Pride and Poverty

The Arrival

It's a cliche, but Jamaica is a land of vibrant contrast. I wasn't sure what to expect other than tropical breezes and clear water, and whatever pictures I saw on the website. The CIA Factbook breaks down political and economic conditions, but doesn't paint a vivid picture. That's not what the CIA is known for anymore.

So, I was ambivalent when we made our final descent into Sangster International. I got my first glimpse of the distressed municipal infrastructure and housing that peered over the hillside. The people who lived there endured the full cacophanic and visual assault of an endless flotilla of international flights carrying the sina qua non of their economy.

I was shocked at how uninformed I was about the general economic distress of this beautiful island. It is a poor economy was reflected by the state of the airport itself. Outside porters, taxi drivers, and 'guides' squeeze tourists for a quick hustle, in the hopes of wrangling a few Jamaican dollars for the day.

I was finishing my third or fourth Red Stripe at a makeshift Margaritaville stand when the rest of our party showed up. Flight delays, customs, and just the general inefficiency of airlines pushed them back an hour or so.

Alex and Olga, with new baby and a warehouse full of baby accessories, converged with Brian and Oksana, the other couple we'd be staying with. So there we all were, ready to go, with 36,000 pounds of luggage between us.

Ricardo, our driver, helped stave off the wave of taxi drivers and porters as we wrestled our gear to the curb. Ricardo threw luggage like he was a professional shot-putter and master Jenga player. He managed to twist, place, rearrange, fold and shift all the luggage into the van, leaving enough room for seven grown adults and a baby.

Traffic laws, if there are any, are mostly suggestion and innuendo. It has been supplanted by an unwritten code by which people pass on blind curves with a quick honk to alert the passee they are about to take their life in their hands. Quick cuts right or left to avoid potholes while avoiding an oncoming truck are typical and routine. I wasn't even fazed by driving on the left side, I was just amazed I didn't see more fatal accidents during my stay.

Our trip took about an hour, bobbing and weaving down angry serpentine mountain roads, pockmarked by neglect and underfunding. I like roller coaster rides so it was an adventure for me, and the hope is the scenery will distract any passenger that their van almost went off the side of the road, or careened head on into another van.

I could have easily just written about food, threw up some close-up pictures of jerk chicken, but I would have been robbing the readers of the context the food was prepared and eaten. It would have ignored completely the stark and sometimes shocking contrast between the lifestyle a tourist leads and the existence Jamaicans lead.

A quick history reveals the same hardship that many ex-colonial islands endure. An industrialized nation [Britain] claims it for themselves, they annex the land, import slaves to run the plantations, slaves fight for their freedom, the colonials negotiate independence and leave, and the now free people need to pick up the pieces of an abandonded government and create a new economy. It is from this poverty and relative scant education for the early free slaves from which the culture, traditions and cuisine evolve.

What a lovely, isolated nook of Jamaica. Water lapping on our own private beach. Casually overcast skies to keep the direct nuclear blast furnace from searing my forehead and broasting my flaccid pecs. What a great combination of illuminating people, environment, tropical heat, sunlight. Makes a guy thirsty, and you know what that means: dysentery. Emerging economies' greatest natural export to the industrialized world.

In my introductory piece, you were acquainted with Harry, the house chef. He was one of many attentive staffers that made our stay relaxing and fulfilling. In fact, it was getting to know these guys, and the people around this part of the island, that I started to feel a bit ashamed of my perception of the economic divide between the tourists and Jamaicans.

I was initially uneasy having everything done for me. Even though we paid for an all inclusive villa, I felt embarassed about the luxury I was indulging. True, the staff are comforably paid, and work in a great environment, but directly outside our gate was the oppressive poverty, and that made it hard to ignore.

But that didn't stop us from having a good time. Indeed, to understand Jamaicans is to embrace their unrepressed pride and cheerfullness. As the week wore on, I felt embarrassed again, not because I was the 'wealthy' American tourist who flaunted his money. It was because I was stuipidly applying the socio-economic bullshit of my own country, to a people that didn't even care about the same things.

Sure, people are poor. Many live in shacks with no running water or electricity. Ask any one of them, they'd all like more money to feed their family, or fix the car. But none of them were ready to pick up and move to America. The people I talked to loved the simplicity of life, the lack of a rat-race. They are content to live the way they live, and are not eager to change that. In Jamaica, there's no keeping up with the Jonses...the Jonses' shack has a busted tin roof also. So they help them out.

