The other day I was at a mall in uptown Kingston and my friend pointed to something. I looked and just saw a parking lot full of cars. Then, I realized what she was talking about as I focused on this one truck, full of cows and goats (the goats are crammed up behind the cows’ backsides, poor things)! It seems the drivers had stopped at the bank to do some business. The cows and goats seemed content, as did the small crowd that had gathered around to take pictures.
Beautiful Kingston, from the mountains, on a steamy summer day.
I always wonder what is within people who seem to have superhuman courage. What is it that allows them to get up every morning, despite challenges that most would run from? What pushes them to not only better themselves, but to reach out and try to help others? Of course, I don’t have the answers, but there are plenty of people around who allow me watch them, study them and try to find and understand that light within that drives them. Jermaine is one of those people.
I have known him for awhile now, having worked with him with the group he founded, the Colour Pink Group. Jermaine is a beautiful person doing some beautiful things. Through the CPG, he has reached out to Jamaican youth that society wants to discard. They live, literally, underground, or wherever they can find shelter. They go hungry and have no shoes. They cannot work because most of them never completed their education because their family cast them out.
This was the case with Jermaine. He was kicked out at 16 and lived on the streets, doing sex work to survive. As he says, he was at the bottom of the barrel, even rejected by his own community, so at times he felt he was outside of the barrel.
But please watch Jermaine’s story in his own words. You will be inspired.
My comparative politics skills are rusty, so I won’t go down that route, but these figures even just on their own are staggering. China owns almost half of Jamaica’s foreign debt, as the Gleaner headline puts it. By the numbers, Jamaica’s is indebted to foreign countries by $53.9 billion (roughly $465 million US). To China, Jamaica owes about $24.7 billion JMD. Of course countries holding foreign debt is nothing new, but the scope of China’s dominance around the island is quite shocking.
The Chinese are building roads, stadiums, housing and general infrastructure. You see the workers and engineers populating these sites across the island. You see how quickly the roads are completed, and how new and clean they are. And you wonder, what does this mean for Jamaica’s future? How long will this infrastructure last? How can Jamaica pay off its debts? For background, Jamaica entered into $400 million agreement with the Export Import Bank of China for road infrastructure in 2009.
Jamaica’s total debt is $1.85 trillion, $801.5 billion of which is external debt.
A young man in Trench Town. I took this a couple of years ago.
What others do with their ding-a-lings, nut sacks, vajayjays and butt holes is no concern of yours. If penises are inserted into vaginas, anuses, mouths, navels, armpits, nose holes, bottom holes, ear holes, eye sockets or dimples, once these orifices, crevices and creases do not belong to you (or your partner or a minor), you have nothing to worry about. Just sip your tea, look the other way and discuss the weather. Although, if your neighbour engages in unprotected nasal sex, the subsequent sneezing and coughing that is bound to ensue may disturb your sleep and keep you up a night.
These are not my words, this is from a hilarious columnist named Michael Abrahams, who is also a gynecologist, obstetrician, comedian and poet. He practices here in Kingston and writes a regular column in the Jamaica Gleaner. Please read the rest of the column, it sheds some light on the obsession some leaders of this nation seem to have with what other people do in the privacy of their own homes.
It also sheds, more disturbingly, some light on the horrific epidemic of childhood sexual abuse and exploitation here. The Gleaner yesterday reported (from the Office of the Children’s Registry) that
…some 12,449 cases of sexual abuse of girls were reported to the Office of the Children’s Registry between 2007 and 2013, while 892 cases of the sexual abuse of boys were reported over the same period.
That is not something to laugh about, of course, but juxtaposing the two topics in the same column does the clever job of highlighting the issue that really needs addressing: protecting the children rather than worrying about what consenting adults do with one another.
Yesterday I caught up with some of the guys who had been living in Shoemaker’s Gully, before the police kicked them out. Of course, they now have nowhere to go, so they are moving from “yard” to “yard” until someone calls the police or threatens them. Right now, they are staying near a tourist landmark in Kingston. It is not a home, there is no roof over their heads.
They were flooded out last night, everything they now own is soaked. Some of them have HIV/AIDS so their immune systems are weak, so being wet is all the more dangerous. One of them was limping yesterday. They were on the way to a clinic because he had been shot EIGHT times by some boys passing by bikes. Shot with a gun EIGHT times, for no reason, other than just the typical harassment these young men get every day. (Of course, this is just one side of the story). All the bullets had been removed, but there were large open sores on his legs.
Hopefully, someone will treat him, although I imagine they do not have money to pay for the service. These guys also hadn’t eaten anything substantial in several days (they said) and one of them had no shoes.
What can be done? I ask this question every day. Many people are working hard to find solutions. They can’t come soon enough.
A main street in Bahamas.
Beautiful Florida sunrise. Good morning! Back to JA now. Enjoy your day.
A while ago, I was in a car with three Jamaican men, driving and listening to the radio. A song by Selena (Dreaming of You Tonight) came on, and all three immediately squealed and began singing along with no self-consciousness. I had to laugh, especially in this land where masculinity comes under so much scrutiny and falls within such small parameters of acceptable behaviour.
In a similar vein, why do Jamaicans love Air Supply and Celine Dion so much? My friend Erin MacLeod has a wonderful article in the Guardian newspaper exploring, and possibly putting to rest, this fascinating phenomenon. Check it out, it explains a lot more about the culture in general.
