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Jamaica
I've been in Salem, Runaway Bay near Ocho Rios on the north coast of the island for a couple of months and I am thoroughly enjoying the life here. I'm working as a diving instructor at the Club Caribbean and Club Ambience resorts. The diving is good. Nothing big, but beautiful corals, sponges and tropical fish in the most amazing variety of shape size and colour. Most of the people I take have never dived before and to see the wonder on their faces as they surface gives me one of the greatest feelings I know. Jamaica itself is a beautiful island, so green and lush with an incredible amount of wild flowers in a multitude of colours. The mountains that stretch almost directly from the coast are covered in dense tropical vegetation with waterfalls and rivers in jungle like, paradisical settings. The Caribbean Sea is gorgeous, warm, clear and calm turquoise water with beaches that dreams are made of. And the sun! Hot and inviting with clear blue skies. In the evening when the sun starts to set, the sky changes from blue to orange to red to purple and every hue in between. Sitting on the beach and watching this spectacle is something that can only be experienced to be believed. Then in the night time, when the stars come out and things get a bit cooler, Jamaica comes alive, the parties start and the fun begins.
I've invited some friends to come and visit for a cheap holiday in paradise. Dougie & Jenny have taken me up on this offer and will be coming out for a couple of weeks. I met Dougie and Jenny around Christmas 97 in Melbourne at the Hotel Backpack and we got on really well. Dougie is a typical northern lad, great fun, and Jenny is just lovely, a great girl. At the time we met in Melbourne, Dougie was with a girl called Amy, and Jenny, Amy's friend was travelling with them. I lost contact for a bit after Melbourne, and next thing I heard Amy was off the scene and Dougie and Jenny were buying a house together in England. A much better combination I feel! So with there arrival coming in the next few days I have a word with Briggie the Divemaster, and tell him I that I am going to do a barbecue when my friends arrive on Saturday and I'd love it if he and the other guys could come along. "Who be doin` da barbecue, mon" he asked me. "I'll be doing it, why do you ask" "I'd love to cook for you and your friends, I can do some Jamaican food for them, no problem mon" "Yeh mon", it doesn't take the white man long to slip into the Jamaican way of speaking! "that would be great" No problem, mon, I arrange evryt'ing, we lively up da place" Great, I know Briggie is an excellent cook, sometimes when he finishes work before me he'll get the keys to my place and cook me up something and leave it on the stove, I'll go home and I'd have an incredibly tasty Jamaican meal waiting for me when I finish work! The Jamaican's have some amazing food, I really never even thought about the cuisine when I first came here, but I was very pleasantly surprised.
Dougie & Jenny's are arriving today, I speak to Briggie about where I can get the barbecue grill from and what food he needs me to buy, he tells me; "No problem mon, I fix evryt'ing, evryt'ing Irie, mon" About 3 o'clock in the afternoon people start arriving at my apartment. I really do have the most amazing place. It is just outside the resort and has an enclosed courtyard about 20m square. In the courtyard are growing palm trees, banana trees, passion fruit trees, ivy, some beautiful flowering trees and bushes, it's a tropical paradise in itself! Some of the people that have arrived I don't think I have ever met before, but they all know me, introduce themselves and say that they have been told by Briggie to come along. That's fine by me, Briggie is a kind of leader in the town, he obviously has a lot of respect and people look up to him. Not only that, as soon as they get here they start working to get the place ready for tonight! The barbecue, basically an oil drum cut in half with hinges is brought in, food and beer start arriving. They rig up a table lamp over a tree branch as an outside light and use cardboard box as a rain guard - just in case! They are also very inventive people, not having much money, they manage to use pretty much everything that we would consider as scrap and turn it into something useful. The music system arrives with a pair of speakers that a rock band would be proud of and people are getting to work everywhere. I feel a bit like a spare part, but I'm not allowed to do anything! Dougie and Jenny arrive and I welcome them to Jamaica. By this time, the smell of the food is tantalising and it mixes with the smell of ganja that is more common than cigarettes here! The Red Stripe and Heineken are starting to flow. I do the introductions and everyone is immediately so welcoming and friendly. They are so pleased that Dougie & Jenny have come to visit their country and they begin to feel like honoured guests!
©Ian Picken 2004
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