Sunsets, Rum, Sand and Gizzadas 97 Days in Negril

Poor People in Negril #2

And then there was one, jus’ me. I saw the last of my peeps off last night, JT and The Triplets. Eleven have come, eleven have gone. I’m the last man standing. I miss them all. Many of them told me it was their best trip ever to Negril. Virtually all of them spoke of ‘next year’, and we made some plans already. Now that I’m alone I can cut back on the rum and Red Stripes. I’ll have time to do some writing and I can catch up on a novel that I’m into. I may rent a scooter and go out into the country.

Now, instead of sliding along in a comfortable groove, I feel like I’m riding my mountain bike along a really sweet section of alpine single-track, with steep rocky drop-offs on both sides. The ride is exhilarating, the scenery breathtaking, but one errant move and I’ll be over the side, tumbling arse over tea-kettle, never to be seen or heard from again. But the trail ahead beckons, if I’m careful I can stay on it and ride it forever. If I keep following it I could lose myself in Jamaica.

“Whatever happened to Kahuna?” people might ask. “He moved to Jamaica and went off-line. Someone thought they saw him last year, they say he’s gone Jamaican.” It could happen.

I think I now understand why some people come here to visit and eventually end up staying. But it’s like walking a tightrope, like riding a sweet section of high-alpine single-track. It takes skill, some luck and you gotta be careful.
Only four days left. I leave late Friday night.

I talk to Bea at least once a day. She asked me, “Do you feel like you're on Survivor? You have out played, been out bitten, out drunk, out swam, out walked, and now out stayed everyone.”

Here are some more thoughts on poverty in Negril.

Like many repeat visitors to Negril, we pick people who we know (Jamaicans) to be the direct recipients of our ‘charity’. I use the term loosely, because I don’t feel that it’s charity, more like direct-giving to a friend who really needs some help. Once you get to know someone here and realize the limited options they have and how little income they can earn, it just comes naturally to help them out.

The usual form of ‘help’ is cash, in the form of a large tip or tips or an intentional overpayment for services or goods. Money is most appreciated, but sometimes, when it’s not appropriate to give money, food, drink or articles are gifted.
When Bea and I were staying in Redground, our walk down into town from our place took us by a run-down vacated block building behind a concrete wall that was occupied by a couple of guys who were living there in a form of urban camping. There was and older gentleman who had fallen on hard times and a younger guy who was lost to the world, the apparent victim of a serious drug addiction. Often when we passed, the younger guy, dressed in worn and dirty clothing, would be sitting motionless, staring, vacant eyed, off into his own personal reality.

The older man, clearly in a hard situation himself, looked after the younger guy as best he could; cooking for him over a campfire and arranging for shelter in the crumbling structure.

Bea and I regularly provided the guys with food. We brought them rice, beans, bulla bread, oranges, etc. For Christmas we added some sorrel and a few beers. The older gent, who was very articulate, was always profusely thankful. One day he held my hand a little longer and said, “It is not my request, because you have been kind, but it would be my wish that one day you could bring me a little drink. You know, our life here is stressful and a man needs a drink from time to time.”

“JB?” I asked.

He nodded and smiled.



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Very nice of you and Bea to help out the less fortunate.

Nice report, thanks for sharing!

I cannot believe our time with this report is drawing to the end. It will make me sad not to have this thread going...

:(

I was hoping to be able to run into you again, but I guess next time.

Kauhuna:
Thank you for your travel adventures . Safe Travels always.

Would have liked to have met you. Sounds like you travel in fun circles. :)

Thanks for your continued reporting...your style of writing is so vibrant and full of imagery, I feel like I'm right there. Continue to walk good.

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Originally Posted by Kahuna3

Hockey and Fights on the Beach

JT and I went down to Margaritaville to watch the Canada – US hockey game the other day. It was the only option that we knew of. There was a big crowd there, mostly Canucks. We watched it at the Tiki bar on a big screen TV. The signal was bad and cut out entirely once, but it was fun. I almost fell off the bar stool when the bill of $1,100J arrived for our two Red Stripes

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We taxied up to Seastar to watch the game...good crowd up there as well
and the beer was a helluva lot cheaper!

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Originally Posted by Dana1

We taxied up to Seastar to watch the game...good crowd up there as well
and the beer was a helluva lot cheaper!

