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Jamaican Soul

A Journey into the heart of the island

Jill Stein

Siddha boarded the plane single-file with the other passengers, walking two-thirds the way down the aisle until she found her seat in 18-C. She crammed her bag into the overhead compartment and took her seat by the window. She watched as the other passengers continued to fill the seats on the plane. Young couples sat hand in hand, and many of the older couples appeared to have taken this flight before. Mothers and fathers were busy getting their children settled for take-off, then settling into their own seats as they tried to relax for the journey ahead.

As the flight attendants began to do their cabin inspections, there was an intangible energy on the plane that Siddha was familiar with, that she usually lived for. It was the energy that comes right before embarking on a new adventure, the intoxicating allure of the unknown and the escape from the safety of everyday life. It was this electricity that Siddha had been following around the world, searching for the next travel high like an illusive drug. Her “itchy feet” had been making her major life decisions for her for years now, forgoing the more traditional career routes for temporary gigs that would satisfy her need for travel. Many of her friends, and especially her parents, still could not understand her need to live such a “nomadic lifestyle,” wondering when she would finally settle down and get a real job and start doing all the things a grown-up woman should be doing.

There was something still so alluring to Siddha, though, about hitting the open road with nothing other than the contents of your backpack and an attitude that embraces anything and everything unknown. She had learned a lot since she first started traveling. Thinking back to her first foreign travel experiences made her cringe a little. She had been so clueless in so many ways. Older and wiser now, with the battle scars to prove it, Siddha really took her presence in other peoples’ countries seriously. She knew the significance of her fortune, being an educated white woman from the United States. She was aware that her passion for travel was a luxury provided by her birthright.

Siddha had become involved in various capacities with the recent tourism movements that had been gaining momentum over the past decade,

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coined under labels such as “eco, sustainable, community, or pro-poor tourism.” These niche sectors promoted more conscious travel and aimed to keep the economic benefits in the hands of the local businesses, rather than the mass tourism corporations, and support the social and environmental health of destination communities. It was her interest in this growing field that had led to her current job, actually. She had heard of a new travel publication that focused on destinations that were working within these models, getting the word out about who was doing it right and how. Siddha got in touch with the editor and, next thing she knew, she was boarding a plane for Jamaica to do her first major feature on the ecotourism destination of Green Castle Estate, in the rural town of Robin’s Bay.

Siddha had to chuckle at the unpredictability of life. Jamaica had always been a place she had wanted to visit, but the right opportunity had never presented itself. Its complexity, the mix of African and Caribbean cultures, the social and political upheavals set against the dramatic tropical backdrop fascinated her. Jamaica was one of the clearest examples Siddha could imagine of how fragmented the experiences of tourists could be from the reality of the country’s citizens. At least, so she had heard. Her editor wanted her to discover the “real” Jamaica through the lens of small Robin’s Bay, one of the last remaining undeveloped areas on the island. Siddha was supposed to get to know as many local folks as she could in her short week’s stay, and find out how they felt about tourism coming into the area. It was a challenging assignment, and Siddha was both excited and nervous.

As the plane made a rocky landing into the Montego Bay Sangster International Airport, Siddha drew in a sharp breath as she took in the view outside her small window. The ocean expanded as far as the eye could see, and it was a pure deep blue with pockets of green and aqua. It was beautiful. She felt the plane fill with that electric energy again, as everyone anticipated the beginning of their limited time in this magical place.

Siddha exited the plane and headed for immigration. As she and most of her plane-mates cruised through the process, Siddha noticed the long slow-moving line comprised of Jamaican natives. It reminded her of a section of a book she once read called A Small Place. A native of nearby Antigua

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named Jamaica Kincaid wrote it, and its acerbic words often ran through Siddha’s mind whenever she entered a foreign country.

“You disembark from the plane. You go through customs. Since you are a tourist, a North American or European—to be frank, white—and not an Antiguan black returning to Antigua from Europe or North America with cardboard boxes of much needed cheap clothes and food for relatives, you move through customs swiftly, you move through customs with ease. Your bags are not searched. You emerge from customs into the hot, clean air: immediately you feel cleansed, immediately you feel blessed (which is to say special); you feel free.” (Kincaid, 1988).

Siddha quickly found the Island Rental Car booth where she had reserved her car for the week. She followed one of the gentlemen outside, where the first wave of tropical air hit her. It felt good, she felt good. Three men were attending the parking lot and helped her find her car, a new-looking Toyota Yaris.

