Getting Back to Jamaica

This past July, I made my 4th trip to Jamaica, to stay and work for a week at a home for children up in the mountains -- approximately 2 hours northwest of Kingston. Overall this year, we had a very good week there. Our difficulties came primarily during our travels. N, a 16 year old from our church making her first visit, was traveling with only a green card for ID. She had no passport. Her parents insisted it would be fine. Sometimes it was, and sometimes it wasn't.

We had little trouble leaving from the airport closest to home, since N's step-mom convinced the bag check in people it was okay for her to travel with just the green card. It did take her 20 minutes to do that, however (and what she knew then, and never told us at the time, was that once when she traveled back from the Caribbean with N, they were detained overnight in Puerto Rico because of N's scanty documentation). Once we got to North Carolina it was a different matter. The descent into Charlotte was long and bumpy and made me quite nauseous. I spent most of that time breathing deeply and slowly and holding on to the seat in front of me, hoping not to vomit. I was regretting that can of spicy tomato juice I drank earlier -- it had seemed like such a good idea at the time! Once we landed, we had to scurry fast to our next gate, where our plane was already boarding. What I needed most was clean, cool, fresh air, but that was not possible in the airport. What I smelled was stale recycled inside air and diesel fumes. I kept walking, and tried not to think about it.

We got to our gate and lined up to board. I was almost to the door of the plane when another of our travelers called to me, telling me N, our 16 year old, was being refused boarding. So, several of us tromped back to help out with the situation.

N is native to the Caribbean nation of St. Lucia. She came to the States 6 years ago to join her dad, step-mom, and half sisters. She was already talking to him on D's cell phone, and I could hear his deep, emotional voice from where I stood talking to the woman behind the counter. I told her N was cleared at the first airport. She told me the first airport dropped the ball and they were sending her back. Five of us from our group stood there looking at the woman, and she refused to look back at any of us. She did consent to call a supervisor, as we were not going away, a large group of us, holding up the plane. N asked me to talk to her dad. He was irate, but in a nice way, insisting she could travel just on her green card. I replied in frustrated yet consoling tones. What could I do? I wished I could hand the phone to the airline employee and let him harangue her. But, she was busy talking to her supervisor. Who said that Yes, N could fly on her green card. Yay!!! So off we went.

Everything went smoothly for N after that. She passed through customs in Jamaica with no problem, though others of our group weren't so lucky, and we had to wait for them while they answered innumerable questions about our plans and destination. We spent the time admiring the changes to Sangster International Airport, most of them begun when the Cricket World Cup was played in various Caribbean nations 2 years ago.

Finally we were all together again, all 9 of us, and we got our bags, and then had only the last hurdle to clear, getting those big bags full of donations and supplies inspected and approved. Some of us got through easily, some of us not. I did not. The woman who inspected the big bag I carried full of donated clothing, balls, crayons, pens and candies insisted I unpack everything. This was a very large green canvas duffel. She had me unwrap every bag, open up the boxes of crayons, and explain to her what we planned to do with these items. Were we selling them? What was their value? And I sweetly, albeit obsequiously-- in the hopes that'd gain me a measure of mercy (it didn't) -- explained the items were donated, for the ORPHANS, as gifts to them.

Finally we came to a box of ballpoint pens. What are these, she wanted to know. Pens, I told her, purple ball point pens. Purple!? she exclaimed, I need blue. (I had already seen her take away some toys from the suitcase of the Jamaican family who had preceded me in the line -- for her grandkids?)

And so it went, until finally she signed the paper and let me through, leaving me with lots of clothing, balls, and crayons all disassembled and falling all over and needing to be somehow put back into the duffel.

My predicament was proving to be somewhat of a spectator sport for the younger members of our group, who watched me struggle but did not lend a hand. Finally, B, the group leader, came over and helped me. She had had her own problems in her own line because W, the man traveling with us, had gotten angry and nasty with the custom's people. But finally! Off we went, outside into the heat and air that smelled like burning plastic, hazy smoke hanging low over the hills rising up from the coast at Montego Bay. The area outside the airport doors is always crowded with people. I love it. I love Jamaica. I love how there are always people everywhere, hanging out, talking on cell phones, eating, being.