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Oops...wrong game...meant the gold medal game! Nothing better than cheering on our country in sunny Negril :)

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Originally Posted by poolguywindsor

I was hoping to be able to run into you again, but I guess next time.

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Yah mon, it would be nice to see you again and meet your family. Next December, maybe?

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Originally Posted by Rasthai

Wish I would have kept up better reading the board while I was on the beach as never realized you returned and continued your report as your last couple weeks seem like a report of our trip but with better writing! We seem to have been everywhere you were including unfortunately where the guy drowned! Tough picture to get out of our heads.

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We probably passed each other 50 times on the beach, by the sounds of it.

Street Theater #2 – Jango’s and Myrna’s Shop

I love just walking around Negril and seeing what happens right in front of me. I’m never disappointed. Here are a couple of recent incidents of Negril Street Theater . . . . .

Jango's . . . .

Jango’s barber shop is located on the street just behind Scotia Bank. Walking by there one morning I heard a commotion coming from within. I peered into the darkened interior of the shop. A small Jamaican man with long dreads was shouting at one of the barbers. And this guy was really leaning into it; his dreads were whipping around as he waved his arms pointing this way and that. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, except, of course, for the obligatory ‘clatts’ that he liberally employed. Neither the man he was hollering at nor the other barber or any of the customers who were in the shop paid the guy the least bit of attention.

I paused on the road in a little piece of shade under a bush and unshouldered my backpack. Here was an opportunity to watch another act of spontaneous Negril street theater. There was a guy sitting on a scooter just outside the shop. He too was observing the confrontation within, laughing quietly to himself and slowly shaking his head.

After about thirty seconds of non-stop, but totally ignored diatribe, the dread-headed dude gave up and exited the shop. Outside, he paused, looked around and then walked nonchalantly around to the side of the shop where he stopped and talked to a woman who was sitting there. He spoke in a completely normal voice and acted as if his recent rant had never occurred.

This act, a mere interlude, was over.

Even though it was a minor confrontation, if a scene like this had taken place in my home town, say in a barber shop in a small mall, it would have drawn a crowd of onlookers and the police would likely have been called.


Myrna’s Shop . . . .

There is a classic scene in Western movies where a fellow gets tossed out of a saloon – A big guy throws someone out through the swinging doors and he lands on the dusty street.

Much the same thing happened at Myrna’s Shop the other day. This event was observed from the bench at Sunnyside. A troublemaker was bodily ejected from the store. He skittered out over the concrete steps, slid across the wooded decking and tumbled out onto the sand. He stood up, brushed the sand from his clothes then turned to the doorway and let loose an emphatic stream of cussing. The guy that had thrown him out was inside the door and was thus out of sight.

Upon seeing this, one of the local girls sitting on the Sunnyside bench started to laugh so hard that she doubled over. She sat up straight to catch her breath, said, “Oh Lawd!” then laughed even louder and bent over again.

The man inside the shop must have made a threatening move toward the guy he’d thrown out because the guy suddenly stopped cussing and scrabbled his way out of there like a sand crab being chased by a beach dog.

This brought another outburst of laughing from the local girl at the bar. When she stopped laughing I asked her, “What’s so funny?”

“Oh my Lawd!” she said, “Him try to tief sumting an him get what him deserve.” She shook her head and chuckled as she wiped her eyes. “Dem tief in Jamaica so tick dem like sand on de beach.”

Sometimes Jamaica is like the Wild West.

Likkle more . . . . .

Street Theater... LOL

Kahuna, you have such a way with words... and it's point on. I'm really gonna miss reading your reports when you return to the cold.

Bluez, I was just thinking the same ting. I totally visualized that guy being thrown out of Myrnas. I was hoping it was Myrna herself, throwing him out. She may be small but I bet she is mighty.

I like to call it "Free Entertainment"!

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Originally Posted by Lady Jane

Bluez, I was just thinking the same ting. I totally visualized that guy being thrown out of Myrnas. I was hoping it was Myrna herself, throwing him out. She may be small but I bet she is mighty.

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I love Myrna, she's awesome and support her a lot during my stay. I see we will be in Negril at the same time would be nice to meet up :)

Ha, our tickers are very close. Where will you be staying Bluez?

Portia vs Michelle

I was considering renting a scooter but decided against it. In the last two weeks I’ve seen four people (tourists) who’ve been mashed up while riding scooters. They all claim that they were riding safely and it was through no fault of their own. Three of them had bad cases of road-rash, while another had his arm in a sling with a cast up to and around his shoulder.

