-
-
One thing I always notice about Jamaican people is that theyalways stick together and look out for one another. If one has no food anotherwill try to provide, if an elderly person has nowhere to live someone in the community will usually help and take them in and treat them like family.
I have seen it a lot in many shapes and forms everyone looking out for one another. It is just about love and not money.Sharing,caring,Things that just do not happen where I come from. Once your money runs out at home you are on your own usually nobody cares nobody would take you under their wing and let you move in that would very very rarely be seen happen but seems second nature in Jamaica, seems almost every family has an elderly Jamaican lady overseeing house activities and shes sometimes called aunty but sometimes infact most times they can't remember actually who aunty is related to! It is just a polite term and they look after aunty or Mz b/d/g regardless of wherever she came from.It's like who's that lady?oh we nah know lol but they take care of her anyway!
I have decided that January definitely is not a month for me for a short holiday infact I may have been a little disappointed if I had only come for a week or two in January because the nights get quite chilly and themornings too and it is not very hot during the day, now that weather is perfectif you are building a house for instance and want to oversee the work. Januarycould be great for that but as a tourist for a holiday if you are seeking HOT HOT HOT January may not be the month . It has been comfortable as I am in the countryside but if I was on the beach maybe I would not be so happy with it. We had a great December here though very sunny and nice and calm because for the last 2 decembers there was a lot of breeze,wind and cold Jamaicans were wearing light jackets so we was very lucky with the nice December weather. I love the heat though and I think our next trip may be a july or august as that is the childrens school longest holiday and this was a total one off that they could take anytime out of school so I would have to fit it in around them if we were all coming together next time.
Today is our last full day here, tomorrow we leave ,I am absolutely devastated to have to leave, Thinking of some of my family back home but I know they are ok we have stayed in touch and I will be glad to see them but I just wish theywould all come here instead! They need to just Pack up and leave.
I really do not want to go home and if I had only myself to think about I would stay but I am also excited about my girls sitting their final exams they are both set to get very high results and one of them will have the highest number of passes in the area if it all works out.I will be very excited if she makes the press.
We worked hard towards this for many years so that will be at least one nice thing tolook forward to on my return. If only I could pay back this trip by July and return with them for an exam passing celebration LOL OOPS here I go already planning the next trip while I am still here I must try to stop that. Infact I think I totally let my hair down and already celebrated their upcoming success on this trip like a pre exam pass trip lol. I know I partied hard this trip and a lot of you maybe thought what is she doing? But some of you are aware but some are not that I have been a full time24/7 mum for almost 16 years my kids have always come first before anything oranyone and I have spent 11 years making sure my girls are ahead of their expected learning age at all times from the moment they started school at age 3-4
It was a big thing to me that meant a lot to be there 24/7for them dinner on the table straight after school someone in the house at all times and and to get them to love reading and writing and try my best to makesure they can clock up all those A grades.I realise I was fortunate even if broke to be able to do that as lots of mums do not get that opportunity,So now is the time where they will sit their very final exams and we will see the results of those many years of hard work which we all put in to makesure they have a better choice of options and hopefully will make better decisions and choices in their life than I did in my own. All of those 11 years of doing the schooling with them I rarely partied VERY rarely.So now I am at the final finish line I just feel like Iwent a bit crazy also grieving in a party way (is that allowed is that normal i don't know never grieved b4) partying on this holiday as it is a big changing point in all my families life. When they finish these exams in a couple of months they finish school and are half way through their plans and I am just thankful that we made it through, we got there in the end it was not always an easy road for me but they do not know that ,They think its all rosey and they got to travel the world and had everything they needed.Wanted to makesure my kids had a really good education so they would not end up old, stupid and no prospects. So yes I have gone a bit wild on the partying but I never hurt no-one and I probably will not be able to celebrate their success by returning to Jamaica with them this summer so I guess I just let my hair down early! And why not?We all worked hard for these final results.I have my hopes pinned high on them! Iam very proud of them and now its almost all coming to an end.
This trip planning saga is cleaning mine and everyone elses bank accounts out! I cannot help it,This love of Jamaica will last forever ,I am torn if I want to live here or not. I love it but I need heaps more money.
