Accompong Town.... Going Home.

[captaind]

Bill,

So pleased for you.

Regards

[Accompong]

My side of town is mainly a farming community. I get up and get dressed before 6:00am each morning so I can sit on my verandah and watch the sun come up over the mountains and to greet the majority of my neighbors as the pickney pass to go to school and the adults on their way to the bush. It is the custom here for everyone who passes you, whether pickney or adult, to acknowledge or greet you verbally in some manner.

This seems to be little of a problem for the town’s citizens as they know my name as well as every other citizen of Accompong Town but to me it is more of a challenge. With a pickney, a simple “morning” or “afternoon” will suffice and will get you the similar response in return. With an adult, the acknowledgment usually contains “Bill” in some context and often will be mixed within some Patois phrase I may or may not quite understand but they appreciate it if I use their given name or most often their alias name in my return answer.

My usual practice is to spot them when they first turn the corner onto my road and then run through my mental rolodex until I come up with the name or, if I can remember or just plain don’t know, I take a cue from Marshall who uses “king”, “champ” or the ever appropriate “breddren” for a male and “diva” or “queen” for a female and a non-personal “miss” or “misses” for an older woman.

Personally, I love this custom as it fosters further interaction and allows everyone to get to know each other a little better. This time of year, everyone seems to be farming something or other out in the bush so the traffic on my little road can sometimes get a little congested. This morning is not a bush day as the constant “likkle likkle” work on the house continues as time, money and weather permit.

Cont’d

[JitterBug]

hey bill, have a great time . . . hoping to catch up with you.

[Marko]

enjoy life mi friend.........Accompong is a very special place.........
in regards to the internet in Accompong town........
research on getting a unlocked cellie with a wifi hot spot so you can use your laptop......
or just get an unlocked cellie that has wifi so you can browse the internet.......
think mi was paying around $2,500J's for a month on the data plan at Lime......
you can also just pay $100J's for one day of data too.......
just go to the Lime Jamaica website to check it out.......Digicel has it too.....
mi would go with the carrier that has the best signal der....price is no good if you can't get on
LG Optimus series like the P505 for AT&T.....and the P509 for Tmobile(basically same phone) have wifi hotspots
just remember to buy one that is unlocked.......
Ebay is a good source for those phones.....you should be able to pick one up cheap enuff
plus with a wifi hot spot you can have many people connecting at one time from Accompong......
PM if you need any help......and again enjoy yourself.......

Cool Runnings, Marko

[Accompong]

After about a hour on the Internet with several young children leaning on my shoulder watching the multi-tasking screens switching from MS Word to Yahoo to a thumb drive where all my stuff is stored thinking they were witnessing magic of some kind. I decided right there and then to teach some of these children how to use a computer for more than just playing games but this will have to wait for a later time.

The rains have stopped and it was time for me to make my way back to the house. The streets were still wet and anyone with any sense was still indoors but the town looks so clean with any dust and dirt that had accumulated having been washed away by the heavy rain. There were still some patchy clouds in the sky but no imminent threat of rain; just enough to obscure the sun’s rays evaporating the residue from the storm.

My friends Fire and Piaki have stores across the main from each other and Fire’s store has a slab in front big enough and tall enough to make for a nice stop to rest my knees a bit before moving on. As I sat on Fire’s slab, I took this picture of Piaki’s store.

Fire heard me outside and came to sit and reason. Fire is a Rasta who I have known for about 20 years (much like most adults in town) and I always look forward to his countenance and reasoning ability whenever I need some guidance. I decided to ask a simple question that I was sure would take me down a rabbit hole of Rasta-speak. Fire, I asked “Do you ever feel bored living here in Accompong Town?” While he was in thought, I added “after all, every day is pretty much like the one before”.

“Mi Breddren”, he began “Whaa gwann Babylon dat mek it soh?” He was asking me what it was about the world beyond Accompong Town that keeps it from being boring. I knew that it was incumbent on me to try to describe that world if the talk were to continue along that line of thought. “Well, as an example, some of the people on Negril.com talk about days and nights of drinking, partying and sexing while never mentioning being ‘bored’….” He stopped me short. (translated from Patois to English) “I, as a Rastaman, don’t have time for much of that foolishness.” He went on to tell me about the days before Rastas were generally accepted in Jamaican society. Days when the police would beat them and cut a man’s locks as soon as they had a chance. He went on to say that what one person would call “boring” was another man’s Garden of Eden. Just look at the beautiful hills and the abundant fields. Getting up each day and praising Jah for putting food in the belly and peace in my soul.

