed. but she is a caring person deep down, has a very st. elizabeth pragmatism to her. she don't feel she need to pretend anything, what you see is what you get, and you and her will get on if you are honest.

[mountaingal]

ceabee, my looh, welcome!

[mountaingal]

went back to Chisholms for a traditional breakfast (ackee and saltfsih, callalloo, banana, yam, sweet potato, pumpkin). needed to go to Mandeville for some banking, so took a route taxi from Santa (became one of my less favourite experiences on the trip cause my zaftig form had a hard-time fitting in, but you can't beat those route taxis for price and speed).

Sorry mi neva tek no picture of RichD parish. but as usual i was in love with the changes they made to reduce the deadliness of Spur Tree Hill by widening the road and adjusting the really acute angle. i have a cousin who is a bit infamous in Jamaica for crashing his truck full of cement bag on the old Spur Tree road, and killing a couple people. the incident of course made more memorable by the mounta tiefing of cement that happened after the accident.

[mountaingal]

sound fx break - mid-morning ambience in the country - roosters crowing (dem crow all time a day), and my mother offering some winji (sakea the drought) otahiti apple to my american cousin.

[mountaingal]

Set up

Friday evening we went for my grandaunt's set-up. We walked in what seemed like miggle night (but was only about 7-ish) through some country lane, my mother, stepdad and I. Step dad wielded the flashlight. i fell behind and inna di darkness mi drop and crape up mi knee when mi neva see waan pothole at the side of the road

arrived at the dead yard (although i didnt hear anybody actually call it that). family and neighbours from all bout. vendors all around. very different from 1995 when we came to bury my cousin, and the family had to provide food for all the people who came.

my pix and videos didn't come out too lighted, so feel free to skip if unu cannot mek dem out.

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[mountaingal]

so, i have to say the whole time before the set up my mother kept telling me - o, there will be a band, and they will play religious music and people will dance! and i said, dance to religious music? picturing of course the gospel songs at some Christian weddings i've had the misfortune to attend.

as i found out, dance di people dem did. to the stirring sounds of the Dutty Foot Bands. they came late, but played until daybreak. in true revival style.
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[mountaingal]

wheel and tun. notice my guy up front dressed in fur coat, long sleeve shirt, andsocks with sandals. mi hear seh a so people who a bleach dress, but it was inthe middle of the night for pete's sake. maybe he was just crazy.

[mountaingal]

most of the dancers were men, some a demseriously inna dem waters. one bruk off ackee branch and shoved them in hisshirt then started to fling himself about, i said to myself, a st thomas mi dehor st elizabeth? they eventually mek him tek off the branches cause dem diddainterfere with the other dancers.

it's a bit of an understatement to say i wassurprised. my family, being Anglicans, had social pretensions though we didpoor, and i thought we would be above this kind of almost poco celebration. buti guess times have changed. we all in the end were rocking our bodies to the music.

[Wahalla]

If u ah tek pichur u aguh twis u fut..

[mountaingal]

If u ah tek pichur u aguh twis u fut..

evening, wahalla.

actually, a gaze mi didda gaze. at least three times this trip i turned my ankle trying to walk forward while looking off to the side. terrible thing is that i had that bad habit as a child, and mi still have it at this advanced age.

you know this person? dont say the name if you do, just yes or no.
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