A few months after my return to Florida we were full into the peak of hurricane season. Even then, before Andrew, Floridians commonly watched news of hurricane activity with interest bordering on obsession. At that time I was involved in an adult literacy program at North Miami, or North Dade, memory fails, High School. It turned out to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The class I taught of about twenty students was made up of, primarily, Haitians, Cubans, and Jamaicans, with a married couple that was from Martinique. In trying to teach English writing skills to persons of three different languages (plus each of their unique versions of Patois) it became necessary to be humble and humorous (Marble humble???), and down to earth, to break the ice, ease the tensions, and draw us together into a little thrice weekly club where the learning happens but fun seems to be the emphasis. I figured people that reached 40 and 50 years of age, as all these had, without learning these skills, could easily be disenchanted and give it up, so I tried to make the class something they enjoyed and looked forward to.
One of the activities I began in the class was getting each student, once a week, to come up in front of the class and tell a story or anecdote from their homeland, in English, writing at least ten words from the story in English on the chalkboard. I felt it would boost their speaking and social skills and loosen them up. And never discount the lure (back to class each week) of feeling important and noticed. Not that I would know about that.
After a few weeks of this, they insisted on tit for tat, and demanded that I give them a personal story as well. My confidence in them had grown, and my trust regarding our little group secrets. We didn't really do things the way they were expected to be done by the program officials, but everyone was learning. So, with all this trust and feeling that there wasn't much anyone could do to me, I broke more rules and gave them the story of how I came to be teaching that class. They were all fairly conservative, older, family-type people, but they accepted me without judgment, especially since I presented past activities as belonging to the past. Losing their respect was my biggest fear but things moved forward, perhaps even more comfortably.
I remember the evening Hurricane Gilbert entered my life as if it was a moment ago. I was up at the chalkboard trying to draw fruits and vegetables in recognizable shapes for the words we were working on that evening. I am a pathetic artist; my older daughter got my share of those talents. The class was pretty much laughing and making fun of me in French and Spanish and some Jamaican Patois. But this program was not well-funded and no books, flash cards, flip charts or overlays and projectors were provided, so my piece of chalk would have to do. Then the door opened and the stern secretary from the office entered. Everyone stopped laughing.
This lady was the record-keeper of that school. She was a stout lady with gray hair, and when she spoke you knew you were listening to a traditional Florida Cracker having difficulty adjusting to the new face of South Florida. That not being enough to ask of her, she was being required to work late three nights a week to accommodate these people.
"I am here to inform you that a major hurricane is headed directly for the car-uh-been," she told us, "and should arrive within 48 hours. The administration just thought you should know, since you people are all from there." She just turned and walked out. 'And should all go back there,' you could almost imagine she'd added.
There was a television and vcr on a rolling cart in the corner of the room for the high school's use during the days. It wasn't hooked up to cable or an antennae but I managed to tune it into Fox on 7 which had already started interrupting programming, even with the storm two days away and no certainty it would hit Florida. I suppose with the number of Carribbean immigrants living in South Florida at that time, a hurricane in the "car-uh-been" was news, moreso than much other international news that isn't mentioned in American newscasts. I was tickled recently when the biggest emphasis of the troubles between India and Pakistan was put on the fact that Americans were told to leave that area. Our mainstream media certainly has tunnel vision. With the potential of millions of deaths should the long-standing hostilities between those two countries erupt into war, and the added fact that both countries apparently possess nukes, the most important aspect was considered to be the fact that a few Americans were told to leave.
As we watched the fuzzy but understandable reports from Bob Sheets at the hurricane center in Coral Gables that evening everyone's spirits sunk like lead pipe thrown into the turbulent sea. I dismissed the class twenty minutes early since neither they nor I would be able to focus on learning or teaching that evening. I went home to my house on Sheridan Avenue in Miami Beach and turned on the television.
I called in sick the next day because I'd spent the entire night watching every report I could find on velocity, estimated tide swell, and tornado predictions. For those of you who aren't aware, one deadly by-product of particularly large systems is tornados around its outer perimeter. I've known persons killed in these tornados in Florida, which hurt and destroy more than most hurricanes do, and with a lot less warning. But after about twelve hours straight of watching the sensational reports and predictions, and the footage of the destruction by previous hurricanes, I knew I'd seen enough and needed something to take my mind off the situation.
They had been advertising telephone numbers all night on the screen of organizations that were already preparing relief efforts for whichever island needed it the most after Gilbert got through with them. I called one of them and asked what I could do. I think it was the Red Cross but not sure now. The gentleman on the other side told me where I could make donations and I said that was fine but I wanted to do more. He asked what I do and I replied that I worked at Greater Miami Medical Center as the comptroller there. I explained that we were not only a group of four medical offices owned chiefly by a Doctor Shapiro, but that we also ran a medical supply firm and a pharmaceutical firm. Could that be any help?
Would it! He was excited. One thing that is most drastically needed after disasters is medical supplies and antibiotics and such. People get cuts and burns and water gets polluted. Would I be able to finagle some supplies out of my employer, he wanted to know. I worked on that and was disappointed with the results. But I got an idea. At work one tool I used was a list of all the names and addresses and executive contacts of pharmaceutical producers, distributors, doctor's offices who purchased them, clinics, and the like. I had a repoire with quite a few of these, since I spoke to them frequently about orders and billing and the like.
I got on the phone and started calling...and calling...and calling. I sat in my living room with my printout and a tally sheet and the tv on with the weather reports. I spent 18 hours on the phone non-stop! I didn't stop to cook but fortunately Kim was a good cook so I didn't go hungry.
I suppose I should give you the scoop on Kim. He figures prominantly in this story. Some time earlier I had met a dread from Kingston at a reggae show in Miami Beach. We'd known each other for awhile but after returning from out of state to live in FL, we'd started spending a LOT of time together. His best friend we'll call "Mark" was from Belize. Both Kim and "Mark" were very attractive men but they each had their own demons, as do we all. Kim had an alcohol problem and Mark had difficulties keeping his fists off his tiny little wife, call her Jennifer. Both Mark and Kim had pilot's licenses, and when I first met Kim he was driving a Ninja, not a cheap bike, but living in the side of a warehouse in Opa Locka where he and Mark were building a smalll plane.