I also didn't detect any resentment against tourists. I'm sure there is, but in Hawaii it was blatant. When we drove through Hino on the Big Island, we were openly cursed and threatened. They did NOT want mainlanders, they did NOT want to be part of America. In Jamaica, none of that mattered. People live their lives, and they live them fully, and they are happy to share that with tourists.

The Stay



The grounds boasted a Colonial style Mansion with wide-open, breezy rooms. Elegently decorated with British influnced furniture and artwork, it was truly a retreat to another time and another place.

Each day had in store for us three solid meals, and occassional snacks and drinks. I did my fair share of resting and sleeping in, mostly from fatigue, so I missed every breakfast but one.



Right. The first picture you see of my trip of Jamaica is an omlette. Nothing spectacular there. Well, it was a damn good omlette. The salient piece of information missing from the picture is that I could have ordered anything I wanted within reason. No fried alligator, but any fruit, eggs, meat, cheese done any way I wanted. So, if I wanted bacon wrapped mango, stuffed with cheese and deep fried....Damnit, I could have ordered that.



Even breakfast was as ornate as the dinner table.

We spent most of our time hanging on 'the island,' a little cement patio perched about thirty feet offshore, accessed by a concrete bridge with no side rails. Kind of like the one Gandalf fell down battling Balron at Barad Dur.



One of our party would not cross unaided, and I can see why. The water rushing underneath does create an effect of movement, and it could be disconcerting to someone who is prone to vertigo. I just had a hard enough time crossing after an evening of heavy drinking.



For that is what you do on the island. Drink, lay out, or swing in the hammock. I swung in the hammock mostly.



Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking.



Then you end up like I do here. And I felt that way, too.



The picures of food are why you come here, right?

Due to the dim lighting most nights, there were only a few dinner pictures I captured, every picture oversaturated with an orangish hue.



The dinner table looked exquisite every night, crowned with bougainvillea flowers.



We did a few excursions because I was getting a bit sir-crazy about halfway through. The combination of resting and doing damn near next to nothing except drink myself to death, motivated us to ask Ricardo if he knew of any hikes. 'No Problem' and we were on a hike.



It was a very cool ecological tour, where we were led up the mountain not too far from our villa, and learned about local uses for various plants (not weed, I know what you're thinking), and a history of Jamaica. Our guide was very knowledgable and friendly. We hiked about 2 hours or so, and got some spectacular views.



Dinner tonight?

We were pretty far up in the hills, and the houses were built perched on just about anything. Sacks of sand, mounds of dirt.



The story about this shack was the lady left a week ago, and hadn't been around. Sometimes people just abandon their houses and move somewhere else. I can't understand why, it had a spectacular view.



Here, our guide was telling us about one of the local residents, and how he produces the pimenta for sale. There are outdoor slabs of concrete that are heated by a wood fire, the pimenta are spread all over the flat surface and left to dry and brown for a few days. This is his indoor grill house.



Jerk Chicken Interlude!

Over at The Treehouse, a common eating house for all the Villas, is perched on a hillside overlooking the ocean with a tiny private beach. We used the facility twice, once for a get together and one for James' Jerk Chicken Lunch. Even though I was nearly doubled over in pain, I didn't want to miss this one. Since I hadn't eaten the day before (talk about squandered opportunity...), I was determined not to miss this. It was fantastic



Spiced well with pimenta, and smoked with pimenta wood, it had the most intense smoky flavor perfumed with the scents of allspice. Allspice is the English word for pimenta, of which they use the entire tree. The berries become allspice, the leaves are used to perfume water for cooking and marinading, and the wood is used to cook jerk anything. That's why it will never be as intense if I make it, we don't have the wood here.



I had jerk a few times on the island, James' was definitely the best. He shared some cooking techniques with me, and I already took a shot at making some chicken this week.



As good as that was, Harry's cooking kept us more than sated the whole week. Every dinner was preceded with a rather hearty soup. All were accompanied by a thick slice of garlic toast. Can you see the garlic chunks on there?



Here is an example of a lunch: Sesame Chicken.



This is a fish pot pie, very hearty.



Here are two appetizers they served us:





As you can see, it was a week of indugences. I wish I could have indulged more, but it was actually a good idea to cut down on my eating if I was doing this much relaxing. We did to a very interesting Tree Canopy tour, which is not for the faint hearted. You wear a harness that attaches to two pulleys. They hitch your pulleys to long cables traversing ravenes, rivers, hills, from one treetop to another. You are zipping down these lines, floating hundreds of feet over the ground, with just a two-inch teather between you and your carcass strewn across the jungle floor. Real exhilirating.

Even the dogs ate well. Starfish was the special de la dia.