The first time I went to Jamaica I was twenty two. I went with my husband and we were going to celebrate the marriage of one of my dearest friends. I had met her when I was a baby and we had been friends until about age seven or eight. We reconnected at the age of twenty. We ended up living in the same house randomly in a totally different town than where we had first met. At that time her boyfriend lived in Jamaica and mine was in South Africa. We both were struggling students who were spending hundreds of dollars on long distance phone calls! We bonded on many fronts and have remained friends ever since. We have never lived on the same continent again but that small time together meant everything.
She came to my wedding and I was going to hers. I was a bridesmaid in the wedding actually! Back in those golden olden days of travel you could bring everything and your kitchen sink in your suitcase. I remember bringing a bag full of snacks because I didn't know what the food situation would be like. I also remember bringing a full and massive CD player along with a platter, plastic wrap, and so much more (in a suitcase). I was bringing her down the things she had gotten at a wedding shower. I brought a blow up bed, sheets, the list was endless!
When I arrived I was hit with that same kind of heat I had felt in the Philippines. It was that tropical heat that you can't fathom until you are in it. I was travelling down with, not just my husband, but a whole group of friends. We needed to get to the coastal town where my friend was living and so we all jumped into a small taxi. I had to sit on my husbands lap.
We were all hungry and so we tried to go through a drive through to get food. This was my first experience with Jamaican customer service. Let's just say that the fast food joint did not have ANY of the numbers we asked for and in the end the poor taxi driver had to ask the lady what numbers they DID have and she, in a VERY annoyed voice, listed off the numbers and we were then able to order. This is not an experience I had ever had in my country.
Then we were taken to the town. The roads were curvy, covered in potholes, the taxi was hot, goats and donkeys grazed along the sides of the road and we drove quickly. I was happy to arrive in one piece.
The town we stayed in was right on the coast of Jamaica. It was very hot there. My friend and her husband were renting a house to live in but had not moved in yet. It was completely unfurnished but it had a bathroom, a bedroom or two, a living room and small kitchen. There were no coverings on the windows but we did have electricity.
So many things happened while I was on that trip. The small town did not have plastic wrap. I had brought it for zero reason other than I had a weird hunch we would need it. Little did I know that in Jamaican culture, at a wedding, you had to give out a special rum cake. The plastic wrap I brought was needed to wrap each individual piece of cake! While we were there we were working hard on preparing for the wedding ~ making cloth napkins, decorations, and running errands. I had a taste of my friend's life. She was only twenty two but she and her soon to be husband were pastoring a church. Just days before her wedding she got a call that four children were orphaned up in the mountains and could she take them. They were at risk for having AIDS and so until they were tested no one else would take them. She said yes. My friend's parents lived in the same town at the time so the children slept there. They were so precious and going through so much. It was very eye opening and so impacting to me.
Since we were right by the water and it was SO hot we did go swimming a lot. I saw puffer fish and other colourful fish and my husband saved me from a shark. He can truthfully say that he has saved my life. We didn't know that the area was a popular place for sharks because the fishermen gutted their fish in that area. Well, we learned our lesson. I was swimming happily when suddenly he scooped me up and ran. Everyone was hightailing it out of the water and I didn't understand what was going on. They all ran up on the banks far from the water and when I looked back I could see the shark fin circling around. It has been coming right for me.
While we were there we got to be part of a marriage proposal and also got to be part of a Jamaican wedding.
It was held on the grounds of a resort close to the water. I remember that the guests arrived an hour late which was expected and called 'island time'. There was a parrot in a cage that made very loud cell phone ringing noises during the ceremony. I was wearing a short strapless black dress made of cotton and I sunburned badly. My friend wore a large full satin wedding dress made for her by her mother. with a long heavy train I could not fathom how she could manage in the heat.
The wedding was beautiful ~ the groom met his dad for the first time at his wedding! He also saw his mom and dad interact for the first time in his life. The groom had grown up in a very poverty stricken area and was raised by his mom who had him, his twin brother, and other siblings. His dad had a whole other family in the States and had never visited his sons in Jamaica!
During this trip I experienced really hard things. I was in the process of slowly dying of cancer but I didn't know. I kept having these episodes where I would start haemorrhaging and I know that something was very wrong, but I was nowhere near a hospital and I'd have to lay on the blow up mattress in the sweltering heat just suffering. It was challenging and I got weaker and weaker. Everyone was young and living this carefree life and I was living such a different reality.
The ants surprised me. They were everywhere and so determined. If you left one crumb of food out there would be a trail of ants to it no matter how tall the building.
I was most impacted by the orphans that we met, by my friend's decision to make Jamaica her forever home, by the heat and my suffering, and by the fun of the wedding. Jamaica culture is complicated. It comes from such trauma and tragedy and the people are resilient and devout and can dance!
I didn't know at that time but when I got home I would have to start chemotherapy and my life would be forever changed. This little slice of time in Jamaica with a group of friends, celebrating my friend getting married, was a huge blessing ~ it was the last of my youth.
I am glad we went.
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