The run-up to the wedding

We traveled across from Kingston to Robin's Bay the day before the wedding, in case we need to do anything over there. Along the way we stopped at Castleton Garden, a botanical garden situated along a river in the mountains.

Everywhere you go in Jamaica you see these curry animals (goats destined for curry).

These orb weavers almost never become curry, however, except accidentally. This one was huge!

This river was made for the song "De ribba bed come dun, de ribba bed come dun, de ribba bed come dun, something something in the mawnin'" We have seen this one raging and muddy after a big rain.

The gardens are filled with unusual plants and trees. This one struck me with its symmetry.

Lauren and Heather had some sisterly fun together fooling around on the rocks and sliding into the pools.

It was nice to watch the two of them this couple of days.

Dan got a little pensive. No cold feet, though.

Eventually we got through to the North Coast without too much car sickness from the windy roads.

The road was bad from this point. We had a lot of potholes to dodge, so these kids on bicycles were able to race ahead of us for a couple of miles before they got tired.

Then we got close to the water. The girls wanted to stop immediately and get out, but we pressed on.

When we got there we found some guys working on a new piece of decking right where we wanted the ceremony to be! This became the focus for the afternoon and the morning of the wedding.

It turned out that we didn't have much to do except have lunch and loaf away the afternoon

So we did some loafing and some exploring. There were tons of hermit crabs around. One of the kids even found one without a shell.

They were all sizes. There are enough snails around so they don't usually lack for housing.

Loafing took precedence for a while. Here Lauren rocks Heather and Dan in one of the hammocks on site.

Later on I took the helm of the hammock for advanced loafing. I was not alone.

There had been a really huge storm. The beach and rocks were covered with bamboo and cane trash washed down in the rivers. This guy was in charge of cleaning it up. After he filled this bucket he was quite overcome by his own loafing instinct and just lay right down on the rocks.

Later on we got to know a few more denizens of the site. There were a couple of pups that were kind of cute.

This one adopted his own coconut as a chew toy, shredding the coir with his teeth. Esther used to tell me about sleeping on coir mattresses - itchy, poky, and uncomfortable. Ah, the old days!

Lots of lizards were around. This one did his mating display every few seconds for a long time. The orange was kind of unexpected.

Eventually we got tired and headed off for bed. But the girls saw this giant toad jumping and wanted a picture of it. We're not sure what kind it is, but we saw something similar in Puerto Rico.

A bit more gym

Esther has fallen in love with the place. Any given morning she can be found grinding out 30 minutes on the treadmill at 3.5 mph, followed by stretches and machine work.

Her enthusiasm is disgustingly boundless. It does make you feel good, but she was raised Catholic. If it feels good she shouldn't be doing it. Since I am very supportive, I keep telling her "You look pretty good for an old lady." Somehow she is not as warmly appreciative as I thought she would be.

Here young nephew Sean, a 6 foot toothpick, grunts out a set. For a young guy he sure complains a lot. Fortunately there are some gym rats around to give him crap.

This is Sean in a more normal, happy-go-lucky state. He is feckless and irrepressible.

The gym is called Gym Al Fresco. When you are not involved with the equipment you can enjoy the breeze or the mountains surrounding Kingston.

There is a very enjoyable friend of Uncle Paul's that comes here every day. His name is Bentley, and he is a gym rat, among other things. He is retired from being a marine pilot. His job was to guide all the ships into Kingston's harbor, the seventh largest deep water harbor in the world. Bentley is also a world-class raconteur and bull-shitter. He has a million stories, ranging from clean to dirty. Today he was telling me Confucius's views on sex. I won't repeat, but it was entertaining.

One of the things I enjoy the most about Jamaica is meeting people. Many are friendly, many are strong and multi-talented, most are outgoing. The guy below is Peter, who is starting up the gym operation. Among other things, he is a qualified trainer, a musician and singer, and a social worker with the Kingston Chamber of Commerce. He feels strongly about the people and their plights, about government and how it operates, and about what Jamaican industry should be doing for the people. He also helps to chide nephew Sean and get him to work a little harder.

