White People

"White people." The boy, maybe 12 years old, is saying it to another boy. I'm stepping out of the car at one of the few uptown shopping areas where one is likely to see fellow white people in Kingston. Though he said it, the boy has not seen me yet. He's just saying it, saying it like he might say "Flies." but also showing off for his friend a little bit. Judging by the dust on him and his friend, and the thinness of their shorts, the boy will not be buying anything at these stores today. When he said it, "White people," he also kicked his foot and his cheap, Chinese-made flipflop skittered off around a post, where he bumped into me, the shock of the coincidence flashing in his eyes, realizing I had heard him, briefly wondering what to do about it. Then he quickly gathered himself, looked me in the eye and said it again. "White people."

It's not that I suddenly feel like sitting down and writing a blog about race. Except that writing about our lives here is impossible without speaking of the subject. And here's something refreshing: in Jamaica, there's no pussyfooting around the subject, it's in your face all the time. My family is part of the white minority here, but it's a very visible minority in Kingston and, of course, in the rim of sunburnt resorts along the coast. People walking with goats along small backroads, or sitting on the steps of a chill spot, might catch site of my paleness and stare hard. I can watch them in my rear-view mirror, still staring at my tail-lights as they disappear from view behind me. Like all of the New World, Jamaica carries the weight of conquistadores, slavery and genocide. In Jamaica, that weight is perhaps heavier than other places in the New World, a weight born by the 3 million descendants of the 1 million African people brought here in bondage. Moreover, it is the white and light-skinned that continue to hold wealth and power here...I hear tell of the "20 families" that yet monopolize Jamaica. Still, I have sometimes been navigating the potholes on a country lane when someone hollers "Hey, white boy!" with cheerfulness, or kids halt their play long enough to point and wave, as if they've seen a unicorn. In the Jamaican lottery, each number is associated with visual portents that people use to choose lucky numbers...so, for instance, if you see fresh water, that equates to number 24. Number 26 is "white man".

Anyway, it is the 21st century now and Jamaicans have been living with this story for a long time. It's not like they all choose to navigate the issue in the same way either; reactions to my presence depend on who I am with. There's busy middle-class Jamaicans who kind of shrug and just get on with things. Many Jamaicans have lived "a foreign" and are perfectly acquainted with the world of venti-lattes, curbside recycling and yoga. But there's also the hard-eyed men on the road staring me down, or the way the mood in a little store changes when I walk in, or the higglers leaning on my tinted windows, cupping their hands to peer in at me in my fancy car, sometimes angrily asking why I am not buying their mangos, their cel phone covers, or story of woe. Inexplicably, the guys who sell fresh roasted peanuts from steaming, rolling calliope roasters, those guys always seem pretty easy-going. The bottom line is, in Jamaica, it is never forgotten where I come from, what my race is, my uptown ranking. It's made me think; perhaps the main benefit of "white privilege" is the freedom to forget about white privilege, even for a moment or two. In the insulated white capitals of the world, we can pretend that we're all alike somehow, so I find it strangely refreshing to live in Jamaica where everybody sees the elephant in the room.

I've been working on a cultural project with a man named Michael, a Jamaican here at the University of the West Indies. Our conversations have been frank, and he corrects my white-man missteps with humor. He's a playwright and choreographer of socio-political content, a member of the reparations committee, and cultural director at a underground HIV and gay outreach organization. Regarding the latter, I'm afraid this is not the place to go into Jamaica's troubling homophobia; the movement is small and necessarily secretive, the subject is emotional and divisive, and there are uniquely Jamaican factors I do not understand fully. Anyway, in the course of my talks with Michael, I've realized that my perspective has real value...not "despite" being a white man, rather because of it. I went alone to one of Michael's plays, the lone paleface in an audience of clearly empowered, strong Jamaicans. Suddenly, halfway through the play, I realized the characters were literally paraphrasing words of mine, literally taking phrases of mine from a discussion with Michael. To realize that this was happening, and to hear the audience around me murmuring "Mmm hmm, that's right!", was immensely gratifying. In a way, Jamaica has helped me move past the weak, white-liberal paralysis on the subject of race. Jamaica never lets me forget that I am a white man, but it also does not isolate me for it, I can be heard and judged.

Among the rastafari, there is a precept that dictates arguing in good faith, even with your enemies, and certain rasta gatherings are called "reasonings". The rastafarian fight against babylon (the prevailing system of oppression) comes in different flavors, from a warm and fuzzy "one love" (a favorite among foreigners) to Caribbean black militancy. But, as a generalization, in Jamaica there seems to be a deep respect for anyone who is trying to hear truth and speak truth. I would feel much more comfortable, for instance, publishing these words in the Jamaica Observer than I would the L.A. Times. Which is not to say that I have been admitted to the "real" Jamaica. Even though the people here have cross-pollinated with the world (the national motto is "Out of Many, One People"), I get the sense that folk shield the depth of their culture from over-stepping white men. In A Brief History of Seven Killings*, there is an American white character who loves Jamaica but knows the relationship to be doomed because Jamaica will never, can never, love him back.





* I highly recommend A Brief History of Seven Killings or, even better, the audio version. The book is narrated by many characters and the voice performers put you inside the head of each one. One doesn't need a particular interest in Jamaica to be impacted by the story, but the impact is ultimately, profoundly Jamaican.

