I have lived in Negril for much of the last 4 years; I like it (understatement), I make it my home and I will have a business here.

When I decided to sleep in the local community, I started thinking and doing like a resident. When you aren't Jamaican (I am not) there is a LOT to learn, at times it feels like trying to drink water from a fire hose. I really like the neighborhood where I live and once in a while **** has gone down. Situations that had nothing to do with me, but involved people in my area. People have issues and disagreements and they WILL handle them differently than you are used to. I am learning to live in the flow of what is here.

I want to respond to a comment made in another thread about men & women and children. I too came here with certain viewpoints and opinions, and many of them have been busted by what I am learning. At times there have been aspects of Jamaican relationships and family life that really blew my mind and I had to sit with the concepts for a couple weeks until I could absorb it and develop an understanding. Now I can see beneficial qualities here that are absent in the north american style of family I was raised in.

I propose it is our own culture that is rubbing and making us uncomfortable when we are here, not the Jamaican one.