Tif takes over the living room

Niece Tiffany has become an accomplished photographer. She shoots a variety of things, from weddings to fashion to vacation villas here in Jamaica. She has not yet put together a studio, so sometimes she goes to work in the living room at the house. The room is large enough with the furniture pushed to the side.

On this day she set up for a news magazine fashion shoot. It was all young men, with only one tag along young lady to distract them.

There is a large amount of equipment involved. She reports some really harrowing week-long shoots at hotels with 20 hours days, moving heavy stuff from location to location.

One of the benefits of working at home is bare feet.

A different kind of Christmas dinner

Our normal Christmas dinner, if there is one, is kind of traditional. It usually consists of turkey and all the fixings, followed by pumpkin pie. Sometimes the young people stage a revolt and we have ham instead. Last night was different.

In Jamaica there is a fairly tight-knit Chinese community. These are the Hakka people, the wanderers who went out into the world everywhere from China. Their children go to the same schools here, and start life-long friendships. On an island this small it results in everyone knowing everyone else. So for any given person there is a good chance that a group of friends will celebrate any given holiday. Last night was like that for us.

Uncle Paul's friend and business partner got together with her group and hosted a dinner at a lovely home in Paddington, Kingston 6. We found ourselves on a large patio outside an elegant house, surrounded by a huge lawn, enjoying a cool but still humid evening. About fifty people showed up, including Sister Bernadette (the former headmistress of Esther's local school). Sister Bernadette gave an invocation for all, then we settled down to a Chinese Christmas dinner. No turkey here! Pork mut-gnee (Bower romanization), a pork dish with tree-ear fungus; long beans with beef; stewed chicken; roast pork; and so on. The trio of Aunties are good cooks!

The guests were an eclectic mix. Of the 50 or so, many were local Chinese family members. Others included the son of a former prime minister and the head of the second largest Caribbean freight airline. Many of the people we had met a couple of years ago, but the mix changes from year to year.

Toward the end of the evening the Aunties got together at our table, and the laughs began. In a strange sense the three of them are like guys together. By that I mean they bust each others chops, bring up old embarrassing events, and generally enjoy each other. Maybe that is how women are together, but I have no real experience in the subject...

I got to spend a bit of time with Chris, the owner of the freight airline. I have spent time with him before, and always enjoyed it. This time I thanked him for the white rum and Ting drink to which he introduced me a couple of years ago. It has been warming, befuddling, and quite enjoyable in the meantime. Chris has a dream that he keeps promoting in government here. Anyone in business here interacts directly with government if he/she need to do anything novel. There is an old World War II airfield going to waste in Jamaica. Chris wants it to become the focus of Caribbean air shipping. He is a "builder." He may get his way.

We finally left with the last stragglers, reluctant to let go of the feeling of belonging. It's kind of a strange thing for me, feeling like I belong to a Chinese community in another country. But somehow I do.

Bamboozia anniversary

Yesterday was our 33rd anniversary. We had an unremarkable day, but spent the evening at Bamboozia. Bamboozia is a rooftop cafe decorated in bamboo, with a great view of the hills and flats of Kingston. You can see everything from Papine to Jack's Hill to Red Hill to Portmore, downtown and the harbour. The night-time lights are beautiful.

So here we were, on a cool (for Kingston) evening, listening to a pick-up band called WildFire made up of musicians that tour throughout the world with Jamaican acts. It was a quartet: drums, bass guitar, piano, and trumpet. They turned out to be amazing together. I was fascinated by their communication with each other. They were a bit like a jazz ensemble, riffing and handing off to each other. The musicians here are really, really, really good.

So, imagine, if you will, the soft, humid air with a heavy bass reggae beat starting up. Then imagine a really good trumpeter blowing "Oh, holy night" on top of that. The effect was really nice. Esther and I found ourselves singing the words along.

A couple of local artists spent a set having fun on stage with the band, jumping around, laughing, singing, and generally having a good time. The sound system was really tuned nicely, thanks to the McDonald brothers. It was nice seeing them again. They have a soft, friendly aura about them. They do everything together, probably since they are twins. They look a lot alike, so we had a joke about light shirt/dark shirt. But Michael told us this time that Ronnie wears long sleeves and he (Michael) wears short sleeves. So we have a long term strategy to tell them apart.