“Yuh driving alone, Miss” one of the men asked Siddha with a smile.“Yes, I am” she responded.“Remember a stay on ti left side a ti road!” another of the men said

pleasantly.“Thanks, I’ll try. Any other advice?” Siddha asked.The man demonstrated a kind of wave or salute. “If ti driver opposite

of yuh do dat, it means ti police are nearby.”Siddha thanked the men, got into the car and took a few deep breaths.

She had driven on the left side of the road before, but it had been awhile. She got out her map and found Robin’s Bay up the eastern coastline in St. Ann’s Parish, one of the fourteen parishes that divided the island into separate regions. All Siddha had to do was follow the newly built North Coast Highway, and she’d be at Green Castle Estate in about four hours. She took a deep breath, waved goodbye to the three Jamaicans who were still watching her with amusement, and pulled the car out of the lot.

Once she found her way out of the airport, Siddha relaxed a little. She rolled down her windows, turned up the reggae music coming out of her radio speakers, and tried to absorb as much of the sights around her as she concentrated on driving through Montego Bay. Jamaican drivers were notoriously aggressive, she had been told, and so she was only mildly

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horrified as vehicles passed one another on the two-lane two-way highway, missing oncoming traffic by only milliseconds.

As she wound her way up the North Coast Highway between Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, Siddha saw all the various resorts that most of her plane-mates were probably checking into right now. Only the large gates marking the entrances could be seen, and Siddha knew that most of the visitors would never leave the compound since the vacation packages were strategically structured to keep guests on the property. These types of resorts had claimed the most beautiful parts of the Jamaican shoreline, which is largely what has kept Jamaican tourism such a popular export for over fifty years. The privatization of the most pristine and special lands on the island no doubt created feelings of hostility towards the tourism industry, and perhaps the tourists themselves, Siddha thought. Visitors who came to Jamaica got to enjoy the best beaches on the island, while many of the native Jamaicans would never spend time on those same beaches, unless of course they worked for one of the resorts. It was this disparity that drove Siddha crazy. Again, she was haunted by the words from another passage in A Small Place,

“That the native does not like the tourist is not hard to explain. For every native of every place is a potential tourist, and every tourist is a native of somewhere…Every native would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, every native would like a tour. But some natives—most natives in the world—cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is the place you, the tourist, want to go—so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you…”

Yet, something told Siddha after all her years of travel experiences that this critique was not entirely accurate, either. Tourism is, after all, one of the biggest sources of employment for Jamaicans and has been a major source of economic stability and identity for the island. She knew there was really only one way to get the real picture of Jamaican sentiment towards tourism—talking to people and experiencing the island with her eyes wide open. She started to think about the week ahead and map out key themes she wanted to cover for her article when BAM, she heard her tire blow out.

“Shit, shit, SHIT!” Siddha screamed out loud.She felt the tire rumble beneath her as she steered the car around the

narrow curve and onto the bridge leading into a small village. Thank God, she

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thought, as she passed the sign entering the town of Port Maria. It was late afternoon, almost five o’clock, and the streets were filled with people. She managed to pull the car into a service station as the Jamaicans around her pointed at the crazy white lady with the blown out tire, which was undoubtedly received from not knowing how to drive on the left side of the road. Siddha was pretty unnerved and exited the car shakily.

“That’s pretty bad,” an older woman who seemed to manage the place said to her sympathetically. “Yuh driving alone?” she asked.

“Yes,” Siddha answered. “Is there any way you could help me replace the tire with my spare?”

“Sure, darling. Yuh a brave girl,” she replied. She went over to two men sitting on the station’s curb and they came over to Siddha’s car. She found the tools and spare tire from the trunk, and thanked them profusely as they began to remove the flat tire. So much for an experienced professional, she thought to herself.

As the men changed her tire, she chatted with the woman. She was a small lady, probably in her early 60s, and looked to be half Asian and half Jamaican. She told Siddha that one of the best and only grocery stores between here and Robin’s Bay was just down the street. Siddha waited until the men finished, paid and thanked them again, and then started off again towards the HiLo grocery store.