Jamaica 360º, 414 miles in 60 hours

This is a long post, my full account of driving 360º around the island. Jen always warns me that no one wants to read something so long, but I can't help it. There are some who like all this detail (retirees, I am talking to you!), so if you want to come along on this virtual tour, click the "Listen" link below for musical accompaniment and jump on in.

Listen: Jamaica 360º Playlist

St. Andrew / Kingston Parishes

Just a few of the butterflies in Kingston

Right now, Jamaica's capital is alive with millions of pale yellow butterflies that seem to hatch periodically. I watched the butterflies in the lot across from our place, getting ready to go, drinking Blue Mountain coffee while, behind me, the sun came up over the Blue Mountains. The lot is empty now since it was sold and cleared; no more corrugate-roof house, no more pit-bull chained in the 12-foot circular rut of his tracks; no more men slapping dominoes. There's a familiar old mutt that is still there, looking a little confused, inheritor of the lot.

My goal was to make it around the island and get a taste for each parish along the way. It was 6am when I left and Good Friday as well, so the city was particularly quiet. No banana vendors at the intersection, no people squeezing into taxis, none of the locals that Jen sees every morning on her walk to work: the 3 friendly dudes on bicycles ("Mawnin!"), the man with daily sexual innuendo ("I just want to get with you, pretty lady!"), the lady who sells papers and after a year still says nothing. I headed out towards the west, through some of the rougher neighborhoods still bedecked in color-coded election flags, green or orange, signifying their political allegiance. I went past the old colonial fort and the cement factory, along the sea's edge, and I was away.

St. Thomas Parish, Morant Bay (39 miles)

St. Thomas is scrubby and windswept until the Morant Bay area, where canefields take over. I turned in at the town, asking after the famous courthouse that was at the center of the 1865 rebellion. Now just a small ruin fronting a patch of asphalt, it was the spot of a bloody confrontation between angry locals and authorities, the destruction of the town center, and the extensive official reprisals that killed hundreds including national hero Paul Bogle. For context, this rebellion was 30 years after emancipation, but still 80 years before universal suffrage. There's a pedestal for a Bogle statue, but the statue is gone. In fact, the only company I had in the square was a man sleeping rough behind the church... and goats. There's always goats. After Morant Bay, the road gets rough going around the extreme eastern tip of the island, no tourists and just cane communities and little mongooses darting across the potholes. People were waking up in the few little communities, turning on the music, even calling out to me, "Hey, white boy!"

Portland Parish, Reach Falls (25 miles)