When I told a local guy that I was thinking of getting a scooter he grimaced and said, “Very dangerous, mon, me ‘ave lost so many friends who rode dem an’ many, many people get damaged. De car-men ‘ave no respect for bikes. Dem is killing machines. Get a car, safer.”

After having seen the injured people this came as no surprise to me, so no scooter for me this trip.

My time is short so early last night I decided to get back up that horse and venture into Redground. I took my mini MagLite with me and went up to Renkie’s Bar, which I’ve also referred to as The Dominoes Bar. It was busy as usual. When I asked him when he closed Renkie told me he stays there until the last game is completed, whenever that may be. Often, he said, the games continue until dawn.

It’s an hour after sunset. I’m leaning on Renkie’s worn linoleum bar top studying the checkerboard pattern and sipping on a JB and pipe wata, A.K.A. ‘buzzard’s ass’; the Jamaican-style rum drink. Like they say, When in Rome . . . Renkie is behind the bar rolling yet another cigarette in what seems to be a long, seemingly endless series. He rolls his cigarettes deftly, using extra-large papers and short strips of whole-leaf tobacco.

Outside the bar, under the corrugated zinc stoop, several energetically executed games of dominoes are under way. At a longer table four players are engaged in a card game of undetermined nature. A small pile of rumpled bills occupies the center of the playing surface.

The old-school TV that sits on the bar top is turned on. It’s two feet away from my elbow. The picture is fuzzy, the sound is muted. I assume it’s tuned to an American channel because a long drawn-out puff-piece on the Obamas is being aired. On screen, Michelle is being featured. It’s a close up head shot. Michelle smiles into the camera and says something; her lips are moving but there is no sound.

I’m aware that Jamaicans, in general, dearly love the Obamas – and I totally understand why. (As a Canuck, I’m agnostic on them.) Knowing how much the locals adore the 1st Family, I decide to have some fun.

“Hey, Renkie,” I say, “who do you think is better looking, Michele Obama or Portia?” The latter, of course, being the current and first female Prime Minister of Jamaica.

Renkie regards me as if I’m several coconuts short of a cart load. “Michelle or Portia?” he asks, disbelievingly. Another guy at the bar and a petite, thin woman called Slim who is drinking JB and Redbull, turn to look at me. “Are you serious, mon?” Renkie says.

“Yeah, I was just looking at Michelle,” I nod at the TV, “and I think Portia is much prettier.”

“No, mon! Michele is prettier, trust me!” he retorts.

The other guy at the bar joins in. “Yah, mon, Michelle is way nicer - an’ Portia, she mash up de economy,” he adds forcefully. He glances over at Renkie who slowly nods his head in agreement. “Fe true,” he says, then gives his just-completed cigarette a thorough licking.

Slim pipes up, “An’ look at Michelle’s hair.” She raises a thin arm and points at the TV. “It is always so nice an’ always in diff’rent style. Portia’s hair, it always de same.” She flicks her hands around her own head, miming Portia’s hair style – a page boyish look with mid-forehead bangs. “Always de same,” she says again, shaking her head sadly as if wearing one’s hair in the same style from day to day was a major transgression. Although, given the amount of work that Jamaican women put into making their hair look good, I get her point.

“I don’t know,” I said, “that Portia is a fine lookin’ woman.”

“Mon, yuh wanta nuther drink?” Renkie says, thereby officially ending the Michelle vs Portia conversation gambit.


POWER STRAP! and two of the Minnesota Triplets
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That guy gives me the creeps even in a picture!

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Originally Posted by Kahuna3

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Power Strap sorta looks like Ray Ray
http://cbssports.com/images/blogs/Ra...lah_Ravens.jpg

Really enjoyed your reporting.Thanks for sharing the good,the bad,and the ugly !

I do not believe I have ever seen a single trip report on this board with so many views. Maybe you have the workings of another book here.

Kahuna3 - I have thoroughly enjoyed your reports! Love your style. I think you should stay a few more weeks until the Spring thaw! :)

Renkie... is that the guy that always used to piss his pants?... hahaha

love the report and love how you keep it real!

I truly love the way you can't paint a picture with a few words - I agree with the others - you should stay longer, you don't want to come back here yet!

I will buy the book! :cool:

It is so so cold here. Niagara will have it's coldest day in months tomorrow. Stay where you are and tell us more stories.
Extend!

