Jamaica T-Shirt Trip Report

[Monty&Melo]

I am certainly not as eloquent as my husband, Monty, but I thought I would give this a try. Before I get into the actual trip report, let me start with this…

Thank you SO much to those who have contributed and received a t-shirt or donated to the St. Anthony’s Soup Kitchen. These contributions and donations have really made a huge impact on the owners of the participating businesses, as well as all of those served through the soup kitchen! Monty and I were blessed to be able to meet Fr. Jim and everyone listed with the exception of Whoopees, which is temporarily closed.

***On a side note, according to Father Jim, the St Anthony’s Soup Kitchen is serving around 400 meals a day by a paid staff of 7 (which means they are providing jobs in a place with such high unemployment). For approximately $20 US, they can supply 4 meals, just FYI. Also, we plan to keep the NegrilStore.com open for t-shirt purchases through the end of July. We must have at least 25 purchases in order to have them printed. If you or anyone you know wants to buy a shirt, please do so soon.

We saw tears of happiness and smiles like we’ve never seen before. Just seeing people wearing the shirt was so exciting to them. We have never been more proud to wear a t-shirt, THAT t-shirt! We heard stories about how they weren’t sure how they would pay the rent…that JPS was just there and was planning to cut the current if a payment wasn’t made…same with the water company. So, THANK YOU, from the bottom of our hearts and more importantly these Jamaicans’ hearts!!

We were too excited and forgot to take pictures at each place, but here are a couple!




Now, on to the beginning of the trip report…On Friday, June 11th, we started our morning early (like 3:00AM early), getting up and heading to the airport. For the most part, the trip was uneventful until just prior to landing. The pilot came on and said we were going to have to circle over the island for a while. Apparently, a storm had just passed through and was delaying the planes from landing. 2 planes had just landed, which left 3 planes still circling. We were third in line to land. This is when your first thought is…the line to immigration is going to be insane. However, quite to the contrary, MBJ did an excellent job getting everyone through. As a matter of fact, we made it through and out the local exit to meet our friend/driver in just 50 minutes.

The ride to Negril was wet…lots of rain and some flooding of the roads, but Bryan got us to our second home, Rondel Village, safely…just in time to change clothes and get to happy hour at 5:00. We hung out there with Delroy and the crew, then headed to Chicken Lavish for dinner and to see Doc. Dinner was excellent as usual. We always have the same meal on arrival day, Sweet and Sour Chicken for me and Curried Goat for Monty. We managed to stop briefly and Bar Negril when we saw that Rob and Lisa there and said hi to Kayla, then back to Rondel. Delroy was still tending bar so we had one more drink…then off to bed around 9:00 exhausted but happy!! I'll post more later!!