In Portland, wooded hills roll into the ocean, framing little azure coves. The town of Manchioneal seems to be the border, and I was happy to get out of the car at the old anglican church and stand among the graves looking out towards the distant rocks where breakers were crashing, somehow, inexplicably soaring at least 50-feet. On weekend and holidays, roads in Jamaica are peppered with church ladies walking to and fro. One flagged me down, a retired obgyn nurse in a B&W flower-print dress and matching church hat, and we chatted as I took her up the road a piece. She used to go to the anglican church I had just passed, but switched over to one of Jamaica's many Revival sects because, in her words, "More joy!" Jamaica as a country boasts the most churches per capita and, indeed, everywhere I drove over the weekend: well-scrubbed kids going off to services, tent revivals in the grass, cinderblock chapels echoing with either fire & brimstone or reggae-flavored gospel, depending on the proclivities of the sect. My first stop, however, was Reach Falls. At the turnoff I was flagged down by a young man who pointed out that the falls were closed for Good Friday, but that he could guide me along the local's trail for a fee. Marcel was true to his word, taking me up from where the river winds below the falls, through crystal clear pools sitting prettily under the overhanging greenery...more beautiful, in fact, than the falls themselves. Best of all, because of the holiday, I was the only tourist splashing around, scraping my shins on the slippery rocks, trying to keep my phone dry. The photo here is just one of the small pools on the way upriver. Portland Parish, Blue Lagoon (18 miles) One of the loveliest lagoons, Portland's Blue Hole, is remarkable because perfectly clear freshwater from the mountains wells up from below, mixing with the saltwater, creating a magical deep blue portal between a saltwater world and a freshwater one. I threw on my snorkel and swam across, even though a local boatman called out that there's nothing to see inside the lagoon. But I was there to feel the strange shifting temperatures of the mixing waters, and I was surprised by the unusual optics, at times crystaline, at times strangely blurry like vegetable oil in water. But on the whole, things were so clear that diving down and looking up at my fins, I felt like some toy man frozen in an acrylic paperweight. And, just when I thought the boatman was right about nothing to see, I happened on a little barracuda hanging around a submerged tree. Scrawled Filefish (from google pics) Back on dry ground, I found the alpha rasta, King Saba, the man clearly in charge of the parking area and managing the tourist trade at the spot, and asked about the snorkeling outside the lagoon, in the sea. Before all was said and done, there was some dickering, some tension between competitors, a misunderstanding or two. In tourist spots that are not run by a single business, feeling like a fatted calf can be disconcerting, and it's easy to feel assaulted by vendors and guides and boatmen. But if one shows respect, makes a self-deprecating joke, and shows a genuine love of what Jamaica is...well, everything goes OK. Don't get me wrong, King Saba still ripped me off, but it was the funniest, most honest, one-love ripoff ever. That's what I get for wanting to snorkel at a tourist hotspot. And it was great. The boatman took me out and abandoned me past the reef, so it was a long kick back to shore...but beautiful. I did not have the GoPro with me, so I am using a google photograph here to show the Scrawled Filefish I saw, something completely new to me. Portland Parish, Boston Bay (backtracked 6 miles) Jamaica is known for jerk BBQ, and Boston Bay is the capital. Jerk is a spice mix handed down from the indigenous Taíno and later perfected by the maroons (Africans escaped from slavery)...but it was also originally a manner of cooking in secret, developed to hide from the British, meat and embers buried together to suppress the telltale cook-smoke. At the roadside stand in Boston Bay, diners sit around the pit of embers and the cutting boards. The spiced meats are laid on palettes of branches, above the pile of coals: chicken, pork, spicy sausage, seafood. I ordered pork with a roast yam and a Red Stripe beer, the meat being cut from a sizzling, fatty slab. The lunch was complete when the lady outside sold me a re-used overproof rum bottle now filled with her sharp, hand-rendered pineapple-ginger juice. [Hint: do not leave a bottle like that in your car for overlong in Jamaica...I am still trying to get the ants out of the dashboard]. St. Mary Parish, Annotto Bay (34 miles) Roadside pepper shrimp I rolled on into St. Mary parish, a stretch apparently half-forgotten by the tourist trade. It's common on roads in Jamaica to see men wandering with Jamaica's perfect tool, the machete, but in St. Mary I also saw many young men carrying their home-made spear guns. A man on the road sold me a bag of peppered shrimp, addictive and super spicy. Leaving the pineapple juice in the car may not have been overly bright of me, but trying to eat peppered shrimp one-handed while driving trumps that for idiocy. In the town of Oracabessa, I checked whether anyone was around the marine sanctuary building who might want to take me out to the coral, but all I found was a dog to growl at me. I remembered one of the ubiquitous pieces of Peace Corps advice from the volunteers: always have a rock in your pocket for just such moments. The shadows were getting long, so I retreated back to the road, driving past the beach where last fall we helped 140 baby hawksbill turtle hatchlings find their way to the sea. St. Ann Parish, Runaway Bay (52 miles) Dinner at Sharkies. By the time I hit Runaway Bay, an area the family enjoys visiting, it was supper time. Columbus was shipwrecked near here for a year, and the ruins of the first Spanish capital are close by. I pulled in to a beachside place I know called Sharkies, where I was able to enjoy some shrimp rundown (a hearty vegetable, coconut milk stew). The view there is nice, the waitresses harried and the customers happy. But it had been a long day and I was ready to retire. 2 days prior, I had called to make reservations at a cheap guesthouse, but because of the Easter weekend they referred me to their neighbor who "rents rooms too" and took my reservation. But when I arrived, road weary and salt crusted, it turns out they had given away my room. Further, the place proved to be a house built at the back of a roadside rum bar, and I believe several of their rooms were available by the hour, if you know what I mean. To their credit, they did not want to send me off to sleep in the manger on Easter weekend, so they offered to push aside the construction material in the house common area and lay down a mattress for me. Feeling rather defeated, I found a considerably more expensive room at Jewel, the embassy's resort of choice, where I quickly ran into several people I knew. If my day had made me feel proud and adventurous, spending the night at Jewel mitigated that conceit.  The next morning I went next door to the SCUBA concern that I like. The dives took us down to the a some intentionally sunken wrecks and then over to the beautiful sponge garden where bioluminescent azure sponges glow softly and giant barrel sponges are bigger than oil barrels. There were also quite a few invasive lionfish, more than I've seen at once before. I found myself wishing for those spearguns the guys in St. Mary had. Red lionfish Azure sponge Barrel sponges St. Ann Parish, Green Grotto Cave (4 miles) Strangler fig (left), grotto lagoon (right) If you are wondering where the runaways of Runaway Bay probably hid themselves, the Green Grotto cave is probably the answer. Its exploration has apparently gone as far as 28km, though its true extent is unknown. The tour, however, circles around one particular area...an underground circuit with people laughing nervously about the bats and a lot of canned jokes from the tour guide. Still, it's fun to imagine the days when it was an indigenous sacred site or a pirate hideaway, or picture the 17th century Spanish governor of Jamaica making his escape out a secret side tunnel while the British came in the front. Bats flit around the stalactites, squeaking and fluttering, and the dark is broken up by beams of light and strangler-fig roots dropping down from holes in the ceiling. We dropped down a narrow shaft to the deeper levels, with a still lagoon of clear water and, when the guide doused the lights, a dripping perfect darkness. Probably the most significant use for the cave was the runaways from slavery, hiding out there until they could make their way to the Maroon communities in the mountains. Profound, but no so profound that the cave wasn't later used as a disco for a while and, if you've seen Live and Let Die, you will have already seen the cavern. Remember when James Bond was about to be shark food? Trelawney / St. James Parishes, Greenwood Great House (30 miles) I drove on, passing by a place called Coral Gables and thinking about it being Easter weekend. Many rastas call the Friday before Easter "Bad Friday"; it's the anniversary of the 1963 deaths in Coral Gables and a subsequent clamp down on rastafarian communities directly after Jamaica's independence. It was only mid-afternoon, so I figured I had time to stop near the border of the next two parishes and see a Jamaican great house. The island is dotted with these plantation homes, some artfully restored and repurposed, others with nought visible but crumbling pillars and rusty hinges hidden in roadside ivy. Of course, not being Jamaican, I can not testify to the nuance and meaning of these homes, the seats of slave-owners and anchors of the island's colonial system of oppression. Also, history is history, it is what it is no matter what I may think of it, so I resolved to see Greenwood Great House as passively as possible and consider it's meaning only afterwards. Clockwise: veranda, shackle, mantrap, ballroom A significant part of that history happened in these parishes, the Christmas Rebellion of 1831, during which hundred of slaves were killed and summarily executed. The rebellion burned down many great houses, including Greenwood's more famous neighbor, the fully restored Rosehall (famous for it's spooky legends and scene for the novel The White Witch of Rosehall). Not so Greenwood; it was not