Well, after great success on the telephone playing upon my vendors' and customers' guilt, mercy, whatever fit the call of the moment, I had accumulated quite a mass of supplies and some food and blankets too. By this time the path and velocity of Gilbert had been determined; the technology they use and the accuracy of their predictions always amazes me. Gilbert was to hit Jamaica head on, with a sledgehammer blow. My children were not there, thank God, but many people I cared about were, and many of those in low-lying areas or fairly flimsy wood houses. I was really upset and told Dr. Shapiro I would need a few days off, to which request he was gracious. I had a little time built up anyway.
So I called back my contact and started reading the list of the donations I'd garnered and when and where they could be picked up. "Whoa, whoa, hold on a minute!" He told me it was fantastic I'd hit up on so many generous people but if anything, they could only organize to collect those supplies and that would take weeks with the transportation they had available. He gave me some numbers to call to see if I could get these supplies, well over a ton, on a plane to Jamaica.
Kim was in the bedroom but heard the whole thing and I was pretty pissed off to have this stumblingblock put in my way. I started calling the numbers with no success, interest in some circles had decreased, since the storm was slated to hit the Caribbean but miss Florida altogether. I called Clint O'Neil and Algeta Thompson-Martin, who I'd worked with on the Toys for Tots drive at Christmas for the orphage in Kingston. I had been working at Finlay's Ship to Jamaica and had arranged transportation of the toys to Jamaica, but had spent a few nights at Algeta's in her lanai in Pembrooke, wrapping gifts. She was very particular that each toy be nicely wrapped for the children. Have you ever wrapped hundred of presents at one time? Phew!
Anyway, it was either Clint or Algeta who gave me a lead on getting to Jamaica the minute a flight was allowed to leave in that direction. I think it was Clint because his long-time lady friend was an exec at Air Jamaica. I'd been looking for transport of the medicines but the idea of me going down myself sounded great. I guess I was in super hyper mode then (I am the poster child for ritalin, a hyperactive insomniac since my pre-teens). So I called and organized that as well. Air Jamaica would be flying one plane only, as soon as the FAA cleared them for takeoff, and it would carry only media persons and some aid workers. I didn't fit it either category but sometimes it's who ya know...
In the meantime, Kim had been working his own angle. He and Mark would rent a plane and fly the supplies down to Jamaica themselves. I told him I could not afford that, rental could be $1000 or more and who'd rent him a plane to fly into a hurricane zone? Oh, flight plans were rarely communicated between the airport and the owner of a rental plane, he explained. And he and Mark would pay for the plane, so I didn't have to worry about that. Whether it was lack of sleep or thinking about the storm, or the rush to pack a bag and get to the airport to catch the plane, or maybe even the old adage that lust is blind (I was still into Kim then), the warning bells that should have gone off in my head were too muted to hear. I handed him my list of donors and trusted him to get the stuff to Kingston. He drove me to the airport and I also trusted him with the keys to my house and car.
Both the terminal and the gate at Air Jamaica were packed with people desperate to get home to check on loved ones but no regular flights were scheduled. I felt pretty guilty as I got dirty looks, me with my little pass clipped to my blouse, while being ushered toward the one plane that was to fly to Kingston in the next few days. I'll never forget the solumn atmosphere as the thirty or forty of us scheduled to be on that plane clustered around at the gate, speaking in low tones and specualting about what we would find when we got to Jamaica. The absolute worst part of a hurricane is the cut off of all communications from the outside world. That not knowing will kill ya'.
Then some laughter and merriment burst into the area by two tall blonde guys, wearing network press badges, that approached with the same passes we were all carrying to get on that plane. We turned as one to scowl at the pair and their demeanor changed immediately.
They took us in a tram directly to the plane, where we walked up those rolling stairs the small planes still used. There was almost no one talking, if at all in low whispers, and you could cut the tension with a knife. I remember sitting next to an MP on the plane and normally this was a guy I'd make conversation with but the plane ride was as quiet as the tram had been. As we approached Jamaica from above everyone was out of their seats like a shot, craning their heads to get a good look out the tiny windows. The blondes were even trying to get some footage, though the weather was still bad. A few minutes earlier the pilot had actually had us look out the windows to see, clearly, the trailing edge of the evil bastard known as Gilbert.
That view had been stunning; awe-inspiring at the majesty and power of nature, but what we were seeing now was not inspiring those feelings at all. God, I remember so well that first look! It was as if an Olympic god had just stepped on the island! We looked on, some of us in tears, flying across first MoBay then on to Kingston. The pilot saw fit to slow down and fly lower; the trip across the island was twice as long as usual. Total devastation everywhere. When he had us sit back in our seats and buckle in for the landing, people were speechless, even the politicians, and some of the faces were little more than a blank stare. The politicians were probably thinking, "Oh crap! How are we going to pay for this!"
As we landed it was shock mounting on shock. Half the terminal building had been ripped away, they'd been constructed of little more than zinc and modular materials. There were planes, some large ones, on roofs, upside down, standing on end stacked against sides of buildings like forgotten children's toys. There was a 727, a rather large plane, dangling ass end up in the top of a huge old tree! We landed out on the tarmac and had to walk in from there.
We were then divided into our little categories and the press guys and politicians started trying to call for rides but there were virtually no communications anywhere for a few days. It was mass confusion. Somehow I ended up with a small contingent that was mostly press and we were taken to the Ministry of Information building downtown. That is the way I remember it. I guess the names of the ministries have changed and the address is now on Heroes Circle in Kingston, which didn't exist then. Can't remember the old road name.