He went on for about an hour painting a picture of Paradise when he suddenly asked me if I was ‘bored’? If I were bored before our talk, I certainly wasn’t now. I felt buoyant and rejuvenated to continue my trek to my house. I got up and thanked Fire for taking time to reason. As I walked away, Fire called after me, “Where can I find this ‘drinking, partying and sexing’?” with a huge grin on his face. “Negril!”, I shouted over my shoulder.

I hadn’t noticed the gathering clouds while reasoning with Fire but now I was feeling a few drops from a particularly angry looking cloud. I snapped a quick picture of Rubber’s yard before putting the camera safely away while I pushed forward.

The rain was getting harder and I was rapidly getting wet but I felt so good and in tune with Nature that I actually started to anticipate and enjoy every raindrop even as people sheltered in doorways bid me to come and ‘cool yu foot’ with them.

The dark cloud finally moved on both actually and metaphorically as I just realized that the smile that Fire placed on my face had become a permanent fixture. This place is this man’s “Garden of Eden”.
Here is a picture of a "Rat Bat" (actually a very large moth) on my wall when I got back


Peace and Guidance.

[LeslieChow]

What a picture!

Happy homecoming!

God Bless Jamaica!!!

L.C.

[Accompong]

A Portrait of Nanny of the Maroons on the Wall of Heroes in Accompong Town

In Jamaica, nothing is quite as easy as you expect it to be. Now, multiply that by a factor of 1000 and that, in a nutshell, describes living in Accompong Town. Now, I don’t mean to imply that life here is more difficult emotionally or security-wise as that is quite the opposite. What I mean is that I am used to “quick quick” and when in So. Florida I make a list and the majority of the items are completed before the sun goes down. Here the clock seems to run a likkle slower and you could easily swear that there are more than 24 hours in a day while you patiently wait for things to get done.

A good example is my Internet Connection I want to purchase so I can use it at my house. After 3 or 4 days of mostly helpful input from computer-savvy residents, it was nearly a unanimous opinion that the Digicel 3G thumb drive was the best option. There is only one in the town and its user says the connection is okay but less than 3G. Okay, where can I get one? I went to the Yellow Pages and found a Digicel Page with about 100 suppliers. I called a couple in Santa Cruz and they said they haven’t seen one in nearly a month. One person finally volunteered that Mandeville would be the place to go. “To go?” Mandeville is over 50kilometers from here and up a tough hill called Spur Tree. I went back to the Yellow Pages and picked out the suppliers in Mandeville that sounded bigger so they would more likely have one in stock. After two $100 phone cards all I learned is that they sometimes get them on Thursday and they don’t have any in stock and, if they do get some, they are only on “first come, first served” basis and that they couldn‘t hold one so a trip could be in vain.
After another three days, I finally learned where the only unit in town was purchased but they would have to get me a phone number as the place is not listed in the phone book. I have been patiently waiting for that phone call going on 3 days now. The most frustrating part is that no one thinks it is unusual to have so much difficulty. All I get is a shake of the head slowly and “((kissteet)) Jamaica noh easy.”

Well, at least, I have access to the Computer Center on the other side of the village which is about a mile from my house. The only problem with this is that it opens at about 3 or 4pm 6 days a week and the summer rains begin about 2:30pm 7 days a week and I have no car or even an umbrella.

Today I woke up to clear blue skies and a pressing need to use the Internet so I decided to head out around noon and stop along the road to visit a friend or two so that when the rains came, I would be safely inside the Computer Center. What could go wrong? How about at 12:15pm (15 minutes after I leave) the time it takes these old knees to negotiate nearly half a mile, the skies open up and a torrential downpour catches me out in the open between houses without even a bare branch to impede the onslaught.

As quickly as the rain came, the clouds rapidly moved to the West and the unbearably hot sun soon mixed my sweat with my rain-drenched clothes giving a cooling effect that felt quite pleasant. Now, I didn’t want to stop with clothes that could wet up my friend’s furniture so I pressed on to a shady spot at Cudjoe’s Monument across from the Community Center and the Computer Center where I took the following pictures.



Peace and Guidance

[captaind]

Bill,

Man you live in a town!

We live in the bush....tru

D

[Big_frank]

Safe travels, Bill. Please enjoy yourself and remember to post when you can. We appreciate it here.

[suzengrace]

Safe journeys....I only got as far as maroontown last reach...hoping roads and car will be better to go visit accompong next reach....