The grocery store was an interesting experience. Siddha was surprised to see so many foreign imported items, from the South American produce to her favorite brand of soymilk and organic pizza that she ate in the States. All those items were incredibly expensive, at least double what she would have paid for them back home. She wondered who actually bought these items and, subsequently, how long they had been sitting on the shelves. As she perused the aisles, Siddha started to get an idea of some of the Jamaican diet staples. Starches were important, as was chicken. Two bread products were in many people’s baskets, one called bulla that looked like bagels (though the main flavor was ginger) and another called spice cake that looked like a cinnamon roll or pound cake. Stacked right beside the spice cake, though, were slices of Velveeta-style cheese, and an advertisement placed next to

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both showed them together as a sandwich. She noticed there was no milk, and overall a general lack of fresh foods. Instead the store seemed to favor of packaged or processed items, high in fats and sugar. Siddha wondered if this was specific to this grocery store or if this was a trend in the Jamaican diet. Isn’t this a tropical climate, though? She wondered. Where were all the fruits she expected to see?

Only later did Siddha come to learn that the tropical fruits were available, mostly at stands on the side of the road. The enormously high taxes that the World Bank and IMF had put on Jamaican-grown goods made it more economical for larger grocery stores like HiLo to import foreign items than to sell Jamaican ones. She also would come to learn through her visits to two different health clinics that the high starch and sugar diet popular with Jamaicans had resulted in an epidemic of obesity and diabetes that was completely knew to the island within the past three decades. Conversations she had concerning the topic pointed to the influence of processed foods into the marketplace at extremely low prices. Jamaicans were becoming vastly more isolated from their food sources, just as Siddha knew the U.S. population was.

Siddha made her purchases with her new stack of Jamaican currency and hurried back to her car. The sun was getting low in the sky and she wanted to make it to Green Castle before dark. The streets of Port Maria were alive with activity with children playing, many with their school uniforms still on, and adults were socializing on the sidewalks or selling various items to one another. Music was blasting and Siddha remembered that it was Friday night. She made her way back to the main road and continued on.

Siddha finally found the road to turn off on just as the sun went down. It was barely marked, with only a small sign for one of the older hippie hotels in the area called Strawberry Fields Forever marking the entrance to Robin’s Bay. Once off the main highway, the road immediately deteriorated to a series of deep potholes. Siddha saw the sign indicating Green Castle and turned onto an even smaller dirt road. She wound her way up the dramatic landscape towards the top of a hill and gave Angie, the manager, a call on

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her cell phone. Once Siddha neared the top of the hill, she spotted Angie and two young children who were wildly waving their arms.

“Siddha!” they yelled.She parked the car and got out. “Hi guys, I made it!” she responded enthusiastically.Almost immediately, the two blond-haired children, who introduced

themselves Reed and Salina, swept her up into some sort of freeze-tag game. Angie showed Siddha to her new home for the week, which was called the Education House since school groups who came to study the ecology of Green Castle usually stayed there instead of the fancier and more expensive Estate House which on the other side of the property. The electricity had blown out earlier that day (like her tire, Siddha thought) so Angie helped her light candles before leaving her for her own house which was only about a two minute walk away.

Siddha was exhausted. She quickly brought her things inside and placed them in the small bedroom. She changed into her pajamas, found her way to the dimly lit bathroom, and then happily settled into her bed. As she spread the delicate mosquito net hanging above her around the perimeters of the twin frame, she let the reality of the day’s events set in. She could already feel herself falling in love with this country, its landscape, people, and culture. Friday night was alive down in Robin’ bay as well it seemed, and as she fell asleep she could feel the pulse of reggae music from at least ten miles away. She couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

In the morning, Siddha took the bumpy ride into town. She realized that the smooth highway she had drove on yesterday was not representative of the countrywide road conditions. It seemed suspicious to Siddha that the highway connected to all the major tourism destinations on the island. Of course, native Jamaicans also benefited from the highway, but it was clear by the potholed road she was driving on now that infrastructure needs were placed on a hierarchy.

Angie had given her instructions on how to get to Bob & Adrienne Lockett’s home. They were the two Peace Corps volunteers in Robin’s Bay,

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and would be two of her main contacts and sources of information for the week. The village of Robin’s Bay was small and poor, but teeming with life and charm. The houses were simple and often made of recycled materials, but they looked sturdy and able to withstand the elements. Siddha knew that within the past decade hurricanes had come through the area and left significant amounts of damage. There were two small schools, two churches, and a soccer field that had goats grazing on it. Behind the town laid the bay, which was not the white-sand beaches of Ocho Rios or Negril, but was rugged and dramatic with jagged rocks jutting up out of the shoreline and waves crashing into them violently. It was incredibly striking, and Siddha could understand the allure that this special part of Jamaica had over its residents and visitors alike.

She went left at the fork in the road and headed up the hill. She saw the blue trash can that indicated the Eslam house, the host family whom Bob & Adrienne were staying with. They were out waiting in the driveway to meet her.

“Hi There, Siddha!” a tall, thin older white man yelled out. His wife also looked to be in her later fifties, with curly brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. They were both dressed casually in shorts and t-shirts and sipping water from plastic bottles.

Siddha parked the car, turned off the engine, and walked over to greet the couple. At the same time, three Jamaicans exited the house dressed in suits and dresses. The elderly gentleman and his wife must be Bob & Adrienne’s host family, Siddha thought.

“Siddha, this is Ali and Dolcie Eslam, and their niece Dorothy,” Bob said, “And we are Bob & Adrienne Lockett.”

“So nice to meet you all, thank you so much for taking the time to show me around,” Siddha answered.

“Bob and I are going to stay here,” Adrienne said, “but we thought you might want to accompany the Eslams to their church service down the road. It is an interesting way to experience an important part of Jamaican culture, and not many visitors are allowed in, or think to check one out. Luckily, Ali here is the leader of the church.”

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“We would be happy to have you,” the kind elderly man added.“I would love to attend the service, can I offer you a ride in the car?”

Siddha asked.“That would be wonderful,” Dorothy replied, “It is so hot here!” It really

was. It was barely 9am and Siddha guessed it already had to be over 90 degrees.

Siddha could already tell that Dorothy was a firecracker. Dorothy had grown up in Robin’s Bay but had always dreamed of acquiring a premium education that she felt she could not receive in her native country. She had left Jamaica to study in England and had quickly learned to speak several languages, making a career for herself as an English teacher. She was currently teaching English to wealthy businesspeople in Germany and had recently married a German man. She had not been home in some time, and Siddha could tell that she was very emotional about her homecoming experience.

When they arrived at the 7th Day Adventist Church down the road, Ali and Dolcie went into the main part of the building while Dorothy suggested the two of them check out the children’s section around the back. Siddha could hear the voices of children singing church hymnals. They sat down at one of the small benches and Mrs. Smith, the woman who was leading the children, welcomed them in. Dorothy and she obviously knew one another from childhood, and Dorothy began to cry as she sang along with the children.

“It is exactly like I remember it,” she said as she linked her arm around Siddha’s.

After about an hour singing and joining along in the Saturday school lesson, Siddha and Dorothy joined Ali and Dolcie in the main church hall. It was a simple parish, and was clean, white, bright, and set on top of a hill with a lovely view of the sea. A calm breeze rippled through the aisles, which was a welcome reprieve from the sweltering heat, especially considering the fact that everyone was dressed in suit coats and dresses.

Siddha definitely stuck out as the only white person in the room, just as she had been in the children’s room. The parish was quite full of adults of

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all ages, from teenagers to the very elderly. There were hymnal books, but barely anyone but Dorothy and Siddha had to use them, which Siddha took as an indicator that the attendees were regular churchgoers and/or perhaps illiterate. Dorothy talked quietly to Siddha through the whole service, which was stretching into four hours at that point. She seemed completely oblivious to the glares she was getting from the pastor’s wife.

Siddha liked how they had split into small groups to discuss a lesson from the Bible. Dorothy whispered to her how most of the older people in the room were completely uneducated, in formal terms, but how coming here to church gave them the opportunity to engage in learning and feel confident in offering their own opinions into the discussions. Ali Eslam led Siddha’s small group discussion, and she was touched by the warmth and love from which he spoke, and the obvious respect between him and the other group members. Siddha clearly saw that this church congregation was a community, and she felt fortunate to be participating in their ritual.

When the small groups broke and become whole again, the children from the back room also joined the congregation. One of the younger members told an animated parable, speaking in thick Patois that Siddha could barely understand.

“You know, if they would only master the English language, they could do so much better for themselves,” Dorothy whispered in her ear, her own accent ringing more colonial English than Caribbean. “Jamaican Patois is an illiterate language, left over from slavery, and they give themselves away as uneducated people when they continue to speak it instead of proper English,” Dorothy went on to say.

Siddha was not sure what to think of Dorothy’s insight, as she could tell that her comments came from empathy rather than judgment. Dorothy had made a very good career for herself in Europe based solely on her linguistic abilities. It seemed understandable that she would be acutely aware of the use of language in describing the Jamaican condition.