The building was several stories tall and they had cots and such set up in the basement, which many of the building's employees had used during the storm. I was up on the third floor looking out the window at the mess that was once Kingston. I was approached by a bureaucrat, a nice older gentleman, a doctor, that worked in the division of the ministry that handled education in the birth control and venereal disease arenas. He began to describe his storm experiences to me, the things he'd seen and felt. He pointed out a car on a roof across the street. He'd watched that car hours earlier, rolling down the road empty, picking up speed, and then lifting right off the ground, high up into the air, then flying right past the window near him and dropping on the building across the way. He said it had been at that point he'd gone to the basement and stayed there.
We talked quite a while, surveying the damage and postulating ideas for repairs and where the money would come from. But then he got on his own personal soapbox about promiscuity in Jamaica and the consequences of it, that obviously was his passion and where his heart lay, and I lost interest. I was in storm mode and thinking about other of Jamaica's problems would have been overwhelming in the light of everything else going on. It was late and I'd been up for two days plus so I went to the basement and crashed on a little coir mat, hard as a rock on the floor, but I slept like a rock for ten hours. I was a little stiff the next morning but did a few minutes of yoga on the bathroom floor and limbered up. If I tried sleeping on a concrete floor now, I probably wouldn't be able to move the next day!
A group of JDF came to the building then with some box food for our breakfast and we divided into groups of where we each wanted to go, and what we wanted to do. Since I had come down there on the premise of helping, I knew I should do so right off, so I went with the group to the Red Cross on Arnold Road, and we handed out food, clothing, medical supplies, whatever had been stockpiled, and I was instructed to give out vaccinations. The nurse I was assisting got really angry with me when I said I didn't have that kind of medical background, I was a glorified bookkeeper for a doctor. She kissed her teeth and said she asked for help and they sent her bookkeepers. I felt really guilty so I started sticking people, even though I hate needles, and I guess I did it okay, no one bled or died. I busted butt all day and into the night doing that and other things, unpacking boxes, handing stuff out, and by late evening when the crowd had dissipated she walked over to me, leaning exhausted against a pole, and gave me a little hug. "Good job mon." she said, and walked away. Those three words made it worthwhile for me.
Trucks had been pulling in all day unloading donations that were apparently arriving from foreign, so I figured some private planes were being allowed to land. I wondered if I'd buck up on Kim somewhere. Every time a truck pulled up it was a mob scene and the JDF called in for reinforcements. I loved the work but it was pretty scary with these automatic rifles and trigger happy testosterone guys and the crowds at near panic level. We worked late into the night and then they took us to some secretarial school nearby to sleep in their dorms for the night. I was tired but wired, and couldn't sleep. I went out to the street and sat under a tree to try and assimilate all I'd seen and heard. I guy in a nice car pulled up and I was nervous for a moment but it turned out to be someone I knew from JBC, who I hadn't seen in years, so we went for a ride.
We went up touring and hit a roadblock on Slipe Road, complete with scary guys and more AK47s. "Curfew mon, curfew. Get outta de car." I started to perspire then and reached for the door handle but he put his hand on my arm, "jus cool dawta." He whipped out his JBC id and a hundred J and handed it to the rifle-toting sargeant. The barricade was moved aside and we passed.
I couldn't believe the stars out that night, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was such an irony to me. We moved about in town, surveying the damage and my eyes kept watering at the site of some of my haunts now open to the sky or in a tumble jumble heap on the ground. We stopped by Foster Davis Drive to see how my friends fared and they were well enough. Not as much damage to the concrete houses. Another reason for voting in favor or some strip-mining for concrete. But dung de bottom dere, down the road at the little gully where a small community of shacks, mostly dreads, had sprung up years earlier, well, it was gone. Just gone. About twenty families had lived there.
We headed up to Jack's Hill because I told him I needed a drink badly and of course, no place was open with curfew, even if they had anything left to sell or a door left to open. We kept having to turn around and select different routes because the roads were blocked with trees, utility poles, cars and trucks, pieces of wood houses. It took an hour to find a way to his house which was only a few miles.
After a few drinks and a good draw I was more relaxed and I just broke down and cried for about 30 minutes. It released a lot of tension, fear, exhaustion and just plain sorrow, and I felt much better after. You guys won't understand, I am sure. Imagine I'd gotten into a good fistfight and you'll get it. I was still worried about what I would find in the West, but I told myself it couldn't be much worse than what I'd seen already. Little did I know. I found out the next day the storm had landed in Saint Ann and departed in Hanover. The point at which a hurricane meets land, and that at which it rejoins the sea, are usually the hardest hit with the devastation.
My friend was tired and wanted to sleep but I dragged him out into the night again, to take me back to the school. I'd come down on that plane on somewhat false pretenses and I felt I should be sleeping rough, not comfy up in Jack's Hill. Illogical, but that's the way I think sometimes. On the way down we talked about how worried I was about Hanover and he said he'd see what he could do to get me there the next day.
My bag had not been brought over from the Red Cross but a nice Jamaican lady who was still awake when I returned lent me a nightie and some soap so I was set. She scolded me for leaving without word, they'd worried where I'd disappeared to. I was so tired I couldn't have answered her and she was right anyway, so I took the scolding and went to bed.
The next morning some of us were put to work making meal boxes in the cafeteria dining room (they had a generator) for distribution at the Red Cross. My bag had showed up and I changed and was ready for anything when my Jack's Hill friend walked in and asked me if I was ready to leave. He said I had to go right then. He said he could get me on a small plane that was headed to Negril airport. He'd arrange for some Ministry of Health folks to pick us up on the other side but he didn't know where we'd be staying. I said it was okay I could stay at my old house. Hah! I was assuming it was there!
We drove out to Tensing Pen and I was loaded onto the too tiny plane, room only for four and barely our bags. We were packed in. Flying along the south coast from western Kingston I was shocked again. This time much lower and slower, I could see more detail. People's clothing and furniture in trees, washing up along the shore, lots of dead animals, crushed buildings and trees. What an emotional roller coaster ride, not to mention the turbulence. I had never before, and have never since, been on a plane that small.