We found Peat, our bus driver, loaded up, and off we went. Our trip went smoothly on the newly resurfaced and paved Queen's Highway that traverses the northern shore of the island (another legacy of the World Cup). B wanted to stop at the food market in Ocho Rios (Ochi), and so after several hour's drive time, we pulled into the familiar parking lot beside the Straw Market and went over to General Foods. B wanted to get popcorn and oil and a few other food items. I followed along, always happy to check out the stuff in the store. B was already in that place of losing her mind and I already had no patience for it, despite my best intentions to be a support to her. Every suggestion made to her to help her resolve perceived difficulties was met with 5 or 6 reasons why that would't work either. She is always that way. I knew it but already couldn't deal with it, and yet, thankfully, M, 21 and full of youthful vigor, was up to the challenge. She replied to B's whining with the same answers I had already given B and B had already shot down, and I snickered to myself while also admiring M's efforts. Finally B decided that she had to have a certain size bag of popcorn and that market simply did not have it. Maybe Seow's across the street would have that certain size bag.

So. N and M and B and I all tromped across the busy street to Seow's. I really didn't want to go in and decided to wait out front with the bags of oil B had bought at General Foods. N decided to stay with me and M accompanied B. As N and I stood there, watching the busy life of Ochi going by, a young beggar woman, dressed like a boy, smelling of pee, and seeming fairly mentally ill to my eye, insisted we give her money. Just give her some money so she can get a patty. I kept apologizing and saying no, I had no money (white! American! of course you have money! who are you trying to fool! was what was in her eyes). This went round and round until another woman came over and told the young begging woman to leave us alone. To go away and leave us alone. She went away down the street a bit.

I decided to cross the street and stand someplace else to wait for B and M. The woman who helped us had also crossed over and I thanked her. She told me that the young beggar woman would have finally begun taking off all her clothes to get us to give her money. And she was still there, across the street, watching us, and following us. With the clear instinct of the crazy, she knew she had unnerved me. I decided to go stand by the bus. B and M would find us there, and B would simply have to understand why we walked away from Seow's.

I felt a little guilty about not giving the woman any money. And this guilt tagged along with me as I walked back to the bus and was met by a drunken, angry vendor from the Straw Market. He insisted I come in and look at his wares. I said No (again!) and he harangued and harassed for for a little bit. I looked him in the eye and answered him very directly and he got angrier and I got scared but I wasn't backing down. Finally he abruptly shifted his focus away from me to D, a woman in her early 40s from the other church, and he was nice to her! Why wasn't he nice to me? I had had it. All tangled up in crazy emotions, tired from being up since 3am and traveling all day into now the early evening, being sick and all the rest of it, I got into the bus to hide.

B never found the 'right' sized bag of popcorn she wanted, but M convinced her to buy what was there. They returned and gave me a funny look for going away. When I explained why, I felt like they didn't believe me. But my emotions were all messed up by then, and probably my judgment was a bit skewed too. We sat awhile longer there in Ochi, way longer than we had planned to, while B and some others tried to get the cell phone to work. It never did work, not in the way she wanted it to. We couldn't call anyone in Jamaica, only back home in the States. Not that she ever let us use it!

But sitting there for what felt like forever made us late for getting to the children's home. Much of the drive was in the darkness, and once we turned up into the mountains at Port Maria, the road became very, very windy and bumpy. As usual. Usually it doesn't bother me. M has the problem with motion sickness, but she was well dosed on Dramamine. As the journey in the darkness progressed, I started feeling sick again, sick like I had felt on the plane. That really was a wonder to me, because it had never happened before. I couldn't figure out why it suddenly bothered me so much, but I felt progressively sicker and sicker, despite my attempts at deep, slow breathing and staying very still. I finally got to a point where I was deciding where I would vomit: in my denim shirt? In my carry on? Wasn't there a puke bucket under a seat somewhere?

And then good sense somehow prevailed and I simply asked Peat to stop the bus because I felt sick. So he did. And I got out and sat on these concrete steps that smelled of dog pee and bus exhaust and thought, This isn't much better, is it?

But at least I wasn't moving anymore. I gathered myself as best I could, and then got back on the bus. There was a small building just up ahead where Peat said he could get me some over-proof rum if I wanted, and I could rub it on my head, it would make me feel better. Mostly the suggestion made me laugh. I told him if he got me rum I certainly would not rub it on my head. He continued to speak consolingly and calmly to me in his beautiful smooth voice, in his good natured way. We were actually only about 10 minutes away from the children's home and seeing the familiar lights and pale colored limestone gravel driveway distracted my mind away from my nausea and lifted my heart up high. We were there! I felt happy; I felt excited, eager to see cherished friends, and to make new ones.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai