3-in-one Jamaica trip report

[mountaingal]

yes, genkle people. my first day back from 12 days in Jamaica. Funeral in Santa Cruz, St. Bess; a chill out in Oracabessa, St. Mary; ending with a transitional 2 days at a resort in MoBay, St. James.



took nuff pictures. have a few stories to tell. Jamaica nice so till. although i heard a St. Mary minibus driver ask "wat di hell a gwaan a Manchester and Clarendon?" dem parish appear to have taken the crime mantle from Killsome.

soon come.

[mountaingal]

Many thanks to my England cousin (who came down for the funeral) for introducing me to a new era of conscious reggae artistes who are an antidote to dancehall.

Who Knows, by Protoje, featuring Chronixx

[diabolical_Tanya]

love them and waiting for more trip report

[mountaingal]

My grand aunt died mid June, funeral date set, as is Jamaican tradition, when the farrin relatives can make it. So essentially, a month after she died. Mad props to funeral director, cuz my aunt had open casket and not a ting was "off". i was a little afraid of a game of thrones thing you know.

funeral to be at the church i attended as a child - St. Andrew's Anglican church in Gilnock.

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[mountaingal]

love them and waiting for more trip report

hey tanya. glad to have you along. yeah man, nice artistes. i really like the singer one, Chronixx, i'm going to get his album Dread and Terrible. Here's a track i really like, Capture Land.

[mountaingal]

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Felt the usual flutter in my tummy at the sight of my birth country. we landed at MoBay airport, and i realized that the last few times i went to Jamaica i went via Kingston. The MoBay Airport was completely new to me. tunnel up to the airplane door, one helleva walk to get to customs, i don't remember none of that. they had some nice art, a mural depicting life in Jamaica. here's a piece featuring women, the rest a mostly man.

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for a minute i missed the old time girls in costume doing the welcome to Jamaica song and dance for arriving tourists,although it was so cheesy. but i guess Jamaica is grown up now.

no issues with immigration, got out and my mother, stepfather and i met up with a cousin who had flown in earlier from Atlanta. I sprang sweat like wah, it was distressing. Stepdad and I sank a couple of Red Stripes while we waited for our driver, Richie, a dread from our home district. He arrived soon enough, and we were on our way.

During the journey Richie told us Jamaica was going through a three-month drought. not good tidings when you're going to one of the hottest towns in Jamaica, Santa Cruz.

[mountaingal]

O - DO NOT CHANGE YOUR MONEY IN THE AIRPORT! They gave $93J to one US. While outside you could get $110J. So tiefing Some Spanish outfit owns the airport cambio, and it is right outside the customs area, so they just grab people who are on their way out, my mother included.

[mountaingal]

Took the Newmarket road to Santa Cruz, stopped in Middlequarters for some passable and, to me, expensive "swims" and rather chewy saltfish fritters.

reached Santa after about 2 hours drive. stopped at one of the plazas where my cousin and her husband run their business. it was a Monday, mid-afternoon. day was hot but a bit overcast so not so unbearable.

went with mother to Digicel to renew the sim card in her local phone. They don't take credit, so that killed my plan to get my own local phone. Looked out the window from the second floor and tried to remember what this place was like in my youth. i think the yellow building used to be the local movie theatre, where my ex took me on our first date to see Shaolin King Boxer.

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[MsExced]

Nice,
My aunt lives in Santa Cruz, beautiful church

[Pepper]

Enjoying the 3 in 1 so far.

The singers are still there. At least they were last year. But so many flights coming in these days, you have to be luck to arrive when they are scheduled to sing.

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Felt the usual flutter in my tummy at the sight of my birth country. we landed at MoBay airport, and i realized that the last few times i went to Jamaica i went via Kingston. The MoBay Airport was completely new to me. tunnel up to the airplane door, one helleva walk to get to customs, i don't remember none of that. they had some nice art, a mural depicting life in Jamaica. here's a piece featuring women, the rest a mostly man.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2558[/ATTACH]

for a minute i missed the old time girls in costume doing the welcome to Jamaica song and dance for arriving tourists,although it was so cheesy. but i guess Jamaica is grown up now.

no issues with immigration, got out and my mother, stepfather and i met up with a cousin who had flown in earlier from Atlanta. I sprang sweat like wah, it was distressing. Stepdad and I sank a couple of Red Stripes while we waited for our driver, Richie, a dread from our home district. He arrived soon enough, and we were on our way.

During the journey Richie told us Jamaica was going through a three-month drought. not good tidings when you're going to one of the hottest towns in Jamaica, Santa Cruz.

[mountaingal]

We arrived at our accommodation, Chisholm's Retreat, a guest house that popped up in my little district about 10 years ago. It's a short walk from the house i grew up in.
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Sorry i didn't take any pics of the rooms, but they are spacious, clean and air conditioned. screened windows, so no bugs. nuff tiles and ting. has wi-fi,. has a pool that was a little low due to the drought but it was perfect for us non-swimmers. i introduced the family to this place, stayed there with my daughters a couple times over the years. now it's the family's go-to place. there were 12 of us this trip, coming from Toronto, Atlanta, London, North Carolina, Florida and DC.

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Mr. Chisholm is a Jamaican who lived in England for a number of years, saved up his money, and went back to work for himself. Brought his wife and a teenage son. Cant memba where in Jamaica he's from, but his wife's people are from ST. Elizabeth, south side. So they were strangers in a district where the local big-wig is still called an outsider because his father moved there in the 1950s. Chisholm got a bit of a warm time because he started just buying up land and down our way there's something not quite right about that, if people not offering them land for sale. some people refused to sell to him. But he gets respect as a business man, his place is well known and well-regarded (he said he has to refuse people who want to pay him for an hour at a time, cuz the last thing he wants is for the parish council to accuse him of running a brothel).

an outgoing and charming man, full of chatter. has an odd and entertaining habit of starting his sentences in a London accent then brukking into patwa without pause. he doesnt like to take pictures because he's usually in his work clothes and he also has vitiligo, but he made an exception for us. I cropped him out of a family group shot.
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[mountaingal]

Nice,
My aunt lives in Santa Cruz, beautiful church

Hi, Ms Exced. What's your aunt's name?

[mountaingal]

Enjoying the 3 in 1 so far.

The singers are still there. At least they were last year. But so many flights coming in these days, you have to be luck to arrive when they are scheduled to sing.

Thanks for tagging along, Pepper. you're right about the plenty flights, about three planeloads of people were going through customs and immigration same time as we, and that was on a Monday, a slow day. Good for Jamaica.

[mountaingal]

The Chisholms chose some lovely, climate appropriate plants for their landscape.

Crown of thorns
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Ixora (thanks to the gardener at Decameron for telling me the name)
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allamanda cathartica, i think they call it golden trumpet - it's poisonous.
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They also had papaw, mango and coconut trees, mostly for family use. the drought quail up them orange tree and dry out dem cashew.

still researching the name of this vine and its fruit. made the wall quite nice.
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[mountaingal]

the house i grew up in.
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the addition on the right is a bathroom,installed in the early 90s. immediately to the right of that is the foundationfor our old kitchen. used to be way more trees, but dem get cut down over theyears. you can see the effects of the drought on the grass.

usedto have more frontage but government appropriated some of the land to build themain road that runs in front of the house. apparently some of my generation'sgraves are under that road.

here's my cousin's house, being built for thepast 15 years. him live a NY. about another 15 years and it will finish. frontyard waan brush.
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the house i was courted in