Emancipation Park has become a haven for me. I am there at least two out of three mornings a week, running and shuffling. I am there, usually, before the sun is up, and I am in good company. In the past few weeks, it is taking on soap opera proportions for me, the characters now well-formed in my mind. I tell you now about them. The main characters are Mystic Mikey and Roderick.

Mystic Mikey is a reggae singer. He gave me his CD awhile back and it is now on my iPod. It is good. He has a sweet voice. He is an elderly man, with short, white hair and beard, a lean frame that he carries with surprising ease given his age. He wears running shorts, shoes and a tank top every day, despite the fact that I have yet to see him run. Sometimes he does walk fast, though, but that is to go and chat with someone. He plays ping pong every morning with a group of men who all call each other ‘general’ and ‘boss.’ Mikey is actually good at ping pong. He convinced me once to join him in a game, it was fun! Mikey says he has children in London, he says he has Julian Marley as a promoter for his band, but he also says he is having financial difficulties and that his car just gave out.

Roderick is a photographer. He is always out and about at events. He has a contraption such that he can take pictures and instantly print them out. But times are tough for him too, especially now that his wife has gone farrin (to Florida). He has two children. Roderick is short, stout and runs for three hours every day. He is definitely a shuffler, but a determined one. He tells me it is a good way to keep the weight off the belly.

Mikey and Roderick sort of run the place in that they know everyone. Then there are two subgroups: the elderly folk who stroll around the track. I call them the philosophers. Whenever I pass any one of them, they are talking politics and solving the world’s problems. This morning, someone stated that President Barack Obama must have the highest level of security surrounding him than any other president in history. Can I just tell you that if Jamaica’s politicians came to Emancipation Park every morning, they might pick up some good ideas about how to fix some major problems?

The other subgroup is the one that mills about, in full workout gear, in the middle of the park. A few of them walk around the track a bit, some of them do some stretches and calisthetics, but they mostly just talk. It is delightful when they start stretching and moving though, some of them are resurrecting some full-on Jane Fonda moves.

Some other characters include the old Rasta who jogs around the track, locks flowing almost down to his ankles; the elderly woman, barefooted and in a skirt and cardigan, who walks around the track a few times; the gentlemen (often reading Bibles) who look like they’ve had a rough night and come and crash and snooze in the park as soon as it opens in the morning; the hardcore sprinters who sprinkle drops of sweat on everyone as they pass; the well-groomed and stylish businesspeople passing through on their way to the corporate district and the women who look more like they are dancing than walking (seriously, Jamaican people look cool and like they have rhythm doing EVERYTHING. Not fair.)

There are some serious runners, here and there. Sometimes there are tourists from the nearby hotels. But most of the time, it is mostly people strolling around the track. It is not really an exercising pace, but it seems to work for them, as everybody seems to be enjoying themselves. Despite the laid back vibe, there are always three security guards, who stand at the peripheries and watch everything go down during opening hourse (5:00 am to 11:00pm or 12:00am). And sometimes, the odd outlier decides to walk in the wrong direction on the track (we are directed to only walk counter-clockwise), but that never really throws anyone off, actually.

You can see why I love Emancipation Park so now. It could be boring; after all, I am pounding around the same circle, over and over, day after day, but these people keep it interesting for me. And I now have to budget extra time to catch up with the regulars like Mikey and Roderick.