Around Kingston, Part One

Giddy house at Port Royal

Port Royal

Kingston harbor is separated from the sea by a 9-mile spit of rock, mangrove and landfill. Out on the western tip, the old and weathered ghost of Port Royal sits quietly, guarding the mouth of the harbor. You may not know it, but you already have a mental image of what Port Royal once was. Pirates of the Caribbean, but probably with less romance and more syphilis. The wiki entry makes for fun reading, but let's just say that Port Royal was the kind of place where a pirate like Henry Morgan could become governor of Jamaica. What you may not know is that 1/3 of the original town lies 30ft under the bay, swallowed during an earthquake in 1692. On that day, poor souls were trapped up to their waist as the sand spit liquified, the ground dropped and the sea rushed in. Today, there is a small

Curry shrimp, jerk shrimp, brown stew fish

fort with cannons and some artifacts, and a tilted "giddy house" that partially sank in another earthquake (1907) and is surprisingly disorienting upon entry. There's not much to SEE really, but a sleepy vestige of the feeling permeates the place, best contemplated in the breezy upstairs of Glorias, where I enjoy sipping ginger beer and eating curry shrimp while watching local fishermen putter out and cargo ships come in.

Ded Leff

nine-night drum circle at Ashe

In Jamaica, the passing of loved ones trigger elaborate traditions, a combination of Christian practices and West African ideas about how to treat the spirit of the deceased' ("duppy"). There is a funeral, but the days and nights leading up to it are also important…culminating in the "nine-night" wake before the funeral. Our housekeeper, Barbara, goes to the bank every month to pay funeral insurance for her mother, funeral costs are steep and the nine-night can is a giant party with food and music and plenty of rum. At a local cultural center, Jen and I saw a musical play centered on this tradition, about a Europeanized Jamaican returning home to face his family and birthplace during his father's nine-night. Ashe, the cultural center, is an LGBT support community, but it can not advertise the fact here in Jamaica where homosexuality is a target. The playwright at Ashe has given musicology presentations to Peace Corps trainees and is a member of the faculty at the University of the West Indies. Starting next week, he and I will begin a collaboration on a visual map for Jamaican music history; I'm excited to see what comes of this.

Famous People

It's a small country with more than its fair share of interesting people, so it is not uncommon to cross paths with them, particularly within the small circle of privilege we travel in. We've run into Chris Blackwell, the famous music producer, at one of his hotels. We ran into a sashed Miss Jamaica when

Sweet Honey In The Rock

Sweet Honey in The Rock performed a few songs at the ambassador's house (where Miss Jamaica got a bangle snared on her lace dress and Jen took her to the bathroom for a wardrobe adjustment). Actually, we saw her again at some waterslides (no sash this time), where some little girls swam giggling after her. I have to say, seeing the light and pride in those girl's eyes causes me to temper some of my attitudes about the whole pageant thing. On the whole, I feel like we are never very far removed from some of the island's vibrant individuals: a restaurant belonging to Usain Bolt (no sighting yet), kids who play with Shaggy's kids, jazz by the family of one of Marley's mistresses. But, of course, the most famous sighting we had was not a Jamaican at all, it was President Obama.

POTUS

Peace Corps bus

Obama is huge in Jamaica. My doubts about his presidency are significant, muddled with the good, but seeing him through the eyes of Jamaicans, seeing him for his symbolic power as a black man leading the "free world", is illuminating. I have come across more than one street mural that places him abeside other national heroes like Marcus Garvey (the founder of pan-African nationalism) and Paul Bogle (leader of a major slave insurrection). Days before his short, overnight stay in Kingston, I stood on our balcony with binoculars, watching Osprey aircraft land at the airport, flying like planes but tilting their propellers to land like helicopters. Obama scheduled 20 minutes to meet with the embassy community, and Jennifer was able to invite a busload of Peace Corps volunteers (many of whom slept on our sofas). The energy was infectious, and many Jamaicans expressed their positive feelings for Obama to me. We parked at the embassy in order to bus to the venue, and I wandered through the motorcade prepping for his arrival. The vehicles were like space ships masked to look like cars, a pile of arms and equipment was being sorted by buff men in khakis and sensible shoes, looking as able to kill you with jujitsu as save your life with street surgery. Aboard the Peace Corps bus, though, the excitement was bright and optimistic. Then we were all forced to stand for 90 minutes behind the velvet cordon of a banquet room, the kids off to one side because Obama specifically wanted to greet (and photo-op) with them. I had a good spot, though at the critical moment certain mothers got very sharp elbows, but at least Carter was up front with the very civil group of kids. He got to shake hands, as did Jennifer, and then POTUS was gone. He did not, however, leave Jamaica without stopping at the Bob Marley house. This bit of respect and love for Jamaica, stagecraft or not, only deepened the well of affection for him here.

I'm in the back-left, Jen is by the little girl in red, Carteris by the boy saluting.