Where to begin?
After I posted yesterday I started the laundry and did some General Tidying. I cuddled with the girls and watched TV with them and enjoyed a proper coffee. We went to the park. There’s a snow fort there, carved out of a big pile of snow. The girls and I huddled inside it. I lay back, staring at the ceiling… and came very close to falling asleep.
I was so tired I could hardly function.
And now I’m here, having consumed one coffee, a decent night’s sleep, and one workout this morning.
I’ve already uploaded a whole whack of photos. You can just skip over to my Flickr if you prefer and see it in a slideshow format but I haven’t added any extra description at this point so you won’t know what you’re looking at), but I think I’m going to tackle this chronologically, using notes that I jotted in my notebook. I’ll link to photos where it’s appropriate.
(originally written SATURDAY January 19th and Sunday the 20th)
We flew out of Ottawa, switched over in Toronto, and then took an Air Jamaica flight to Kingston. The seats on Air Jamaica were the most uncomfortable seats I’ve ever sat on. We were served jerk chicken with beans and rice, which was all pretty good in my view.
I was worried about the airport in Kingston. To tell you the truth, everyone I met in Kingston was gracious and polite, except for the folks at the airport. What is it about working at the airport that makes people so gruff? I was anxious enough as it was. I really didn’t need someone snapping at me because the my luggage cart was over the line.
We were to be picked up by a fellow named Carlton, a colleague of Kristina’s. (She’s the gal I was travelling with, and she was here on business. ) The sun was setting as we made our way through the airport to meet up with Carlton. We found him without incident and he drove us to our hotel, the Terra Nova in New Kingston.
The airport in Kingston is built on a spit. The road leading away from the airport is a two-lane highway with ocean flanking each side of it. Apparently it floods whenever there is a storm. I could see that there’d been an attempt to build up some sand and rocks to prevent the road from washing out. It all looked like a work in progress, but in my mind this could have been (like much of Kingston) a lovely scenic drive if someone deigned to invest some resources into it.
We drove through (I guess this was downtown Kingston?) away from the ocean toward our hotel. As I mentioned, our hotel was situated in New Kingston, where most of the business/financial stuff goes on. Wow. Wow. Wow. I hate to use the word shantytown in describing this area, but I gotta tell ya, I have never seen anything like it before, and I wasn’t even seeing it in daylight. It was clearly a very poor part of town. Imagine rows upon rows of storefront/housing made from sheets of steel and plywood, concrete blocks and flaking paint. There were tons of people milling around and talking. It was quite the sight. I hoped that I could get back to take some photos, but I never had the opportunity and frankly, I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of walking around and taking photos there.
We checked into our room at the Terra Nova. It was a very pretty hotel, but it’s aimed more at business, not at tourism. Our room was okay (see pic). It smelled a little musty, even though we had the A/C running all the time but this was something I could live with. Carlton dropped us off and picked us up later to take us to Port Royal (which has a rich history, filled with pirates and hurricanes and fires).
I think I saw a dead goat by the side of the road.
It was too bad we weren’t seeing it by day. We went to a restaurant called Gloria’s Rendezvous. It was really different (see pic). It was basically a street that was closed off to traffic. There were plastic chairs and tables and a tiny kitchen in a small brick building. That’s it. We let Carlton guide our menu choice. We ordered fried snapper (check out the teeth in the pic) and it was delicious (although it took about two hours to get to us). I have to laugh… I sipped my Red Stripe as SLOWLY as I possibly could. I had no idea where the restroom was and I really didn’t want to explore the options. I’m such a chicken.
There is so much potential in Kingston. There are scrubby fields, abandoned shacks, buildings in various degrees of construction or disrepair, and lo, a pretty home with a bright yellow facade and a row of soldier-straight palm trees, flowering jewels winding around branches and spilling out of clay pots.
Everything is gated, and I mean everything, all windows and all doors on every building. It’s a “Jamaican insurance policy,” joked Carleton.
Jamaicans see the gated windows and doors as a way of guaranteeing their safety, but I can’t help but see it as a kind of defeat. It’s kind of depressing, like graffiti that doesn’t get sandblasted off a wall. It’s an invitation, or maybe better described as a constant reminder that something is not quite right. Yet among this there is great beauty, generosity and kindness. It’s the ultimate contradiction.
The people I’ve met are incredibly friendly and polite. We’re greeted with an open smile wherever we turn. That smile seems to hide some degree of shyness, unassuming pride, and genuine kindness.
The service people amazed me too, and it’s not just because we were staying at an upscale hotel. Everyone is so friendly to us, but it is never begrudging. The waiter at Gloria’s, dressed in a crisp white shirt and black dress pants (even though he was working in a regular kind of restaurant on the street… there was nothing fancy about this place) was extremely polite. Yet at the same time everything is really laid back. I think we could learn something here.
[Part two coming next …. in which I pretend I am deaf. Gack. How embarrassing.]