Then, at the top of the evening, Uncle Paul's friend and protege, Tanice Morrison came on stage. She has a world class voice, but some of the enjoyment last night came from watching her move on stage and command the audience. She is a tremendous performer.

After the band broke up we met each of them and thanked them for their performances. That is one of the nicest things down here. I have always loved live music; it is a real treat to meet musicians who have it in their blood

And now for something completely different

I enjoy telling stories with pictures, but sometimes I just want to tell a story without. I have some writing in another blog that I will start including in this one once in a while when I did not take my camera along on my "adventures." Today's story is from several years ago in Manhattan. It is called

Wooooooooaahhhahhhhh

Waiting for the 8^th Avenue Express in Manhattan, we were standing around on the platform. E heard it first, a child crying in fear. It took us a minute to focus in. “Wooooooooaahhhahhhhh”, we heard. As we turned toward the sound we saw a tall black man dressed in homeless gear. His jacket was gray and dirty. It had a hood like a winter coat, but it was warm and spring-like outside. The man was hungry thin. His lower lip hung down like it had no connection to his face.

He was walking back and forth around some stairway railings. On the other side of the stairway we saw a crying child. He was very young, maybe six or seven. Tears streamed down his face. His Mom looked distraught, but his sister did not show any fear. “Wooooooaaahhhhh”, the black man said as he walked around the stair railings toward them. The mother gathered her children and edged around to be opposite him. As they edged one way, the black man reversed directions, heading them off. “Woooooaaahhhh”, he said again. The mother said nothing, just looked nervous and jumpy.

No one else in the crowd around the platform was afraid. It was clear the young black men enjoyed the scene, though. Some of them egged the man on. A few snickered. The rest of the crowd wondered, as we did, why the child was so frightened.

“Wooooaaaahhhhh”, the man said as he continued to pursue the family around the railings. The Mom was starting to show panic. She edged toward the exit, gathering her boy and girl. As the man followed them he kept up his ghost voice, “Whooooaaahhhhwhoooo”. The family accelerated up the ramp, running at top speed, and the man followed. Mom and the kids disappeared. All we could hear was “WHoooooaaaaahhhhh whooooahaahhhhhh” from the ramp, and then from the tunnel.

More laughter came to us as more young guys came down the ramp. The drama was over. The man came back down the ramp and walked along the platform. Some more snickers and giggles followed, but most of the people were silent, sad. The fear was understandable, in a way. It was New York, after all. The sad parts were seeing the normality of living in fear, the inability of the woman to see that others were not scared, the panic in the face of difference!

It was New York. You could always expect to see someone crazy, maybe dangerous, certainly out of the normal, wherever you came from. But the question remained, was this a black/white thing? Or was it just an overprotective mom taking her children to safety. Flight is natural, in the face of a danger you can’t hope to survive. People should always hope to survive, even if there is no absolute safety.

But flight in the face of difference?

A less beaten track in Jamaica

We have been spending a lot of time back and forthing to the spot where our daughter will get married. Today we tried to finalize arrangements in St. Mary Parish, on the North coast. As part of the discussion we decided we needed to see some orchids that were "in the greenhouse" up the road. Off we went along another dirt road to the Green Castle Estate. This farm apparently deals in cattle, coconuts, bananas, and... orchids.

Growing orchids on this scale is amazing. On this farm there were 5 or 6 huge shaded "greenhouses", filled to the brim with orchids of many, many varieties.

The place had piles and piles of river run gravel, which seems to be used as the base layer upon which nylon blankets are placed. In turn, tables in long rows hold the plants.

This was the rough scale of one of the buildings. This particular one had pots directly on the blankets or matting.

These buildings required rain to be drained on a large basis.

Inside, the displays were amazing. The first we saw (below) was not for sale, but the others were available in small to commercial quantities.

Here are some of the ones we saw. You can click to see a larger copy.

Of all of them my favorites were this one, which had a cinnamon odor, completely unexpected in an orchid.

And these, which had such a pure beauty.

For flower aficionados, you would not believe the price - about $10 US for a dozen blooms. Here is a guy who just picked part of a commercial order.

The trip was completed by seeing this very different method of growing.

And by the mushrooms found on the site.