destroyed, it still sits atop its hill, built of whitened coral blocks and whitewashed timber. The rutted lane eventually dropped me in the empty parking area; I was the only visitor. In fact, the gate was locked, so I pulled the rope of a large bell and the guide soon came down through the bougainvillea to let me in. I was ushered into a dim space in a side building that, to my surprise, looked to be an authentic old English pub. My guide, a middle-aged black woman, stood off to the side while a spectral old white lady said nothing to me, just took my entrance money, seemingly frozen and unable to calculate my change. A man sat in a dusty corner, dimly backlit by the yellowed window behind him, and murmured "Enjoy your tour." The vista from the veranda is spectacular, encompassing what was once huge holdings along the coast and back into the hills. The tour highlighted many fine pieces of old furniture: pianos of inlaid mahogany, carved chairs, a blue ballroom, pink bedrooms, all roped off to protect several centuries of elegant bric-a-brac on display. The guide activated an antique polyphone, a kind of music box taller than myself, playing perforated metal disks that look like lumber mill saw blades. The tinkling music rose up and, along with the slanted afternoon light coming from the sea, spun a kind of genteel enchantment. The allure felt uncanny and a little alarm went off in my head. The guide took pleasure going behind the ropes to reveal a large screen TV cleverly hidden in the bedroom furniture, and I realized that the ghostly white lady actually lives in the house, the ropes coming down after the last tour. The other surreal realization was that Greenwood plantation was the source of wealth for the Barrett family (whose famous daughter, Elizabeth Browning Barrett, wrote "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."). Barbara, our housekeeper in Kingston is named Barrett, which could simply be a coincidence, but even the possibility that I was standing where her ancestors had been enslaved...well, my resolve to remain passive was rapidly crumbling. I exited out through the pub, barely stopping to see the iron mantrap and the ankle-shackles on display. Even though I knew that this was one of the few great houses that referenced slavery at all, my heart could not congratulate them for it. My guide locked the gate behind me and though I fear it may be a white-boy's over-eager expression of race-consciousness, I want to tell you that I could not help but spit on the ground before driving away. That's just how I felt. So much for passivity. Hanover Parish, Samuel's Bay (51 miles) After the tourist entry-point of Montego Bay, my route rolled me down around onto the western tip of Jamaica, where the swampy muck of the Great Morass is on one side of the road and the ocean on the other. I was pleased to arrive at Samuel's Bay before sundown, checking into a casual spot called Rhodes Hall Plantation. Apparently, this bay is where the owner of The Bounty sheltered his fleet (did you know that Captain Bly brought breadfruit to Jamaica?), and the next bay down is where the pirate Calico Jack Rackam's crew was too deep in their cups to notice the approaching British that destroyed them and took Jack back to Kingston for execution. Side note: it was Calico Jack that gives name to Dead Man's Key in the waters off of Kingston, for the authorities left his body out there for years in an iron box as a warning to other pirates. Anyway, the place I stayed was mellow, with a peacock named Kevin roaming the grounds and, other than two Jamaican families, one extended American family that all seemed to smoke weed, from the teenager to the grandma. I am not a lover of the herb, but I was well pleased with a tasty steamed snapper for dinner, despite having spent a good deal of my morning diving with his brethren. My morning snorkel was sublime, with the waters like a bathtub. It was so nice that, after breakfast, I went again. I saw a lot of great stuff, but at one point I was puzzled by an area in the coral where the perfectly clear water was cloudy...sometimes I am kind of slow, I remember thinking "It's almost like something big over there is kicking up sand." Sure enough, a big old stingray was over there, feeding and blowing sand, 5-foot in diameter and longer than me if you count the tail. Which you should. Westmoreland / St. Elizabeth Parishes, "Border" Foodstands (40 miles) I've spent time in Westmoreland parish before, so I did not have plans to stop there, though I love the area. But right at the border to the next parish is a place, not coincidentally called "Border", with food stands along the road. Each stand has a fire or two going and I was quickly offered a giant, beautiful platter fried fish. I was in the mood for conch, though, and shouts went down the line and I was sent person by person until I was introduced to the conch man. He sat me at a stool and I perused his setup: his embers flamed inside an old car's wheel rim, which was kind of genius...it allowed for air to feed the coals and created a platform for water to bubble in a baking sheet. The conch and veggies were folded in foil packets and steamed along side the water, catching some of the smoky flavor of the fire. He served it and when I asked for some spice, he brought over a 3-gallon vinegar bucket, full of marinating scotch-bonnet peppers and onion, and he ladled the firewater on my conch. The Red Stripe could not put out the fire in my mouth completely, so I bought fresh bammy, clearly another local specialty. Bammy is a cassava (yucca) pancake, something Columbus discovered the Taíno preparing when he arrived in the New World. I had sampled bammy before, unimpressed, but this bammy was amazing, hot off the pan, toasty on the outside, soft inside, making the perfect post-spicy-conch delicacy. St. Elizabeth Parish, Accompong (30 miles) For the first time on this journey, I cut away from the coast and headed into the hills. I was heading for Accompong, the main Maroon community in Jamaica. I have mentioned the Maroons before and, again, I need to be careful about trying to abbreviate their history here. Maroons, as elsewhere in the Caribbean, are those that escaped slavery and lived separately, often mixing with indigenous populations. Jamaican Maroons are intensely proud that they fought the British to a standstill, forcing a treaty in 1739 that allowed them to govern themselves and maintain language and customs from West Africa. The story is not all feel-good empowerment, though, for this treaty also specified that the Maroons would help suppress future troubles with the still enslaved population. Indeed, of the 3 main Jamaica rebellions that I know of, Maroon militias played a significant role in their suppression: Tacky's War in 1760 (not far from Accompong), the Christmas Rebellion of 1831 and the Morant Bay Rebellion of 1865. Not a lot of travel goes up to Accompong on Easter Sunday, so the road was as lonely as it was challenging, with steep dropoffs. I had a great view through papaya trees to the valley far below, a world away from a wide stretch of canefields below, though not really far as the crow flies. I was able to measure it's remoteness because, as I got farther in, kids were more and more likely to holler out to me. As with country roads everywhere, salutations are the minimum politeness. But the greeting upon rolling into Accompong was more particular; there's no official border checkpoint, but I was not 2 yards into town before a young man jumped up and hollered at me to stop. Visitors to Maroon territory must check in and be escorted. To my chagrin, I realized I had spent almost all my cash and did not have the $15 price of the tour. I had come to pay respects, and I had come some distance, so I offered to trade a hand-worked calabash bag that I am very fond of. But one of the men slung it back on my shoulder, saying, "This is your heart. I feel that. We can't take that." I had $8, so they agreed to give my half the tour...skipping the the best parts like the "kindah" tree, a mango tree that is the spiritual heart of their resistance, or the cave where the treaty was signed. But I did not care, it was a half hour of time, learning and reasoning with my Maroon tour guide, Biggy. He pointed in various directions, naming different clans that seemed loosely affiliated with the specific West African people their ancestors derived from. He identified their camouflage vine ("we invented ambush"), the "poco" sacred ground (or "pukumina", a mixture of African spiritualism and revival Christianity), and spoke of current political concerns for the the Maroons. When Jen's work with Peace Corps came up, Biggy was pleased to tell me that there had been a volunteer in his home a few years back. "We need to get another one of those," he said. Manchester Parish, Mile Gully (25 miles) Driving back down the hill, I was conscious of wanting to be back in Kingston by nightfall, but the beautiful afternoon and that country road just would not let me feel hurried. The wide stretch of canefields I had seen from above proved to belong to the Appleton Estate rum distillery. Other than that, it was mostly rolling, forested hills, with the trees making a tunnel and sunlight dappling the asphalt ahead of me. At one lonely crossroads, I was surprised to come across a spooky, abandoned church slowly being reclaimed by the brambles. Sure enough, I was later informed that locals know it as the "duppy" church (ghost church), where uncanny organ music is sometimes heard. People chuckle, but that doesn't mean they would be caught anywhere close at night. St. Andrew Parish, Kingston (60 miles) In Manchester parish, the big modern toll road takes over and it is clear sailing back to Kingston. Unless, of course, one has given every last cent to the Maroons in Accompong...in which case, one is left at the last toll booth, 10 minutes from home, rooting around in the cupholders and finally begging to be let through. And so it was that I came sliding sideways into Kingston, precisely 2.5 days after departing, with knots of clothes still sea-damp in my luggage, detritus of shrimp and bammy and peanuts in the floor mats. I came back to an empty house...Jennifer and Carter would be away another 6 days, looking at schools in the U.S. as we try to strategize our imminent return to the States. The last 60-hours, though, had put in stark relief those things I am going to miss when we leave Jamaica.