Thank you all for the positive comments. Much appreciated.

Tomorrow is my last day – and I’m ready to go back home. The main reason being that I miss Bea. If she was here and we had comfortable accommodations, we would stay until Spring Thaw up north.

More POWER STRAP!

I ran into POWER STRAP! walking the beach last night just after sunset.

“Where yuh dawtah?” he asked me. Recall I’d told him that one of the Triplets was my daughter.

“She goa foreign,” I replied. He seemed disappointed.

Since he’d told us that he’d fathered twenty-three daughters I’d been sceptical, so I said, “Power Strap, don’t take this wrong, but I find it hard to believe that you have twenty-three kids.”

“Yah mon!” he said. “You doan believe me? I can prove it!” He pulled out his phone and dialed a number. When the person answered he said, “Yasheen! Dis white man want to aks you a question!” He then thrust the phone into my hand. “Aks her how many pickney me ‘ave!”

POWER STRAP! always speaks in a deep bellow, that’s why I’m using exclamation marks.

So I took the phone and said, “Hello? How many kids does Power Strap! have?”

There was a slight pause then a woman’s voice answered, “Him ‘ave twenty-tree dawtah.”

“She said twenty-three,” I said to POWER STRAP!

He leaned into the phone and bellowed, “An’ how many pickney-momma? Tell ‘im!”

“Nineteen baby-momma,” the woman’s voice said.

“She said nineteen baby-momma,” I said to POWER STRAP!

He took the phone, bellowed something into it and put it back in his pocket.

“Now listen!” he said, “Me actually ‘ave tirty-two kid! But nine of dem was wid married ‘omen, so de husband doan know ‘bout dem! Yuh see?”

Negril Health Center

The Negril Health center, located on the road to Savannah la Mar near the police station, is the primary health care facility in Negril. The charge is $50J per visit. A doctor is not always there but nurses are. They will fix you up, but you may have to bring the required medical supplies. I mentioned in an earlier post that I’d seen a motorbike accident victim whose arm was encased in a cast. He’d had it done at the Health Center but he’d had to provide the casting materials and the sling.

That different services are offered on different days is obvious by the types of persons gathered outside the gate awaiting its opening. Some mornings there’s a gaggle of pregnant women standing about, massaging their lower backs as they wait. Other mornings there are women with babies.

One morning I passed the gate and saw a group of goats milling around, which made me think that maybe a veterinarian would be attending.

Likkle more . . . .

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Going to miss your writing and tales of Negril

Enjoy your last day and have a safe trip home!! Thanks for the most awesome report!!!

Thanks for the great trip report. Keep working on that book, I need a new read. Safe travels home

Thanks for sharing your travels and making it seem that we're right along there with you. So happy to have read about your return and continued adventures on the beach. Safe travels, bundle up extra warm,, say hi to Miss Bea ;)

My last day, my last post from the beach. I have a late flight, so I’ll spend most of the day in Negril.

Wow! What a trip! It’s been a long haul, thanks for hanging in there with me. Much thanks.

I’ll post more and some final thoughts after I get home and settled.

Last night I treated myself to my traditional going away dinner – jerk chicken at Best in the West. It lived up to all my expectations. Totally.

Afterwards I walked the dark beach and gazed at the lights on the high ground above the town center. Yes, I’m ready to go home. But I’m going to miss this place. I’ll miss the sand, the rum, the sunsets and the gizzadas. I’ll miss morning swims in the glassy calm waters of Long Bay. I’ll miss walking the beach until my feet are sore. I’ll miss the sounds of the surf and the music and the smell of the sea and the night jasmine. And I’ll miss the fun times I had with my peeps and I’ll miss the Negril vibe. But it’s the people here that I’ll miss most of all.

Jamaica . . . Negril. I’m going to miss you, but I’ll be back.


Here’s a last photo. JT and the cake lady at Sunnyside. There’s nothing particularly special about this, but it’s emblematic. It’s a moment in time, one of so many experienced over the last months. I know that whenever I look at this shot, and others, I’ll be transported right back to that moment and my eyes will glaze over and I’ll replay the good times we all had together in Negril.

In fact, looking at JT and the Cake Lady now I can hear Johnny talking about visiting Negril back in the early eighties; the ‘good ole days’. “We were young and poor back then, we only had enough money for mushrooms and cake.”


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I’ll leave you with this piece, another look at Negril Street Theater.