As we flew onto the Negril landing strip I was frustrated that I could not see far enough out toward Hanover. By this time I'd heard the news that Hanover had been hit HARD. A JDF jeep and driver met us and we began touring to survey the damage. We headed directly toward Orange Bay and Green Island, not stopping in Negril, this was no scenic excursion. Everywhere we went people came out into the lanes and back roads shouting at us, mostly "Where de food. We need food!" It ripped my heart out fifty times. We had nothing to give them.
We stopped in some towns inland on the Logwood road I didn't know were back there and found people living in schools and churches. LOTS of people. One church was the new residence of an entire town that had been flattened, all the homes being of board construction, and nicely stacked up on blocks, not foundations, to give Mr. Gilbert some play in lifting them right up and dropping them right back down again. People were starving, children were crying, sewage was everywhere, people were not getting running water to drink or bathe, it was hell.
I remember touring the Orange Bay Housing Scheme and seeing the house I had once rented from Rose and Lorrie when I first left my husband. It was like a pile of matchsticks and I tried to imagine if I'd still been there when Gilbert had visited. It was lunch time so I was allowed to go up the hill to visit with Rose and Lorrie for awhile, and the Jeep would be back for me in an hour. Rose and Lorrie's house was relatively unscathed, miraculously. It was a block or so from my house, the matchsticks. We sat and talked and they told me how they had nowhere to go, the ristos in the big, better-constructed hotels in Negril were not letting "locals" wait the storm out in their places because the tourists wouldn't like it and they were upset enough already. So Rose and Lorrie had climbed under their house to ride out the storm. I know, I know, but I wasn't going to say that to them.
They told me of the deafening roar, it went on for hours, and how Rose just screamed and cried after awhile, because she wanted the roaring to stop. She almost ran out from under the house at one point when she was panicking, and Lorrie had to fight her and hold her under there and try to keep her calm. Understand now, Rose is very mellow and not the type to panic. But this was a very extreme storm.
The Jeep showed up and we toured the rest of the afternoon. The clipboards they carried were full of information, statistics, hard data, by the end, but nothing could really illustrate the annhilation, and the desperation in the faces. There was one stop, my request, at a small village outside of Green Island that I had frequented, where trees had split houses in two, and not much was left standing. I felt helpless and promised my friends there I'd get their village "on the top of the list" for help. Well, I had to say something. People knew me and came out and handed me this baby I had seen born up in that village and I listened to their storm stories, they all had one, each worse than the last. I thoughtlessly gave away the little money I had, just $80 or $100 U and I was called back to the Jeep, the others wanted to get onto the plane back to Kingston from Negril before dark. On the ride back to Negril the man in the back seat with me, another bureaucrat but not as sentimental as the one in downtown Kingston, struck up a conversation beginning with, "You really care about these peope don't you?" He said it with such surprise that I did not fully understand his meaning. "Not many visitors really get that involved, even when they come time and again."
I then explained I was more than a visitor, and gave him my Kingston and Negril/Orange Bay history, the good parts, of course. I must have made myself look pretty good because when it came out that I'd given away the only money I'd brought with me from Miami, he gave me well over a thousand J - I think it was almost a couple hundred U then. But when we neared Negril I just couldn't leave like that. I had so many emotions whirling around I wasn't thinking too clearly but I decided to stay a few days. The guy that gave me the money tried to point out that people were desperate and really bad things might break out soon, and that the JDF was not a big force there, like in Town. I wasn't afraid, so I took a ride to Lucea with the JDF Jeep guy to get a hotel room at this old big manor house they'd turned into a "locals" hotel, there at the turnoff to Negril from Lucea. I knew the owner and figured I could get a spot cheap or free.
I know that one of the drawbacks to my writing style, or lack thereof, is that I often use a description of a person or place rather than a name. The fact is that in some cases there are reasons for not giving out a person's name but with some of the people and places I just flat don't remember, and I apologize. I was living, not taking notes along the way.
On the way to Lucea I got to know the JDF guy a little bit and he wasn't so bad. I'd always had a certain viewpoint of them and stereotyped them, so it was enlightening to find out that they are relatively normal humans too, in some cases. I was pretty tired when I got to Lucea and did indeed get one of the few rooms that had roofing over them pretty cheap, and bought a Q and drank myself to sleep. The next morning I walked into Lucea to the video rental place on the main I had frequented when I had my bar in Orange Bay. FYI, all that was gone too, but the house WALLS were still standing. I used to show karate movies there on the weeknights, so I knew these video guys well, and figured they'd know where I could get a car and/or driver.
After that, with transportation, I went to check on a couple folks in Green Island then Negril. I found Peter at the pizza parlor on the West End with a bad burn on his leg that looked to be gangrene to me. He had a high temperature but would not go to the doctor and his mother could not get him to change his mind. I must have hit him at a vulnerable moment in his fever because I cussed him out and he went with me to Lucea hospital where they fixed him up. I took him back to the West End to his house and nursed him til his fever broke.
I knocked around Negril and Sav another day or two checking on friends and visiting. Then I suddenly remembered I had a job, or might still have a job, back in Miami, and that if my employer got a call from the people supervising my rehabilitation, and they found out I was not in Dade County, it could be a big problem. Oops.
I hauled butt back to Kingston to argue with Air Jamaica about taking me back to Miami since I had no return ticket but they had a record that I'd been on the first flight into the island the day after Gilbert. When I returned to Miami, I could not find Kim anywhere and he should have been long back from taking the supplies down to Jamaica. He had my car and my house keys.