Staying up all night

Blue Mountain Peak

The Blue Mountains of Jamaica rise up to the northeast of Kingston, creating a windward bulwark for the island. If you hike up to Blue Mountain Peak, the island's highest point at 7,400ft, and time it such that you arrive at dawn on a clear morning, you can watch the sun come up over Cuba and see the entire island of Jamaica beneath you.

Jennifer and I tagged along with the Peace Corps Environment Volunteers, coming up the mountain with 16 of us jammed in a rattling jitney. In Jamaica, it is not typical to see a bunch of white people in such a common conveyance, which explains why the police checkpoint stopped us and, with little humor and less haste, questioned us. Jennifer stepped forward as Country Director, opting to use the persona that works best at Latin American checkpoints, joking, but the Jamaica constabulary do not have a funny bone. As a friend told me, "They get shot at too often." One of the volunteers in back whispered, "Tell them we're a church group!" Anyway, after about an hour of inward and upward travel, the already rough road became passable only to 4W-drive, so we transferred vehicles at a slanted crossroads town called Hagley Gap, under the scrutiny of the locals hanging around in front of the little shop.

Drinking Blue Mountain Coffee on the Blue Mountain.

By the time we were dropped off at Jah B's bunkhouse, we were particularly ready to unfold our limbs and savor the cool mountain air. The scene was definitely mellow; coffee beans lay drying in large sun trays and the farm tabby befriended Jennifer while the volunteers played ukelele and guitar. Then everyone lay down to try and grab some shuteye before starting our hike at 1am. Some of us were thwarted, however, because one of the volunteers snored loudly enough to wake people down in Kingston. Before we knew it, it was time to go, but not before one of Jah B's fellow rastas had cups of their home-grown coffee in our hands. Then we donned headlamps and set off.