I said I would be happy in a wooden house which I would BUT long term how would that work out? what facilities would I have? could I cope? I could cope with a nice mansion with pool of course or a basic wooden hut but it is the inbetween that I cannot cope with, I am an all or nothing kinda gal, the electric and gas and water dramas that happen often. Things breaking down or needing repairing just things we take for granted back home, plus other issues like the hurricanes, I am scared of heavy rainfall so imagine me in a hurricane and then there are the roads The roads in the interior are just downright terrifying and I promised myself I will never put my family in danger again by riding those roads again unless in an emergency.I have been on those roads for years and years and it is an adrenaline rush for sure BUT the amounts of accidents and deaths I witnessed this trip in such a short space of time has definately made me re-evaluate things.At home I do read statistics of road accidents and robberies or deaths and such to keep up with what is going on but seeing it live in front of your face is totally something else and my family are worth more to me than a holiday, a car ride.If it is not essential and an emergency I will not take them those routes again, of course the violence part too,But I love it and sometimesyou have to go to what you love to be happy and content.
I am off to go eat my ackee and saltfish now , hope you have all had a delicious home grown breakfast and if not get yourselves down here and do not forget to invite me!
Last edited by TiCtOc; 02-05-2012 at 08:10 AM.
-
Good to see you back, tictoc! Enjoying it very much 
I've a question...you're girls are 16 and then they will be done with high school? Here in the states they go until they are 17-18. Just wondering 
-
Hey Schuttzie, yes children finish high school here when they are 16, They keep saying they will change the law and make it 18 but I do not think it has happened yet.Here when children reach 16 these are the options:
Leave high school enter straight into work, low pay and will only get minimum wage at a basic entry level position eg: working on a till at a shop or in a cafe, you still have the opportunity to work your way up within a company that way but if the company closes all you have is experience and no qualifications and both are very important these days.
The other option which has become a massive awful trend here is to drop out or just leave school , have no job bum around do nothing have a few kids , the other option is to further your education and go to college where you can do one or two year courses depending on your ability and what you want to achieve.You enter college by choice it is not compulsary.
After college 1 or 2 years you will leave with certificates or diplomas these are enough to at least get you a good interview for a job but possibly would still be a basic entry level position on a lower wage .But better than nothing,
After college if you pass you can go to higher education at a university,You can go to a real brick built university , fees are around £9000 per year plus excursions, trips extras and living expenses rent and such or you can attend online university where fees are lower,There are bursaries,scholarships,grants and loans for those who wish to apply on a low income or facing hardships.
University usually takes 3 or 4 years if you attend a real brick university full time, online part time may take longer.
After that time you can proceed to postgraduate status to get an MBA (masters) and then you can get doctors in your subject.
It is a long thing and takes a lot of focus and dedication and hard work and most students are struggling in England for money as If they are studying full time there is not a lot of time left for working to keep their heads above water but there are people from all over the world who come here to study it is supposed to be one of the best areas for education.How true that is I do not know, I just know there are an extremely large amount of students and student residencies and universities all over town.People from all over the world are here studying.So that is your options in England,Do not think it is too much different from other places except we finish earlier than some countries and are allowed to work.I think working age in Jamaica is 15 I read in a law book somewhere.
My girls have already got in their chosen college , they start this September,One will do 2 years and then on to university as she is studying to become a primary school teacher.The other will complete 2 years in travel and tourism which she gets a lot of useful certificates from and they will get her a job in travel at the end of it as she is going travelling the world for a year.In that year she will decide if working her way up or continuing the work she has is what she wants or if she wants to use those certificates to come home and start university.
Going to university gives you a massively better chance at obtaining jobs with higher pay at a higher level.And with fierce competition and a lot of companies closing down here, the recession that we are told we are out of which I do not believe, change in government here and mass immigration and political issues they can't seem to cope with here , basically if you do not have every letter you can get after your name you are going to have a hard life and struggle for money just to keep your head above water unless of course you were born in to money or have inherited.So education and study I feel is essential for the average person.Without it unless you are a lucky person you will be on minimum wage in a booooooring job for what may become forever booooooring!
So me and my girls are just raking in all the certificates we can get right now.
Last edited by TiCtOc; 02-05-2012 at 10:14 AM.
-
yep too many folks just fill out that UB40
i am happy for your young ladies!