I got someone to give me a lift home but had to break out and crawl in a window to get in. I called Jennifer right away to see if she'd heard from Mark. She was crying, and telling me this was the last straw with her and Mark. So I got the story. Kim and Mark had indeed gotten the supplies all picked up and rented a plane and loaded them, taking them down to Tensing Pen, the day after I was there. But then they'd decided, actually I am sure they planned it from Miami all along, that the crisis situation would have all the authorities all lax, and why go back empty-handed? So in the midst of all the suffering they decided to help out the farmers and loaded some cargo to take back to South Florida. And I thought I was mercenary! Trouble is, they had an engine failure on the way back and had an emergency landing in the Turks. Upon which of course, the rental plane had been seized and they'd been locked up.
I eventually found my car and had house keys and car keys made for over $200. And the bastard Kim had the gall to ask me to bail him out! I was not supposed to leave Dade County, not supposed to be around any criminal activity, and he had pulled a stunt like this! We were through, needless to say. A so ee go!
When you say "Jamaican" to many people, especially those who have never visited Jamaica, or known any Jamaicans, the word association returns you get will often be along the lines of "laid back, no problem mon, rastas, reggae artists, beach people, and unfortunately, because of bad press in the 80's over "posses" and Steven Seagal-type movies, drug dealers. Through no fault of their own, many people have never been exposed to or thought about, Jamaican society and the Jamaican middle class.
My "first life" in Jamaica was in Kingston, working with media and political persons and thereby seeing a different perspective on how some people view the world. Having been a "hippie" of sorts in my teens (catching just the tail end of that movement in the early seventies) it was interesting for me to be a part of the conservative right and get the full scale of the Jamaican viewpoint on "hippies." In the seventies, Jamaican society viewed Rastafarians and the residents of Negril on the West Coast in Westmoreland, about the way Nixon viewed the antiwar protesters and the residents of Haight Ashbury in San Francisco.
So when, after a series of events and circumstances in Kingston disgusted me, particularly the influx into "society" of very negative South American influences, I "rebelled" against the life I was leading and those I was leading it with. The act of "rebellion" that surprised my friends the most was moving to Negril. Of course Lloyd was all for it and even wanted to come with me, but was heavily into his life in Kingston.
In 1983 I was living in Stony Hill uptown from Kingston. When the moment of decision came, I just packed a bag and jumped on a bus and headed West. It was late in the evening when I reached Lucea ("one stop, drivah!") so I slept there that night, wanting my first look at Negril to be by daylight, as I'd heard so much about it from Kingstonians, and much of it negative. Looking back, it reminds me of the Country and Western song by Merle Haggard, "We don't like no long hairs in Muskogee..."
I cannot forget pulling into Negril the next morning in a taxi, the driver of which was an old Rastaman with salt and pepper dreadlocks. I think the taxi was older than he. It was a beautiful morning, not a cloud in the sky, and it had rained overnight so everything seemed to be a brighter green; wet, dripping, lush. If you have been to Kingston you'll know why this is such a memorable sensation, the lush green wetness.
As we drove into Negril all my pre-conceived ideas flew out the open window like the morning mist evaporating in the dense shade of the jungle. Negril was far more beautiful to me that any place I'd been in Jamaica. I will always have a fondness for certain places in the interior and I have spent some wonderful time on the North Coast in astounding beauty, but there was, clearly, something unique and wonder-filled about Negril. It hung in the air back then, it was a vibe so thick you could feel it on your skin. I am not sure I could put it into words, and I certainly would not use such a small word as "Irie" to describe it.
When I first moved to Negril, as I said, it was an act of rebellion, and the most rebellious spot in Negril I could find to live was Roots Bamboo Beach. In 1983 Roots was THE spot for the counterculture in Negril. I met "hippie" throwbacks from French-speaking Montreal and Quebec, a lot of Germans and a couple Brits, all in the first few days I lived in Negril. They all had one thing in common; they were dropouts from the rat race.
Early on in Negril I met the quintessential dropout. I was out on the cliffs one day snorkeling and a wind picked up rather quickly but I hadn't noticed; it was still and calm under water, of course. I came up after realizing I had gotten pretty tired, from being out there a couple hours paddling around. I tend to lose track of time if I am in the right spot with a lot of interesting things to look at. Reaching the surface I discovered how close I was to the rocks and how far I'd moved from my original spot and where my belongings were. I was having some difficulty getting safely back in with the wind and waves picking up as I tried to get back to my entry point. In the process of getting back, I received a few bangs, mostly on my right arm, and drew a bit of blood.
When I approached the ladder there on the cliiffs this guy was sitting there smoking a spliff and watching, but when he saw the blood on my arm he went all heroic on me and jumped in, setting aside his spliff in a safe dry spot first, of course. I assured him I was fine and told him to back off. Understand that I'd only been in Negril a few days and was not yet adapted to the mellow, trusting vibe that was once Negril. Although he was not physically intimidating in the least, I was not friendly. l pushed him away and climbed up the ladder. This was not easy as even with the squall, the ladder was still several feet's reach above water level. If you have ever braved the Hogg Heaven ladder at the west side of the property you'll understand.
He climbed up a few minutes behind me and I was wiping the blood off my arm with a towel. Despite my being rude to him he came over and showed me how to apply pressure to my elbow to stop the flow, the he walked a couple feet away and shook his locks out like a dog after a bath. It was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen, very graceful. I sat there feeling like a clumsy ox for getting banged up and being rude, so I apologized.
He was about five foot three or four and muscular; stocky, but not fat. He introduced himself, he was known as Dada. He was very cool and acted like I hadn't been rude at all, and offered me his spliff, after he relit it. We talked awhile and I asked him how he happened to be there, an isolated spot in those days, and not frequently visited. He pointed over to his little blue and white 50cc scooter and told me he'd run out of gas. I guess the solution to running out of gas was to walk out to the cliffs and smoke a spliff and watch the sea. Well, in Dada's world anyway.
Dada and I became fast friends. He drove me around for a week or so while I arranged more permanent accommodations and transportation of my own. That would be the deadly white Toyota, lol. Dada was a sweet guy with a great sense of humor, always finding something funny about the most common events. Life was simple for him, and he required little. He never seemed to lack for the money to live comfortably but his standards were not high. He wore no jewelry and his wardrobe was mostly swim shorts and t-shirts. He seemed completely content with that, and just about everything else. He was young and carefree in the truest sense of the word. Some will no doubt find some guilt in that somehow, but Dada was more free of both guile and guilt than anyone I've ever known.