Patois to other Jamaicans, though, was a source of liberation rather than oppression. English was the language of the colonizer, and many Jamaicans believed that Patois was a pure language, full of raw power and

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emotive expression. Dorothy took obvious pleasure in pointing out the spoken patterns of the Jamaican dialect to Siddha, pointing out things like the replacement of the “th” sound for “ti.” Words like “something” became “someting” or “thief” became “tief.” Siddha liked the sound of the raw Patois. When the gentleman telling the parable said something like, “Lickle bit a brains can gi big mout trouble,” Dorothy translated it to mean, “Don’t be someone you’re not.” Siddha hoped she could learn some Patois by the end of the week, though the words sounded embarrassingly foreign coming out of her mouth.

After the service, the Eslams invited Siddha back to their home for lunch. She stopped by the little cottage out back to ask Bob and Adrienne if that was OK with them. They told her to go ahead, as it was actually not very common to be invited to Jamaicans’ homes for a meal, at least in their experience. They had been in Robin’s Bay for almost an entire year and could count on one hand the number of times anyone from the community had invited them over. Siddha went back to the Eslam’s house and helped Dolcie and Dorothy set the table.

They had a traditional Jamaican meal of rice and peas and salad, though the dish that would usually have been chicken was actually a meat substitute creation. Ali had been a vegetarian for years, and Dolcie said she had to fill her suitcase with the type of tofu he preferred when they visited their daughter, a lawyer in South Beach, Florida. The four of them discussed various topics about Jamaican life and culture, and Siddha was spellbound as Ali quietly spoke with great wisdom about what changes he had seen over the span of his years, as well as what has maintained the same. They moved to the States for a while, he told her, but they had missed their native land too much and had returned for retirement. Ali told Siddha how special he thought Robin’s Bay was, and Dorothy agreed with tears in her eyes. He said it was one of the only places that had remained relatively unchanged over the past decades, and maintained a strong community bond where people genuinely looked out for one another. He thought there were problems, smaller things like the incredibly loud music that constantly shook the town each evening, to larger issues like the staggering unemployment that

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plagued the area as the economy moved away from its historical agriculture base.

Green Castle had been a large employer for their papaya industry, which was at one point the largest exporter of the fruit on the island. After a virus wiped them out in 1996, though, they decided to go organic and not try to institute the crop again, which did not fare well organically. Green Castle switched owners not long after to a British gentleman named Richard Padgett who has envisioned a different focus for the nearly 1,700 acres piece of land. A developer by trade, he bought Green Castle as more of a labor of love than to create a wildly profitable product. Green Castle can currently hold around a dozen visitors in its Estate House, and Richard hopes to develop a portion of the land using a sustainable development model that will accommodate higher-end visitors for vacations, as well as some condo-type properties to buy. In working with Angie and her husband, Joe Dickenson, Richard has agreed to set aside the majority of the unspoiled Green Castle land as a kind of land trust. It will become a permanent part of the Green Castle Tropical Study Center, and draw in additional groups of visitors to study the diverse endemic species of flora and fauna on the property. Birding was already becoming a popular attractor to the Estate, since Bob and Adrienne had personally cataloged over 100 species on the property.

All of this sounded like the real deal to Siddha. She knew that 100% of the employees Angie and Joe hired were local to Robin’s Bay. There were not as many jobs now as there had been during Green Castle’s farming and ranching heyday, but the jobs were good ones and genuinely relied upon the skills and knowledge of local Jamaican culture and traditions. Siddha knew that Angie and Joe were extremely experienced world travelers (they had actually met while serving as Peace Corps volunteers in Kenya about 20 years ago), and that they also deeply believed in the value of authenticity of place and community-based development initiatives. Siddha knew how prevalent “green-washing” was in the tourism industry these days, and it was often quite hard for the consumer to know who was actually committed to providing environmental, social, and economic benefits to local communities.

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Siddha knew that the nearby hotel of Strawberry Fields Forever had been promoting themselves as an eco destination as well. At first glance, they also seemed to be getting it right. They had a good reputation among their clients, having been around for over forty years as an old hangout in the 1970s of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and the Beatles. Only after Siddha spoke with the local Rastafarians that were employed there and talked in detail with the young Swiss intern who was working there for the past couple of months did she find out that the owner was engaged in deceptive and dishonest business practices. Upon hearing this, Siddha had renewed resolve in her role at her latest place of employment, getting the word out to travelers on how to critically analyze their destination choices and highlight places like Green Castle Estate who were putting in the hard, honest labor to do it right.