-
Cheers Seveen ,
I am very proud of them I am glad they got away from all the hustle and bustle here over christmas and new year and had time to totally chill and revise in time for their exams in Jamaica,I don't care what anyone says I know my own kids and I see the effort that goes in to schoolwork and revising and I know for a fact they were in a better place emotionally in Jamaica and they had that chance to unwind relax and take all of the words in that they were reading in preperation for their exams rather than their schoolkids in the area trying to tempt them to sneak out all over christmas getting up to seriously no good.They got much more done , it was perfect timing in a sense.
I am immensely proud of them and all our hard work as a mother naturally would be but I will also enjoy getting the results and feeling a little bit smug with myself knowing that all the haters from way back when,
when they saw a very young mother with 2 babies looked down their nose and threw us all on the scrapheap without a second glance..its THEIR kids and grandkids that have become drop outs or have a failed education it's THEIR kids out on the streets misbehaving.It will be MY kids names going forward for the achievement awards or names in the paper and doing something good.It's funny how life has a way of catching up with you when you are hater! they gonna alll have to eat their words very soon.But I always knew my kids would do the best,They just didn't believe me - like I cared!I just plodded on doing my thing with my kids.
There is a saying haters only make you stronger.The trip to jamaica was great for them to clear their minds revise get stuck in and prepare for the that last hurdle.
It has been a long single narrow road full of obstacles but now we are finally at a crossroads with many avenues to choose from.Life has a funny way of changing and you will get out what you put in no matter how hard it feels at the time.It is all about knowing where you want to be and getting a plan to get there
3 guesses where I want to be?
Million dollar question is what is my plan to get there!? 
-
Thank you, Tictoc for the explanation...I didn't mean to sidetrack your trip report, lol. Education is so very important here, too.
-
Our nephew was also grating to make home made carrot or beetroot juice or something like that he worked real hard on it for ages and that went bad too
-
I never told you what happened with the coleslaw did I? I had planned from before I went to Jamaica to eat lots of coleslaw, I love it, I enjoy it with spicy food to cool it down,
I like the texture and the taste and the nice homemade coleslaw in Jamaica so when I got there for weeks I could not find any decent homecooked real Jamaican food , nowhere had coleslaw which was really strange as everywhere used to have it, I found the food quite poor all over Negril this trip but then I was on a low budget but the food should still be nice whatever the price.Had consistently good food at fatties for 400 j a meal and that was real homemade frehly cooked food for a very low price, never had a bad meal there it was A* food just had no coleslaw.So all trip I wanted coleslaw I would have to read all the pages here again to remember if I actually got any in Negril, I know a few of you told me to go to Chicken lavish but I never got there so I was craving coleslaw by the time I got to our families house.So nobody had any coleslaw nobody had any plans to make any so I made a real effort one very hot afternoon to head into town,I actually walked all the way there on crazy roads and in hot sun.I wanted coleslaw dammit! So I went to a local market and bought about 5 cabbages, a huge bag of carrots, some mayo and anything else we could add would be back at the house.So of course every man and woman selling fruit and vegetables wanted me to purchase from them and I had to explain my situation many times telling them I already had what I needed I just want to make coleslaw which gained many laughs as they looked at me as if to ask was I feeding the 5 thousand as I had about 5 cabbages where some families may just use half of ONE cabbage or one cabbage well I needed 5! You do know we like our food.We like BIG portions full of tasty food not bland mediocre garbage.I wanted to do a huge bowl of it so we would have a lot to share with the curry goat meal.I always like to cook extra even at home incase anyone pops in and then we do not have to start cutting the portions down.So hot sun , walking, market fiasco,carrying it all thought I would give the three teenagers a simple job while they were waiting for that days dinner to be cooked it was a real simple easy job or so I thought and there was three teenagers to complete the task, all they had to do was chop carrots and cabbages and put them into a big bowl, so one of my girls was moaning she could not find a knife then when I found one she said it does not work , then I tried it and it did work she still moaned so my husband sharpened it for her then my other daughter was taking ages peeling ,It went from day to night the sun went down and the veg was still not all cut up , then dinner was ready I was hoping to have a taste of coleslaw with that evenings dinner even though it was