Thanks to my encounter with the Blue Mountains last week, which was mostly delightful, I have a dramatic gash on my left shin from falling. Looking back, I’m not even sure how I got cut up, because it was on a path covered with leaves. But all of a sudden, I was sprawled on the ground and then within seconds, a very strong gentleman hoisted me back to my feet. I had about 15 minutes of acute pain, during which I wasn’t sure I could walk anymore, but I kept going and apparently walked it off.

It looks worse than it is. But this means many people have stopped me to comment on it. This includes both people I know and don’t know. They say: “Ya cut up ya foot!” At first I was confused because I’m wearing shoes, of course, that cover my feet, and anyway, the cut is on my shin. I quickly pieced it together, though. Jamaicans call the entire leg “foot.”

So, I did cut up my foot. It is healing nicely and one man suggested yesterday that I go in the sea a lot. I wish. 

Perhaps this wound is making the coaster wrangler feel sorry for me? I bring you the coaster update now, back by special request. This week, it has been a mostly uneventful ride, almost pleasant, in fact. This is because most mornings this week, the wrangler has guided me onto the bus and yelled “Put her up there!” Up there being the front of the bus where there is a seat. So everyone has to wait while I scramble over one person sitting in the aisle and awkwardly swing my legs and arms about to do so. 

I’ve concluded that the coaster is like a grand-scale human version of Tetris. These little buses have a suggested capacity of 29 people, but this seems less like a bureaucratic prescription and more like a joke. I would say, on average, there are about 50 people on a coaster during rush hour. So you are literally squished body-to-body with people, trying in vain not to pitch forward every time the bus screeches to a halt. The Tetris element comes in because some enterprising person decided to add seats in the aisle- they fold up when someone needs to get by. 

So when someone yells “Bus stop!” way in the back, everybody must get up, fold up their seats and wait for the person to pass as the wrangler yells “Let er off!” It happens surprisingly quickly and efficiently and people are very cordial with each other. People mostly get annoyed with the bus driver as sometimes they don’t feel like stopping or they drive too fast. You’ll know they are annoyed because they will start critiquing the driver out loud, to no one in particular. 

Ah, coaster, I still love you.

This morning I visited one of the schools in which Youth Opportunities works. It is an inner-city high school and I went to meet one of the guidance counselors to explain the project we will be doing with with the Gleaner newspaper. The guidance counselor will be providing answers to ethical dilemmas we will be running every week in the youth section. We talked for awhile- she has been there for 14 years and likes the job as it is rewarding, but allowed that it is challenging. The main problems, she said, stem from a lack of parenting. The parents of these children believe it is sufficient to provide a bit of food and some clothes, but for them, the job stops there. As a result, these youth come to school and grow up with a lack of values and little experience with being loved. Other challenges facing the guidance counselor are gambling, drug and alcohol abuse and pregnancy. One child simply stopped showing up to school and when the guidance counselor talked the parents, she discovered it was because the youth had no shoes and there was no money in the family for new ones.

It is not all grim news, however. Over 100 students are about to graduate next week. Many will go one to a two-year vocational skills training program, some to the University of West Indies and some to the University of Technology.

As I was waiting to talk to the guidance counselor, I met a young man in grade 7/8 who was just about to write a music exam. He let me look at the exam, which was four pages. Its title was Music Tehory (oops, think they meant Theory) and it included questions such as “What are the five lines on which the notes appear called?”, “Who is Bob Marley?” and “Who won the 2011 Digicell Rising Star contest (the Jamaican version of American Idol)?” I asked the young man if he knew all the answers and he said yes. I then wished him good luck and he said “Thank you Miss.”

Last evening was the opening of an art festival called Kingston On the Edge. Dubbed an ‘urban art festival,’ it kicked off at Redbones Cafe, a cool little club/restaurant almost hidden near the business district. I’d been there once before for a movie screening and loved the open-air feel, the twinkling lights and the enticing smells from the kitchen. We arrived early, thinking we could get in free, but alas, this was not the case. We paid anyway (about $11.00) since we knew the bands would be good. And they were. After getting a seat and looking at the artwork, we were first treated to a spoken word performance from an artist named Inansi (I imagine this is a take-off from the famed child’s icon Anansi). She performed a poem about the current state of Jamaican culture, about greed and hope. After this performance, Addis Pablo (the son of a famed Rastafarian performer Augustus Pablo) performed with a band of seven other Rastafarians (four drummers, a bassist and guitarist I think). They were mellow and soothing and inspiring and definitely very relaxed. Then Suzanne Couch performed. She is a reggae/jazz singer who makes it a family affair, as her husband and daughter were on stage with her. It was a great night and Redbones was packed by the time I left.

Before we entered, however, I got to hear a rant that puts all rants to shame. I think the Jamaicans do ranting the best. We were in the parking lot and a shiny black luxury car pulled up to the gate. There was no more room in the lot but the driver simply did not accept this reality. After telling the guard there was no way he was parking on the street, he peeled away, apparently angry. Then the two guards embarked on a 15-minute rant about how rich people think they are different, how they don’t care about rules, how they are not going to make special arrangements. As one guard put it: Bill Clinton don’t think he gotta wait in line at KFC like everybody else. In fact, there were parking spaces but sometimes I guess people just don’t want to accommodate. In any case, it was an awesome rant that I won’t soon forget.