One morning he stopped by my place and was very insistent. I had to come with him. No excuses, any other plans for the day had to be put off. By this time I was starting to get the Negril Vibe, which I think is carried in the air like a virus and is very contagious. Also, Dada had not steered me wrong about anything so far. He'd been right about the good food, good smoke, good people, all of it that he had shown me in Negril. So I trusted him enough to hop onto the back of his bike destined for parts unknown.
We headed out toward Sav but turned off on a small side road about ten miles past Little London, and headed inland. Since he'd told me to bring a swimsuit I began to wonder what he had in store for me. He'd been trying to seduce me from the day we'd met so I assumed he was going to take me to some fantastically beautiful spot, hoping that would win me over. Dada was a sweet guy and I liked him alot on a platonic level but he was not my type, physically. I go weak in the knees for a tall man, though. We remained friends a long time but the chemistry never was there. Which is probably why we remained friends a long time.
We went deeper and deeper into the countryside, eventually ending up on little more than a narrow track that most people would barely walk, let alone ride a motorized vehicle on, even at 50cc. Eventually we had to "move" a fence to get through and found ourselves in a large cow pasture. I was thinking what a huge letdown this was and what the hell did I waste half a day on this for?
He cut the engine and we got off the bike. He walked it over to some bushes and hid it inside them, pulling tree branches over the bike. This made me laugh, as we hadn't seen a soul in twenty miles and it looked like no one had visited this cow pasture, cows included, in twenty years. It smelled clean too, I really thought the fine green grass had been long left undisturbed. I found out soon how wrong I was, of course.
We began walking and the day was getting warm. I soon became impatient, being American through and through with the expected attention span of a hyperactive. We left the pasture a little way and climbed up a bit of rocky incline and there it was; Eden. Or, a small misplaced piece of it. My eye followed a babbling brook upwards to a pool, as deep and turquoise as in any postcard. And there, at the head of the pool, water gurgled forth right out of the rock. Moses would have been proud.
Dada took off his shoulder bag and pulled out some herb, custard apple, bun, and cheese. We swam and ate and smoked and reasoned for hours and it was wonderful. The water was cool and clear and the trees overhead rustled and there was a fine scent on the air, musky but pleasant. It was a perfect afternoon, or so I thought.
We were the victims of the classic cliche, something to smoke and no matches. So Dada decided it was important enough to go back outta road to a likkle shop he knew not far away. I was too relaxed to leave just then so I told him to make sure he came back for me, and I stretched out in the sun as he pulled his bike from the bushes a few hundred yards away.
I dozed a little but then the sun was heading behind the trees so I took my clothes, which I'd removed hours earlier, laid them out in the open field, and laid down on them. I started sunning and dozing again, buck naked. But I had a rude awakening. I was laying there having one of those wonderful dreams that turns sour. I still remember the end of it, I caught fire. In the dream my skin was on fire, and I woke up abruptly. I looked down at myself, still feeling like I was indeed on fire. I was covered with tiny red bumps and my whole body was itching intensely. I'd never had poison ivy or oak but I was pretty sure I didn't have those and started, in paranoia, thinking Dada had done something to the fruit I'd eaten.
I jumped into the water as quickly as possible and it was pure relief. I tried to get out after fifteen minutes and the intense itching returned immediately. I tried three more times over the next 90 minutes and as the sun got low I figured Dada had poisoned me and left me there to die. Silly and dramatic, I know.
But Dada did come back, eventually, and got an earful for leaving me alone in the middle of nowhere for so long. I think I actually accused him of poisoning me too. He could not drag me out of the stream, or coerce, or cajole me out. Only when it was truly getting dark did I see the light, that I couldn't stay in that water all night, and I steeled myself for the long and hideously itchy ride home.
As we rode back to Negril, not arriving til after ten, he explained to me everything in the world I had never wanted to know about cow pastures, cow dung, and chiggers. I have never forgotten any of that information since.
reminds me of the place
Even as a person that gets bored easily and thrives on change, there is, within me, an appreciation for some things or places being reliable, especially for good food and good times. One of these places for me was a nightclub in New Kingston called Tropics. It was located, if I remember correctly, on Ruthven Road around the corner from the Jerk Pit (for you oldtime Kingstonians). Tropics was an old converted house and the "living room" was a dining area and the bulk of the partying went on in the cobblestoned back lawn courtyard area. There were wonderful old big trees around the courtyard and a bamboo fence, with lights strung about the place, and an open sky to the stars above. It was my favorite spot and became the pattern for my own nightclub years later in Hanover. This kind of setup, dimly lit and maximum casual, was the ideal place to "hold yuh cahnuh" and be relaxed to enjoy your music and iscience in peace.
At that time I was dating, for a few weeks, a well-off "Jamaica White" young man (21, I 20) from Jack's Hill and he was, as were many well-off children of Jamaicans then, a weekend rebel. He drove a Benz and enjoyed the finer things, but talked badly about his parents generation and their way of doing things, rather like the well-off "hippies" I grew up with, myself included, I suppose. Small world.
I knew him through one of the camera men at JBC named Jose who was a Twelve Tribes member and took me to meetings, where I met, let's call him, Michael. Michael and I got along for awhile and had some fun times but it wasn't long before his hippocracy hit home and I stopped seeing him. In retrospect, he reminds me of the vegetarians dressed in leather pants and fur coats. Or ecologists that drive diesel-fueled BMW's.
Well, one evening early in our relationship Michael picked me up and we went dancing at Tropics. We had a great time but 2 or 3 o'clock rolled around and it was time to leave. A slight drizzle started falling and that cleared the place out fast. But Michael could not get the car started, and feared waking his father to come help, at 3 o'clock in the morning. So we were stuck in the rain in the middle of the night.