for the next day for a big family meal at our sleepover party But the kids still had not finished and I did not want their dinner to go cold so I said leave it until later or tomorrow so my sister in law took it off them and put it in the kitchen,I THOUGHT she had put it away or covered it with water , I did not think to ask what was she doing with it.So the coleslaw fiasco/saga was laid to rest until the next morning when I said come on kids lets finish the coleslaw, so I looked in the fridge..NO coleslaw you got to be kidding me right?Wheres my coleslaw? Looked on the side looked on the table could not find the coleslaw hmmm.Saw a tea towel covering something noooo not my coleslaw? PLEASE DON'T BE MY COLESLAW, Peeked under it, My cabbage and carrots with NO water it was my unfinished coleslaw and after all the memories of hot sun walking, talking with vendors and repeating my coleslaw tale a million times and watching it go from day to night with the kids moaning about knives because they probably did not want to help with it ..as all the memories of what I had to do to actually get the ingredients to the kitchen flashed before my mind I was now looking in the bowl and thought what is that?Oh its just a bad cabbage leaf..pick it out just gone brown thats all ,BUT NO IT WAS NOT just ONE piece of brown cabbage the whole lot had gone discoloured and brown and horrible and no good as it had not been covered with water or put in the fridge so I was like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WTH WHO KILLED MY CABBAGE look at my cabbage omg you know what I had to go through to get this cabbage? 5 weeks I had been wanting cabbage in Jamaica not to mention my pre-Jamaica licking of lips and drooling at the thought of it and as I could not find any in the hotels I went through allll of this to succumb and make my own and now this MASSACRE of the cabbage.It was devastation of the coleslaw it was- it was well it was just my bl@@@ luck wasn't it?Only me could go through all that to end up with a bucket full of gone off cabbage so my sister in law said perhaps the under neath may be ok maybe only the top has gone discoloured , she was probably trying to calm me down I REALLLLY wanted that coleslaw bad bad bad lol So I tasted a bit and it seemed ok so I decided to finish it myself in a huff and a sulk I was not waiting until the sun had gone down again to try and get the kids to help me out so I mixed it up made it sort of edible it was better than nothing and put it in the fridge.All I had to do now was to wait for it to get cold.Yummy I shall have my coleslaw at last.I left it there a good couple of hours while we got dressed and waited for our ride to go have the sleepover party where we was taking a big bag of goat and I wanted to take the coleslaw.So I grabbed the coleslaw out of the fridge happy as a smiling ray of sunshine proud of my coleslaw accomplishment and finally I would get a homecooked dinner of curry goat rice and peas and my nice homemade coleslaw at long last.So we got out the car,Counted my kids as they were walking up the mountain , yep kids check we are all here, bags check, coleslaw check WTHHHHHHHH Or rather WTFFFFFFFF is dripping out of the coleslaw dishes bags?OMG don't even joke with me now what the hell is THAT? so we opened the bags and it had all turned into dishes of smelly crap watery stinking smelly mushy gooey horrible brown discoloured messy crap and that was my offering for the family table,Who I had not seen in about two years.JUST MY LUCK i DON'T BELIEVE IT.
To the family they were probably thinking oh its just a bit of coleslaw she bought from somewhere or chopped up "it nah matter" BUT I knew what the heck I went to get through to get that coleslaw there and I was MAD MAD MADDD.
So what the heck had happened to my coleslaw now I wonder?
So then I find out something to either do with electricity or the fridge.If you overload the fridge it does not cool the food properly or freeze food properly .I had no energy to even ask in depth as to why.I feel sometimes that you can just not rely on nothing or no-one to comply with the easiest of tasks or simplest of things that you just expect to be done and take for granted things will happen things will work and be ok .WRONG THINK AGAIN.Nothing goes right,All I knew was I had dishes full of stinky crap as my offerring to the table and I had tried so hard to make it nice.
This was the journey on dangerous roads too where I had no holy s@@@ bar yet I still managed to cling on to the beloved coleslaw even though we nearly fell off a very high cliff mountain edge.As that was our last weekend and we left Jamaica very shortly after I never got no coleslaw.How annoying is that?After everything NO coleslaw and I cannot be bothered to make anything since I got back I am in mourning for my holiday I want it back! And
I WANT COLESLAW DAMMIT
Last edited by TiCtOc; 02-05-2012 at 01:40 PM.
-
Greetings Ms T,
So Wha appen? Yu dash We whey?
I know it's probably all stoosh back in Hengland BUT when Yu a Come Back a Yu Yard?
Hope all is good.
One Love
B
Posting Permissions
- You may not post new threads
- You may not post replies
- You may not post attachments
- You may not edit your posts
-
Forum Rules