And by a unique food found along the way home.

Going to the gym, but can it work?

Sweating in the tropical Jamaican heat, treadmill, weights, machines. It seems to work, but then...

Viveen gets busy in the kitchen, putting together

flour, water, salt, scallion, Scotch Bonnet pepper (hot!!!), flakes of washed salt-cod, and love.

Into the amazing saltfish "flitta" (Jamaican word for fritter) or stamp-an-go. Crispy, chewy in the middle, a bit fishy from the cod, and hot/delicious from the Scotch Bonnet. The big hole is where I got back the calories I lost at the gym!

Our girls are women now

They are strong and capable. They are independent. They know what to do. It is good. But our youngest will get married in about two weeks time. She has made a good choice. We are happy to claim her fiance for our family. We are happy for her.

But tonight I thought about "giving away" our youngest. For this wedding it will not be like that; it will be more like accepting Dan into our family. Giving a daughter away is an old-fashioned and out of date concept, anyway.

But to me tonight it felt like the snap of the last tiny string holding her to me. It was like the end of her need for me. It drove me to tears, the thought of losing my baby. As I sit here writing it is still like that, even though I know it is not true. It is one of the saddest feelings I ever had.

Modern miracles

So Heather (our youngest) uses her cell phone to call up her Mom, who happens to be in Jamaica. She dials a VOIP number which rings in Kingston, at her uncle's home. She is on her way to a nursing school class in Austin, Texas.

Well,  she takes a wrong turn, and begins to get lost. So she says to her Mom, "Can you ask Dad for help." I am on my PC, linked to the Internet via a wireless router. So I pull up Google maps, find out where she is and where she is going. Then I guide her turn-by-turn to get back on track for school in Texas.

Her phone, which she did not want yelling in her ear, is an Android phone. It could have been guiding her using a  set of GPS satellites and Google Navigation. So I told her, "No problem, any time you are lost in Texas, please feel free to call us up in Jamaica."

She said, "Whatever." Spoiled rotten, this younger generation. At her age I would have had to carve a map in stone for myself to get to that school.

McDonald brothers, Sugar Pot, puppies, and lizard

If you read the earlier posts from today you know that the McDonald brothers (twins) are friends of Uncle Paul and came across the island to get to Oracabessa. It turns out that their destination was a little place called Sugar Pot, right on the beach. Sugar Pot is a typical beach hut type of place, with the exception of the sign prohibiting ganja. The sign wasn't working too well, as the cook was occasionally toking a splif in the kitchen. The smoke would gently waft out and tickle our nostrils.

Anyway, Sugar Pot is the start of a dream by Josh, the Belgian guy seen here on the left. He is an engineer, and his last project was the beautiful new bus terminal in central Kingston (near Halfway Tree). While he had thought of southern France or Spain as a place to retire to, he seemed to have become stuck in Jamaica. His dream is to make this little spot into a kind of hotel/eatery/music place. He has just started in the last few months.

The McDonalds, Ronnie and Michael, live in the area and got to know Josh and his local partner. The McDonalds are record producers, and work in Kingston throughout the week.

Josh had asked them to come and get some music going every other Sunday. So here we all were, for lunch and music on the beach.

The scene was completed by some young pups lazing around the area, waiting for scraps and attention.

As soon as lunch happened, they were over at the table, waiting for dropped food and nipping at each other.

The other participant was a lizard lounging and lurking on the driftwood.

Lunch started with conch soup, created al fresco over a live fire. That was followed by chicken and fish, rice and peas, and cole slaw. All was washed down with Ting (local grapefruit drink) or Red Stripe.

So, the McDonalds turned out to be very interesting people. First they hauled out an actual tube pre-amp, the first tubes I had seen in probably forty years. I asked about them, and apparently the tubes were weak, but still functioning. It turns out that these guys have been in the music business since they were about three feet tall. They had built their first gear, tube-powered amps that drove 50-60 amps. They had built their first speakers by hand, as well. Then they started playing parties and progressed from there. Now they work in their studio all week and return home to Oracabessa for the weekend.

So, to recap, Red Stripe, conch soup, puppies, chicken cooked al fresco, beach, music. Why the hell don't we live here?