Across the street there was another house, and just as our situation became desperate several members of a then-fledgeling band came walking out to pile into a van and drive home. I was informed they used that house for rehearsals. The band was of the same calibre as Michael, by coincidence. They were mostly well-off uptown youths rebelling, with music, dreadlocks, and their religious beliefs, against the parents, government, and society that oppressed some and rewarded others, according to skin tone and education. This band was not a Trenchtown band however, not in the least.
But there was one member there, the drummer, who did not fit that cat-egory. His name was, Billy, and he was a "baldhead" and older, and the only one who wanted to help Michael with his car. The others got angry at him for doing so, and for holding them up from getting home. It was his van, you see.
Billy and Michael tried for 45 minutes to get the car started, to no avail. During this time I sat in the front seat of the van, at Billy's request. The entire 45 minutes, three of the dreads in the band, sitting in the back of the van, ridiculed me and made fun of me, pulling my hair, then down to my waist, and even trying to scare me. Apparently they thought I was some green tourist and they'd have a little fun with me, talking all radical and militant, anti-white, anti-American, revolution, and the like. I kept quiet, playing the fool, letting young men play as young men will.
Finally Billy and Michael gave up on the Benz and got in the front seat on either side of me. It was decided they'd drop Michael home first, then I up to Foster Davis Drive in Barbican. After dropping Michael the dreads mischief level increased and they started directing Billy to drive "out a bush" where they could do things to me an lef mi fe dead because Michael, my protection, was gone now and left me alone with strangers, yada yada. I remained silent, knowing how full of shit they were, but Billy cussed dem ras, telling them to leave de likkle gyal be.
When they pulled up to my gate there was someone waiting on my verandah. A few months before I'd spent some time in Yallahs at the Rastafarian camp of Prince Emmanuel and I'd made some good friends there. The Prince's second had come down to visit me by bus and waited all night til I returned. He'd wanted to get a sort of news release published and thought I could help. But also, with a big wicker chair and a nice draw, a Jamaican would have no trouble just sitting and waiting for six hours on a friend. Jamaica time, seen?
When I jumped out of the van and hugged up my friend, dreadlocks near to his knees, the dreads in the van were VERY surprised. Especially when I brought my friend over to introduce him to Billy, who'd been so kind, ignoring the rest of them. When they heard who my friend was, and then heard me speaking as thick a patois as they'd heard anywhere, they were even more surprised. Billy and I made fun of the look of shock on their faces and I laughed hard, enjoying my moment of revenge. It really hurt when he'd pulled my hair!
I invited everyone in out of the rain for some leftover brown stew chicken, with green bananas, cho cho, yellow yam, and rice and peas for those who passed on the chicken. Of course, "Levi" had brought with him a nice draw. We sat in my living room and talked as the sun came up, Guinness and rum passing around the overstuffed sofas, and Levi showed me how to cook an Ital breakfast, healthy but not to my liking. What can I say? I'm a carnivore.
To understand my motivations and thoughts during which the crisis of this story took place, I must give you a little background on my personality, via an experience from Mexico, years before this story took place on the West End of Negril, Jamaica.
My family was on the shore in Bahia Kino, Mexico, about 50 miles west of Hermosillo, on the mainland of Mexico, at the coast. It was a terrifically hot day with precious little breeze and my sister Judy and I decided to cool off and take some innertubes and float out a ways toward Pelican Island, a small, rocky scrap of land jutting up from the coral reef below, about a mile from the shore in the center of Kino Bay.
But this rocky scrap, as it happened, was home to thousands. Thousands of pelicans, that is. And so it was of great interest to my sister and I. My mother must have dozed off or gone for a cool drink or something, because no one noticed how far out we had actually gone. Including Judy and I. Whether it was the tide or currents I cannot say, but Judy and I found ourselves a good half mile out, and getting farther by the minute.
As we approached the shore, maybe a hundred yards off or so, I slipped out of my innertube and was going to swim the rest of the way, having had quite enough of that rubber ring around me for about three hours.
As I paddled toward shore I felt something brush against my arm and I looked down to see some bright blue yarn wrapped around my forearm and up past my elbow. I tread water for a moment and tried to brush off the string.
YOWZA! Searing electric pain, a jolt of pure fire and lightning at once! I screamed and screamed and my sister and brother Doug came to my aid, bringing me into shore and laying me out on the sand.
My arm swelled up instantly as big as an adult's thigh, and turned a deep, deep scarlet red. We were in Mexico, remember, and 50 miles from the nearest hospital. Thank God, my Mom knew just what to do, being in medicine and all. They ran up the beach to a hotel for buckets of ice and packed my arm in the ice tightly. My Mom made me swallow about five antihistimines and some other junk, and she happened to have some painkillers that helped a little.
I remember laying there on that beach screaming and sweating and the hot Mexican sun glaring down into my eyes. I remember people crowding around me but me unable to understand what they were saying or doing. Then I remember recuperating for three days in bed and missing all the vacation fun, but cashing in on it for the rest of the vacation, big time.
I came back from that trip with more wonderful silver and turquoise jewelry, colorful woven blankets, onyx horse statues and the like, than I had space for in my room. Guaymas is a wonderful place for handmade crafts, by the way. And shrimp, awesome shrimp in every flavor you can imagine, fajita shrimp, curry shrimp, shrimp in pink sauce, salsa, cream sauce, shrimp kabobs, or enchiladas.
My experience with a Man of War jellyfish in Mexico seared an everlasting fear of jellyfish into my psyche. And this fact brings us to the West End of Negril, Jamaica, my jellaphobia intact.
After separating from my husband I dated a West End dread for a few months and was good friends with his brother also. His brother showed me the location of the "private" swimming hole of their family, and it was indeed beautiful and very private. Over the years I went there many times; any time I was sure I wanted to be alone and completely undisturbed.
