Jamaica. First impressions.

Frenchman's Cove, where a little
river meets the sea.

When we arrived back in December, the cool and dry season in Jamaica was just getting going, in which it only gets up to the high 80s every day and the rain only comes once per week. From our 3rd story vantage, we can see the rain coming from afar, an opaque gray drape unfurling across tree and building, unloading copious, fat drops and then departing just as quickly. The amount of water from one passing cloud is easily many times greater than the annual rainfall in Lima. I find that I am still comparing many things here in Kingston with how they were in Lima. But also, every day, my first impressions are a collision of my American cliche of what Jamaica is (a reggae beach destination) and a more complex reality. So here, 4 months into our Jamaica life, are some first impressions.

First Impressions

Fitting the preconception, there are indeed many Rastafarians, their men with long dreads piled high into knit caps. Jennifer and I drive down the street amusing ourselves by noting just "how many Jamaicans there are in Jamaica". But Rastafarians make up less than 10% of the population, there is a strong Protestant majority here, running the gamut between thin-lipped conservatism and dance-in-the-aisles tent revivalism. Uptown Kingston is peopled by a professional class, polished and urbane. Skin colors run the gamut, and I've been surprised by a little old Asian lady rattling off in the Jamaican dialect called "patwa". Women's hairstyles in particular express a creativity and variety to be marveled at. Unlike Lima, there is a chuckling friendliness even among strangers and it is not uncommon for the checkout lady to rib me a little as I fumble to pay a grocery tab that can easily be over 40,000 Jamaican dollars (that's $350, groceries are expensive on this island).

We are lucky enough to live one block from a restaurant
and music venue where the stage is under an ackee tree.

In Kingston, most locals seem to easily switch between a beautiful island version of "the Queen's English" and lively Jamaican patwa; this is fortunate because the communication has completely broken down with the few people I've encountered who are strictly patwa speakers (technically an English dialect, but so rife with alternate grammar, lingo and other cultural influences, I think it counts as its own language). There is a warmth and ease between people that is refreshing, music abounds, and beauty and creativity and humor seem to be a big part of life here.

There is also a dire, deadening poverty that runs counter to the mellow vibe and underpins very high crime ratres and, on the street, a steely-eyed demand for "rispek" (respect). It will take me some time to understand this facet of Jamaica and, particularly, Kingston. The vibe in the capital is unique, grim-faced. Every so often I see the odd tourist, wandering in search of the Bob Marley House, looking somewhat blanched and forlorn, getting challenging stares from locals and wondering what's become of the tropical reggae paradise they were imagining. It's not so pronounced for the initiated, but still...Kingston is Kingston. There are large swaths of the city that are completely off-limits to us and the level of turf violence and thievery remains oppressively high, with gangland overtones and psuedo-political affiliations. I may be imagining it, but there seems to be more of an undercurrent of tension here than in Lima. Perú has a long, difficult history of racism and oppression, yet even as part of the "colonial" class there, I rarely suffered any revolutionary resentment, though I often wondered why. Here in the birthplace of Marcus Garvey, perhaps the birthplace of pan-african nationalism, featuring a people that labored long under slave-driven plantation society, there is more of an edge. In our well-to-do uptown neighborhoods, window-washers at stoplights ignore all refusals and act offended when not compensated. Walking in the swept business district of New Kingston, an ever angrier panhandler followed me until I turned in to a fast-food place just to lose him. Driving through an intersection crowded with pedestrians and higglers, one guy came up and slapped the car, pretending I had hit him. We did not stop. In fact, we are instructed that if we ever actually hit a pedestrian, we are not to stop and instead should go on to the nearest police station and inform them there. That does not sit very well with me, but I am too new here to be cavalier with such advice.

Jamaican stuff: ginger beer, sharp and spicy,
ackee fruit for the national dish made with
saltfish, and scotch bonnet peppers
(about 15X hotter than jalapeño)

Kingston

We live in a light-filled 3-bedroom on the 3rd and 4th floor of a little complex. Our terrace has a small pool and looks out over a police tow yard, New Kingston, with a the Caribbean visible if you squint a bit (see the photo at the end of this post). The city sits on a wide alluvial flat, ringed by green mountains that the clouds spill over. Out past the modest multistory buildings of New Kingston, we see the water and a large commercial harbor that's hugged by a long sand spit. At the end of the sand lies the old pirate capital of Port Royal, 1/3 of which lies under water after having sunk in a 17th century earthquake. As in Lima, Kingston offers us a privileged bubble to live in, but here it is not as comprehensive. I wake hearing a cock crowing somewhere, while at night we hear the sound of slapping dominoes as the men in the tow yard next door play and talk under a tree full of butterflies. On the street, fruit vendors wander in traffic, fancy cars stuck in traffic bottlenecks sometimes jockey for roadspace with goats foraging on the shoulder, and after dark the lane next to our building is populated by ladies of the night. We've heard tell that there are some places where the prostitutes stand in the road naked, so I suppose we can appreciate the decorum in our neighborhood. There are some shopping centers that aren't quite malls, a couple 2-screen cinemas, some very earnest restaurants…but it all seems like a small town to us, perhaps due to much of the city's footprint being strictly verboten to us.

Portland parish

The Island

Sadly, Kingston is not near the glorious beaches of Jamaica. For that we need to take an admittedly beautiful 2-4 hour drive either around the coast or through the mountains. The drives involve dodging pedestrians and bikes and goats and bottomless potholes and sheer dropoffs (all while driving on the left side of the road, I might remind you). We pass through small towns with music booming out of corner stores and taxi stops and fruit stalls and on Sundays locals are on the road in their church finery, many heading to little, stone Protestant churches. Each town seems to have its own reputation that we are only beginning to learn of; one town has the best jerk BBQ, one is for surfing, one is where the slave rebellion happened, etc. Eventually, the drive delivers you to the northern coast where you can opt for long sands at all-inclusive resorts or hang out at less developed coves. We've already sampled both, probably enjoying the rustic areas more. There is plenty to dislike about the big resorts, but I have to be careful about applying my privileged keep-it-quaint-for-me attitudes to an industry that is clearly very, very important to the well-being of many Jamaicans. Plus, never-ending cocktails, scuba rentals and abundant activities for Carter is pretty great, and only about 25% of the pinkish resort guests walk around with rictus frowns frozen on their thawing, mid-Western faces. But outside the resort lie miles of coastline still to explore, waterfalls to climb and a mountainous interior still unknown to us.

Our vista in Kingston