After lunch, Siddha chatted with Bob and Adrienne in the backyard, which was on a hill overlooking the tropical forest. Most of the land they could see was actually technically Green Castle property; Green Castle extended to practically all parts of Robin’s Bay. They discussed the past year as Peace Corps volunteers in Jamaica, and specifically their experience in Robin’s Bay. They acknowledged how lucky they were to be placed on the beautiful Caribbean island, but expressed the overwhelming challenges that come with being in a place where first world development often crashes with third world realities. They had a hard time explaining to friends and family back home just how vastly foreign the Jamaican culture really was, and how they still felt completely mystified by some of the behaviors they witnessed each day. Bob spoke to Siddha,

“Is life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica so hard? The pendulum of our emotions here swings over a wide arc: snorkeling in the clear, warm waters just a ten minute walk from our house, or participating in a work meeting where real progress is made can leave us positively euphoric. Day-to-day life here is not really hard, but it’s wearing. The government is in crisis, infrastructures are crumbling, the people constantly challenged by increasing prices and no job opportunities. "Smalling-up" in taxis and buses continue to be a tedious way to travel. The contrast between the high-end tourist world and the reality of most Jamaicans’ lives makes daily life rather crazy-making. We personally haven’t had any tremendously bad experiences—no serious harassment, no theft—but living in a culture that is simultaneously warmly friendly and callously uncaring can easily lead to a numbness and cynicism that is far from healthy. As the ex-patriot head of a nonprofit recently expressed it to us, you have to be able to recharge your own batteries here; work and community life will only drain you. It

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makes us all the more appreciative that we’re doing our Peace Corps assignment together, and more in awe of those who serve singly.”

Adrienne nodded her head in agreement.

“Bob and I sometimes have to ask ourselves; have we accomplished anything over this past year? Although we’ve gained a more jaundiced view of the impact of foreign aid monies, we’re still convinced that the kind of aid Peace Corps brings in the form of volunteerism and relationship building is of value. Among PC volunteers and staff, there is much debate centered on the notion of sustainability--how much of what we do has lasting value? It’s impossible to answer that question, but we suspect what will most endure are changes that affect individuals rather than institutions.”

Siddha listened as the couple described the initiatives they had taken on that year. They had, indeed, accomplished things. They had initiated a recycling program for plastic bottles and created marketing materials and small business advice to local artists in the community. They did significant work with the Green Castle birding project, cataloging different species, training two local men as future bird guides, and contacting birding organizations and universities across the U.S. to encourage the use of Green Castle as a living learning laboratory. Their two largest projects have been in the form of a community development project and an environmental summer camp. The $2,800 U.S-AID grant to “beautify Robin’s Bay” is a work in progress that will encompass beach clean-ups, sprucing up the main public area, and installing community needs like signage, bulletin boards, benches, and pathways.

They saw an opportunity last summer to get to know more of the folks in the village by creating and leading an eight week environmentally-themed summer camp for around 50 kids from the local primary school. As there are only about 90 students total in the primary school, this was a high turnout and similar enrollment, if not more, is expected in 2010. The eight-week program has one session per week, which starts at 8:30am and ends at 3pm. Five junior counselors from the village were hired and trained, as well as four senior counselors with teaching experience. Campers were divided into five different “houses,” each being balanced by age and gender. The original mission statement of the camp was to

“Promote environmental awareness among the children by teaching them about their natural world; the value of conservation, taking care of their community, and helping the children gain an overall understanding of how our actions impact our environment…”

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These goals were supported through activities designated by weekly themes, such as Geography: Learning About Our World or Agriculture: Plants and Animals that Feed Us. Four field trips were taken to nearby locations like Green Castle and Jack’s Bay Beach, which assisted in applying real life experiences to the curriculum. Bob and Adrienne do not have a background in primary education, so while they feel as though it is definitely not a prefect program yet, they were very excited about the positive feedback that they received from the campers at the end of the summer.

“One little girl,” Adrienne told Siddha, “told me it was the best summer of her life. Any amount of stress is worth that, right?”

Siddha said goodbye to Bob and Adrienne and started her decent down the hill and back to Green Castle. It was late afternoon by now, and she saw that the jerk chicken stand that stood on the corner in Robin’s Bay on weekends was just getting set up. She decided to wait and watch the chef, Marlin, grill the chicken she had heard so much about. He also was preparing three different soups in large metal pots. They smelled and looked extremely interesting.