Blue Mountain Peak

The hike is 7 miles, ascending some 3000ft, through rainforest and switchbacks. Halfway up, at 3am, the dense foliage opened up briefly and we got a look at the sky. I am not often able to goggle at such a starry panorama, partially because I am never awake at such an ungodly hour, but I am also rarely up high on such a clear night. We didn't even have to look up, the horizon was below us and stars at eye level looked as crisp as the lights of Kingston off towards the west. But we turned our attention back to the trail, working up a sweat with little to look at other than the bobbing beams of our headlamps. Near the end, it started to drizzle, adding to the drench of sweat we already had going. We reached the top and the disappointment was twofold. First, we were soaked and though I would have never believed it possible in Jamaica, it was cold enough to see our breath. Second, it was obvious that there would be no sunrise for us, no vistas, since we had come all this way only to hike into the middle of a dense cloud. We huddled with other hiking parties in the ruins of a trail house, warming ourselves as best we could at little fires we made from brush. When daylight came, we snapped some pictures, and headed back down the trail. At least for the return, we could see our environs, the beauty of the rainforest and, when we'd descended out of the cloud, views of hills and ravines and coffee plantations. I even saw two endemic Jamaican birds for the first time (if you must know: the Jamaican Toby and the Crested Quail Dove). Back at Jah B's, we bought a couple packets of his coffee (best Blue Mountain coffee I've tasted) and loaded into the 4WD with the Volunteers for the drive back down to sea level.

Rebel Salute

A photo from Google, mine did not turn out.

The following weekend, we went to stay at Old Fort Bay near Ocho Rios.  One of the main reggae festivals was going to be just down the road, so we joined another embassy family and rented a little vacation house there. Jennifer and I took advantage of the free babysitting to leave Carter and go to the concert. Music in Jamaica starts very late, and even though we had been up all night the previous weekend hiking Blue Mountain Peak, we were prepared to be up all night again. So it was midnight when we parked at the Rebel Salute festival, early enough to be as yet uncroweded. Several times, approaching the gates, we were offered branches of ganga, once literally under the nose of the police. Inside was a large field in front of the stage, most people brought their own chairs, I even saw a camp cot, with some folk opting to sleep through the acts they did not care for. I was excited to see the one old school act I had seen before in Kingston (the Congos, though they were sadly disappointing). Other acts were a mix of styles: revolutionary reggae by Kabaka Pyramid, old time lover's rock by Sanchez, pop by Christopher Martin, and roots by Luciano. On the whole, the showing was not that impressive, Luciano was my favorite. On a side note, just recently Luciano has cancelled his upcoming tour dates because his teenage son was shot and killed at school here in Kingston. We left before 6am, too early to see the bigger acts, but I had enjoyed the scene and sampled some of the fare from the food stalls. To our surprise, Jah B had a coffee stall there and we were able to holler out a greeting to them.

Being at Old Fort Bay made it easy to forget the vaguely disappointing concert. I borrowed Carter's GoPro camera and took some underwater shots while snorkeling. I got some great shots of some of my favorites: the juvenile yellowtail damselfish that are rich blue with neon blue polka dots, trumpetfish with their footlong bodied and snouts like seahorses, and a puffer fish hiding in blue coral, watching me warily. But mostly it was a lovely, breezy bay to relax beside, and the families just hung out happily.

A puffer not too pleased to see me.

Old Fort Bay

Nicaragua: saying goodbye to old man 2015

We were expecting a lot more noise on New Year's Eve. But on our strip of Nicaraguan beach, it was our own party who had the most tonnage of fireworks. We had stocked up on an unregulated armory of explosives from the holiday vendors lining the north road out of the colonial town of León. We had roman candles firing 100 little fireballs, chunky mortars that exploded just a couple stories above our heads, and an assortment of rockets held together by twine and newspaper (I am exaggerating slightly). But in the end, it was probably the pretty, deadwood bonfire that best expressed the mellow vibe of our week along Las Peñitas beach.

Momotombo, on the shores of Xolotlán Lake.

Forget bottle rockets, Nicaragua's terrain has its own natural fireworks; during the our landing at Managua's airport, we saw several volcanos dotting the landscape like pyramids, wisps of smoke drifting from their points. Driving around the giant lake, or through the dry savannah of the province, the volcanoes were never far from view. Of course, coming from Jamaica, we expected things to be different, plus we were pleased to be traveling in an hispanic land again. What we did NOT expect, as we left Managua in our rental car, was to be flagged down at a policía checkpoint. We had made the mistake of giving them the excuse to stop us (crossing a solid white line in an effort to change lanes for the checkpoint), but Jennifer sweet-talked them and let slip our government credentials and teased and by the end, the comandante was laughing, shaking my hand and trying out his English on us. To be fair: it seems an orderly country, this traffic stop was less sketchy than experiences with police in Peru or the Dominican Republic or, even, Orange County.

The lady in León

The wide main roads are lined by modern reflectors and people drive safely. Which is not to say that there aren't 3rd world road hazards, I'm thinking of the 6yr olds darting across the lanes, the ubiquitous horse-drawn wagons, and the colorfully belching buses. But one of those horse wagons actually had a headlight, a metaphor for this country in transition. After a couple hours of hours outside of Managua, the highway disappeared into León, a confusing criss-cross of cobblestone streets. We would come to León several times over the week; it's a town that goes back to the days of the conquistadores, with several propped-up churches, low pastel buildings, and a mix of vendors, beggars, bank guards with shot guns, and middle-class folk going about their business. Being the week between Christmas and New Year, holiday sugar sculptures were sold by the main church, and we saw many life-size papier-mache sculptures of old men positioned around town, representing the year gone by. Several times we stumbled upon a traditional costume in which the figure of a gowned woman would be carried on the shoulders, making her appear double-tall while her dress hid the human below. The main plaza even had a 2-story high female figure that represented, I was told, the early Spaniards. In addition to all this colonial history, the town has a university and is considered a birthplace of the Sandinista revolution. Indeed, blue-white Nicaragua flags are joined with Sandinista flags, there are revolutionary murals, and highway posts are painted telltale black and red.

Anyway, we eventually rediscovered the route out of León (thanks Google maps!), and 20 minutes later we were welcomed by family at the beach house in Las Peñitas. This was to be a vacation with my Jennifer's brother and his family, the younger of his two daughters running around covered with nothing more than pampers, a necklace, and sand on her butt. With his wife, her true-California parents, and her naturalist brother, we all slipped easily into beach mode, la vida en la playa. 

Las Peñitas is a strip of beach houses and hostels along a couple kilometers of sand that terminates at a mangrove estuary and fishing village. It's not an undiscovered place, there are at least as many low-budget travelers as locals working the shrimp farm or fishing, but it's still a tourist spot in its infancy and feels relatively real. The housekeeper prepared handmade tortillas, tostones (fried plantain), and whatever seafood we had. Several mornings, I went back onto the rough dirt roads to get fresh shrimp or mackerel or mystery fish from sellers whose total overhead seemed to consist of two Igloo coolers, a scale, and some ice. After learning what shrimp juice in the upholstery smells like, I would hang my purchases out the car window for the short drive back to the house. We were lucky to catch the once-per-week produce truck at our door and, once, a lady on a bike offered to sell us turtle eggs (legal this time of year). There were warm waves to bodysurf, a nice little pool and hammocks on the patio. We drank cold Toña beer or watermelon daiquiris and I sipped good Flor de Caña rum, playing cards or boardgames, pulling our chairs out to the water's edge every sunset. 

Egrets and herons in the mangroves, with Andy,
brother-in-law of my brother-in-law.

One morning we hired a boat to take us into the mangrove swamp that's protected from the ocean by a long, sandy island. My boat went far enough that our guide had to hack our way through by machete, eventually bringing us out into a wide, open estuary alive with herons, egrets and ibis. The area is a nature preserve, but also supports about 30 families. We pulled over and went out to the oceanside sand, free of footprints, and took a look at a turtle nursery, with about 20 nests simple bagged up in burlap, and some hatchlings in a bucket, waiting to be set free at nightfall. 

Turtle eggs and ceviche.

We also found our way to Chinandega, the next major town, for a Nicaraguan baseball league game between the Tigres de Chinandega and the Orientales. Most fans walked to the low, concrete stadium, so when before the fence to the dusty parking lot was even opened for us, several enterprising boys were vying for our business, running in front to show us the way, promising to watch our car. Inside, as the seats filled up, the noise level grew and grew. The kids in our group grinned, for once given license to be as loud as possible, and there seemed to be at least two brass bands among the spectators. The beer vender threw ice-cold cans over our heads to the rows behind, and vendors roamed with shrimp ceviche or turtle eggs for sale. As in any baseball park, love of the game was palpable, and emotions ran high on the field. After an amazing diving catch and a possible early tag-up from 3rd base, we all jeered and booed when an opposing player almost came to blows with the umps. With young kids, we left in the 6th inning, but not before stopping for some savory BBQ from the ladies cooking meat just outside the stadium. By now there was a much larger group of boys, looking for silver but also just hanging around our strange group of gringos. We were able to recognize our muchacho by his Sponge-Bob shorts, and he ran ahead, showing us the exit we already knew.

Uncle Adam, Carter and Cousin Lark

Getting around in a pickup, local style.

Selling candied apples.

Fresh tortilla with queso fresco, shrimp cocktail

Westmoreland

Recently, the tourist town of Negril held its Reggae Marathon. So after Carter and I dropped off some Peace Corps racers in town, he and I backtracked to meet up with Jennifer (who had been out on site visits). We're meeting at a place in the hills, a funky retreat known for its open-kitchen dinner demonstration featuring farm-to-table organics grown there on the property. This is all courtesy of an anniversary gift-certificate from my dad and his wife. I've passed through Little London before, but this time instead of turning towards the sea, or proceeding on to the tourist town of Negril, we turned north into the cane. As you can imagine, sugarcane has an ugly history of enslavement, but it is also Jamaica's biggest export, and it takes up much of the flat, arable land. It is an ongoing topic here, valued for the income it brings, but sugar has also squeezed small farmers up the hillsides and, ultimately, Jamaica is forced to import much food that its own earth could produce. So we drive through the corridor of cane until we turn up a rough lane, exchanging greetings with machete men on the road, "alright," "blessings," and "yes, boss." It feels like country. Rough-hewn fences, a donkey, boys at the creek in their underwear, a shack that serves as the local bar.

Early morning start to the marathon.