Likkle more . . .

Street Theater #3 – Off to Work
One of the better pieces of street theater I observed played out one morning while I was walking from our residence in Redground headed down into town. I turned the corner from Hermitage onto Redground road. I saw a man walking in my direction on the other side of the street. It appeared to me that the man was headed off to work.

About twenty paces behind this man, a woman, in bare feet and wearing her pyjamas, emerged from a gateway and stood at the side of the road. She turned to the man and shouted something. I didn’t understand what she said but it clearly wasn’t in the tone of, “Hey sweetie, you forgot your lunch.” No. It was more like, “Hey you S.O.B. we’ll talk more when you get home!”

Although the woman had delivered her invective at considerable volume, the man, apparently, hadn’t heard her, because he didn’t turn around nor did he break his stride. At that moment I got the impression that this was a domestic discussion; perhaps a wife seeing her hubby off to work.

I slowed my pace a little. I didn’t want to walk off the set before the act concluded.

The woman sent off another barrage. Longer, louder, considerably more acerbic and involving several broad sweeping arm gestures, as if she was wielding a machete and was hacking her way through thick foliage. To my ears, the words were still incomprehensible, but the message was becoming clearer.

The man, obviously hard of hearing, continued steadfastly along the road, the distance between him and his significant other steadily increasing. I noted that he was now safely out of rock throwing range.

The woman at the gate paused to catch her breath. Her posture was tense, her body language: extremely pissed off.
Another voice, higher pitched and not nearly as strong as the first, filled the verbal gap left by the other. I glanced over. It was an older woman. She too, was yelling at the steadily retreating back of the man. She was sitting on the curb atop a seat-pad fashioned from a folded piece of cardboard. She was sipping on a Red Stripe. It was 8:30 in the morning. Maybe this is the mother-in-law, I thought. Maybe the Red Stripe was her breakfast. Maybe the cardboard that she was sitting on was from a Red Stripe carton.

I recognized the older woman. I’d seen her frequently on our morning walks down the road; always sitting on the curb, always sipping on a beer. She was the same elderly woman we’d met at the Good Over Evil bar the night that Bea and I had JT over for dinner.
A young man pushing a large wooden hand truck loaded with bananas, oranges and tomatoes appeared on the scene. The cart had tiny, tortured, squeaking wheels. It was as if the fellow had a walk-on part in this act. He laboured by, calling out his trade.

This incident played out largely unnoticed by others in the vicinity. A woman who was sweeping the roadside in front of her yard paused and looked over, but didn’t appear overly concerned. It was as if it was normal behaviour. Children walking in their school uniforms did not seem interested in the mini-drama.

The guy pushing the cart, having trucked no trade, trundled off center stage.

The man going to work progressed around a slight bend in the road. His antagonist (is that an acceptable synonym for ‘wife’?) went across the road to gain a better angle of attack on him. She stood directly beside the older, beer sipping woman. This seemed a better tactical arrangement and they renewed their assault on him. They unleashed a dual barrage; the pyjama-clad woman peppering him relentlessly while the elderly woman added higher notes. It was like the grand finale of a fireworks show.

Their denunciations appeared to propel the man down the road for he was soon too far away to be effectively yelled at. He never turned around or acknowledged the verbal attack on him in any way. Probably a wise decision.

The pyjama-clad woman, fuming, strode across the street and stormed back through the gateway. The elderly woman took a sip of her Red Stripe and smiled up at me as I passed. Most of her front teeth were missing.

A dog lying on the pavement lifted its head and yawned. A mother hen surrounded by a troop of chicks scratched at the turf in a small clearing and a couple of goats munched on the greenery next to a fence.

Thus the piece ended. It had been finely executed. I’d enjoyed it. It had been well performed by all concerned.

I picked up my pace, already looking forward to the next act.

Clap Clap Clap. Loved it and still looking forward to more stories when you have settled in back home. Thank you so much for entertaining us through this long hard winter.

Loved this!

OMG Kahuna have you ever attended one of the Jamaican comedy plays that tour the island? if you haven't, I recommend.

And the show goes on...
Thanks for sharin' Kahuna!

Hello Roland :
So sorry you are going away, fare well. Your incomparable reports, "Negril moments" and pictures have made Winter much shorter, for all of us. Yours and Bea's presence at our place and especially your friendship with Luna will not be forgotten.
Hoping to see you again, one day,