One of those occasions took place shortly after the cessation of my dating the brother. My separation from the brother was at times ugly and not amicable on his part. Also, I had been harassed persistently by my husband on several issues including romance and my business, for weeks. Additionally, Charlie, whom I had lived with years earlier and been deeply involved with prior to becoming friends with my husband, had returned to Negril and was trying to rekindle our long dead flames. Not all old flames ketch quick, fyi.
But at this time all this static electricity was wearing me down and I was avoiding everyone and all the dramas so when I came in from Orange Bay to swim on the West End, I wanted to be invisible. The swimming hole was the perfect spot for that, if you sneaked in at the right time of day, before the pizza parlor was crowded with people who would see you in the area.
I had a bag with my ollllllld Nikon in a leather case, my bible and my worn copy of the Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, and a small lunch and towel. And, of course, my draw. I was set to spend the day in peace and isolation, meditating and absorbing the sun and the breeze and my thoughts running free with no conversation to carry or questions to answer. I had the makings of a PERFECT day.
I swam and smoked and sunned and thought and ate and read and swam and dozed off at the end. When I woke up on my flat stretch of rock I was very hot and decided to jump in the water for a few minutes, then head home. I rarely wore a watch in those days but I knew it was mid-afternoon and I needed to pick Calypso up at Green Island primary where she went to school. She hated riding the buses that were so crowded so I tried to pick her up often to spare her that ride. The children were always expected to stand, not sit, and some drivers did not stop for school children at all, because of the reduced fares.
I cooled off in the water for a few minutes and decided to get out of the glare of the sun. This particular swimming hole was a series of rocky outcroppings with narrow passages of water cutting in under the cliffs and opening up into lovely turquoise pools. One cave was fairly large, with a high ceiling, and ledges along its back wall, where I sometimes sat and relaxed in the cool darkness.
After a few minutes I decided to be responsible and not keep Calypso waiting, so I began to paddle out of the pool into the open sea but saw, a few feet ahead of me, that the water, from passage side to side across the opening of the cavern pool, was pink in color. I knew that was not normal so I swam over to a ledge and got out, peering into the water to understand what could turn it pink like that.
It took a couple minutes for my eyes to adjust to the twilight in the cave. Eventually I could see clearly into the water and what I saw chilled me. A few minutes earlier I had been about to swim into a mass of at least 300 translucent pink jellyfish! I thought about what could have happened had I received 100 stings or more, alone, at the bottom of the cliffs, in the water, in a cave, where no one could hear me or see me or even knew I was there.
I crawled along the outer permimeter ledge, a crescent shape shelf varying from a foot to four feet wide in the cave, looking for an opening in the teeming, writhing mass of poison that I could slip through and get back out of the cave and to my possessions and up the cliff ladder to my bike.
I was not fortunate, in that the entire mouth of the cave was filled with the things, and the cave pool itself was filling up as well. I dared not go back in the water. I considered how deep they might be, and could I possibly find an opening, take a big breath, and swim under them and out of the cave. As I considered that option a few of the gooey critters floated up near the edge of the water, and I could see the tendrils floating freely around and below them. I flashed back to Mexico, and the long blue tendril that had stung me there. I remembered learning that jellyfish tendrils can be as long as twenty feet.
Soon I reached the point, sitting there naked on the course cold rock, that my desperation to get out caused me to look the cave over well to see if there were any crawlspaces that might lead up to the top of the cliff. I would have been glad to even hit the West End road buck naked at that point, if that is where a tunnel came out. But I was spared that embarrasment, fortunately. No portal to the surface was evident in the cave.
So I was trapped, and of course, acknowledging that fact in my mind immediately caused me to be hungry and thirsty. I sat there for another 90 minutes approximately, and tried to use all that good zen I'd learned to pass the time without frustration or fear. I went back over, in my mind, the portions of the Prophet I'd read hours earlier, trying to find solace and my center in that. Nothing much worked, not completely anyway, and I was sweating there in that cool shady cave.
As the sun approached the horizon I began to ask myself if it got dark in the cave, how would I know if the jellyfish were still there? I asked myself why they were there in the first place. Food? Mating? None of it made sense and I was getting angry thinking about it. In retrospect I suppose fear created adrenilin and that led to anger.
Soon it was all but pitch in that cave and I decided I needed to figure out which I would fear more, being trapped in that cave in the dark all night with people worrying about me at home, or taking an insane leap of faith and getting as close to the opening as possible and jumping out as far as I could. I got to the point where it had been a half hour or so since I could see into the water to see if the jellyfish were still there. Then I realized I was sitting in water. Crap! Worser and worser!
There had been just short of a full moon the night before, I remembered, and it had been cloudy and windy as the sun was setting earlier. I realized the tide was coming in, and with the moon and little storm, my safe haven ledge could well disappear. I thought about this, fretting and imagining the worst, calculating my odds at 50/50 for getting out of this unharmed.
It must have been about nine o'clock when I finally mustered my courage just enough to try and jump out into the water near the mouth of the cave. I couldn't see a thing inside, but could clearly see the rocks and sea outside the cave, thanks to the full moon. It was going to be a total faith test, faith in God or Sisters Fate or some other unseen force that determines the outcomes of such events. I did not feel particularly good about myself, I am no saint for sure, and never considered myself deserving of any favors or protection by a higher Power, so I envisoned jumping smack dab into a pink blob and dying in miserable agony and I sunk below the surface. I have a morbid side.
But a little voice reminded me I had been in a hell of a lot of scrapes that should have been deadly or at least damaging and the Luck O the Irish (I am you realize) had held fast so far sooooo....oh heeeeeeell, I stood up and screamed Yaaaaaaa! and jumped out as far as I could toward the opening in the cave into....water. Cool, clean, crisp, wonderful, heavenly, pure, turquoise water.
For days I was so glad to be alive and noticing and commenting on every leaf, bird, caterpillar and peenie-wally had everyone thinking I was totally ravers, even though I had told them my jellyfish adventure.
that dark inside until the sun goes down