“What kind of soups do you have?” Siddha asked.“Chicken foot soup, Fish Soup, and Mannish Water,” Marlin replied.“What is Mannish Water?” she asked.“Goat’s head soup.” He told her.Siddha settled on fish soup and a chicken breast and wing. While she

waited for Marlin to grill the chicken in his big metal barrel, she sat on the street curb next to an older Rastafarian man. Siddha knew a little about Rastafarianism, but had greatly been looking forward to talking to one here on the island. He was extremely open to Siddha’s questioning and, while he smoked the sacramental marijuana, explained to her the Rastafarian philosophy and lifestyle. Her free-floating personality connected with the Rastafarian ideals of resistance of oppression and living in peace with nature. Siddha continued to have purposeful conversations with various Rastafarians throughout the week, and developed a feel for the divergence between

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viewpoints, some seeing the Movement as a way of life and other more traditionally as a religion.

The next few days flew by. Siddha felt like so many doors had been opened up for her, giving her an authentic view into the “Real Jamaica” she had hoped to find. She spent the afternoon at two different schools, the primary school in Robin’s Bay and the private elementary school named St. Ciprians that Angie and Joe’s children attended in a nearby town called Highgate. Reed and Salina were characters. They were true testaments to the resilience of children, as they were completely at home living in Jamaica as well as in Minnesota, where they recently had begun spending half the year. They had been showing Siddha all the different plants on the Green Castle property, which flowers smelled like garlic and what the pimento tree looked like, which is the spice native to Jamaica that made jerk seasoning so good. They ran around the grounds without shoes on, climbed trees, and caught massive fireflies. They were very open about talking about being different at school because of their skin color. While he showed her around the school grounds, Reed said to Siddha,

“I’m popular here at school because I’m white. It’s weird, all the girls want to touch my hair.”

Reed and Salina were good friends with the other two white children in the school, two sisters named Dora and Lydia who were the daughters of missionaries. They had been living in Jamaica for almost four years, like the Dickenson’s had, and would be returning soon to their hometown in Ohio as their mother prepared for her third child. Siddha sat and watched the 4th grade classroom that Salina and Dora were in, and chatted with their teachers, Mrs. Davis. Siddha had come at an interesting time, as the six grade students would be taking the very important exams that week that determined which secondary school they were allowed to attend.

Siddha was not sure if it was a coincidence or not, but the social studies unit that Mrs. Davis chose for that day was on the topic of tourism in Jamaica. Mrs. Davis seemed to disappear from the classroom all of a sudden and Siddha found herself teaching the class. The children and her discussed

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the questions posed in their book, such as “Is it important for visitors to feel safe in Jamaica? Is it good or bad for visitors to see social movements?” Some government or tourism officials might not want visitors seeing social movements, Siddha said to a small group of students, but others might think it is a good thing because it shows what it actually happening in the country. The kids gave reasons why tourism might be good for Jamaica, such as jobs or getting to know new people. They also suggested reasons why it might be bad, such as pollution or local people not getting to use the beaches or other natural attractions. At the end of the day, Siddha could barely leave the classroom from all the hugs she got from the kids, and she wished she had more time to spend on the island.

The end of the week came too soon for Siddha. As she packed up her things at the Education House, she reflected on all the breadth and depth of experiences she had had in such a short period of time. She had participated in so many unexpected activities, from painting the local restaurant a new shade of peach to driving the local nurse into town for her patients’ medications. She knew that she had only received the tip of the iceberg in terms of Jamaican culture, but that her and her editor’s hunches had been right about examining the country in terms of the benefits and limitations of tourism. Siddha knew she would be back again, and as she closed the door and headed for her car to begin the drive back to Montego Bay, she sang one of the traditional Jamaican songs she had learned.

“Mi nuh drink coffee tea mango timeCare how nice it may be mango timeIn the heat of the mango cropWhen di fruit dem a ripe an dropWash your pot, don’t need no, mango time”

A special thanks to Angie, Joe, Reed, & Salina Dickenson, Bob & Adrienne Lockett, Dwayne Swaby, Miss Dolly, Ben and Bev Smith, the Eslam

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family, and everyone in Robin’s Bay for their incredible hospitality and kindness.

Works CitedKincaid, J. (1988). A Small Place. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

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