To get to Westmoreland parish from Kingston, you follow the sun towards the west until you run out of island. We were there because Jennifer was doing the half-marathon in Negril but, because we had opted to stay farther inland, we all had to be up at 3:30 am to be sure Jen was in Negril for the 5:15am starting gun. After dropping her off, Carter and I started walking along the dark course. There were not a lot of spectators along the way, in fact there were probably as many people still walking on the road after a night of partying. Carter took a cat nap on a store's porch, but eventually the runners came, padding in the dark, and we found a steel-drum band. Several Peace Corps volunteers were running too, so Carter and I had plenty of people to cheer for in the 10k, the half and the full marathon. At the finish line, with the sun now up and a reggae band playing, runners took their medals and happily plunged into the sea. One Peace Corps guy took 7th place in the marathon and the Peace Corps women took 2nd as a team in the 10K. Perhaps most impressive was not a winner at all, an overweight volunteer who determinedly finished the marathon just 10 minutes before they closed the course, at 11:50am...almost 7 hours of running, much of it in full tropical heat.

"It's like a treehouse!" -- hanging around on the balcony

The volunteers all went off to enjoy themselves, while our family headed back to our retreat in the hills. The place is a handful of simple huts on a hillside, owned by a white dude with dreads and his Jamaican wife. "It feels like a treehouse," said Carter. Upon our return, we discovered a group of 7th Day Adventist ladies and children at the gate, all dressed to the nines despite the dust, wanting very much to pray with us. Jen and I availed ourselves of massages, though Jennifer's was rather comically marred by a marital spat between the owners in which the wife called him out for trying to act too Jamaican. The neighborhood is small, a community of small one-room homes tucked in foliage, and everyone seems to have their role to play. A man named G.G. showed Carter and I the way to the local swimming hole, where the water is crisp and the mud is squishy, and along the way he called out to folk invisible to me and pointed out hallmarks of the place: Mama Pinky's bodega, the ackee tree, the benches by the painted bridge where the people come together on Sunday evenings.

Dinner at the kitchen.

Evening brought a farm tour and then dinner in which the chefs prepare everything in front of you and talk about the local ingredients. The "sushi roll" appetizer, for instance, substituted shredded, fresh coconut for rice and plantain instead of fish. All washed down with fresh sorrel punch...made from ginger and sorrel (a dark, red hibiscus brought over by West Africans during the slave trade).


I snuck away Sunday morning and drove myself down to a rustic bay well off the beaten path. Snorkeling around the little reef was satisfying, though I did not see all that much, and I was back in time for breakfast at the retreat. And then it wasn't long until Carter and I were back on the road, driving the 4 hours back to Kingston. We stopped for patties, turnovers of flaky crust and savory filling, Jamaica's fast-food...and thus satiated, a fun weekend came to a close.

A Night in a Kingston ER

I think that when I got groggily out of bed at 1am, my thought was that I was up just to go pee. But 30 minutes later the pain was so blinding that the drive to the hospital is only a blurred memory. Which is not to say I neglected to offer Jennifer my idea of the most efficient route (I think I could be crossing the river Jordan with the specter of death and still be cocky about the best route).  Anyway, looking at the little kidney stone now, it's hard to believe the bastard capable of inflicting such pain. But upon arrival, the doctor's blasé demeanor was so profound that I realized I was probably not going to die. I was, however, destined to sit there in a chair for the next 13 hours.

First-world eyes are apt to recoil from what healthcare in developing nations looks like. Dingy tiles and rusty railings, with jerry-rigged wiring and bare bulbs. Yet I was in so much pain, that the nurse who put a shot of painkiller in my ass seemed like the pristine angel of Florence Nightingale. Yes, I was seen to relatively quickly: examined, blood drawn, pain-killer administered, and finally shunted over to sit in one of 7 chairs for those of us not deserving of a gurney. Later I would come to appreciate my luck in getting one of the 3 slightly padded chairs, for it was my new home for every excruciating micrometer of my stone's passage from kidney to bladder.

Through it all, I could not fault the staff; they did what was necessary for me while juggling the considerably more serious emergencies that emerge out of the Kingston night. Of those on the gurneys was a gunshot (stabbing?) victim who screamed in pain when treated and had periodic visits by different wailing women. There was a loco tied to the bed who sat glaring for a couple hours, then began to holler obscenities and pleas while his mother tried to get him to shut up. Constables brought one in and fastened him to the gurney with handcuffs. Over in the non-critical, seated section, there was me, groaning and spasming while some people snored, until the stone passed and they gave me some morphine and I joined the snorers as the sun came up.

Daylight brought a shift change and my family of compadres on the chairs seemed to be suddenly gone. New folk came, but it wasn't the same...I was strangely comforted by the loco who continued to yell, for it meant my night had not been a dream. There I stayed, in my chair, for many more hours while I was given several bags of intravenous hydration, waiting for lab results that would not come until 2:30pm. Jennifer brought me food and chocolates that I shared with my new friends on the chairs. The embassy nurse and doctor stopped by, and I couldn't help be embarrassed by their attention, their efficiency, the fact that two well-dressed white women were swooping in make sure the one white guy in the ER was OK. Don't get me wrong, if I ever really thought I was in danger, I would have gotten over my embarrassment pretty quick.

Then I was shunted off to the non-emergency room next door for a couple hours. It was just me with mostly old folk. At one point, a lady was wheeled in a chair next to me, and she was groaning and spasming and crying in pain. I waited a long time, but finally could only imagine she too was passing a kidney stone (she wasn't) and asked if she wanted to hold my hand. It was a relief when they took her away to get a dose of morphine and by the time she returned, dozing, they were finally ready to let me go home. That was yesterday at 3pm. This morning I went pee and heard "tink" as the little bastard ultimately found his way out of my body and into the porcelain bowl.