This perfume commercial, directed by Spike Jonze, is creating quite a buzz. It is apparently a parody of perfume commercials. The song, “Mutant Brain”, features vocals by Jamaican DJ Assassin. Enjoy.

I’m happy to report that we have working, fast Internet and cable. Three young people arrived yesterday between the hours of 8-12, as promised. They took about one hour and were fast and efficient, even using booties so that our floors would not get dirty. Our marathon is over. However, the Digicel Play app does not work on my iPhone. It is apparently “blocked”. When I called the 1-800 number I was told it would not work on my version of phone. Progress not perfection.

Yet another profile of the “Gully Queens” (this time in the Huffington Post, although to be fair, it is an article profiling a photo documentary). Yet another lost opportunity to do something to help them. Raising awareness helps, certainly, but at some point you have to wonder who is being served. Is it the photographer who gets to fulfill his or her vision? The writer who is allowed to unleash the words inside of them? Is it the web site that gets more views? And I might object to the use of the word “fearless” to describe these young transgender women. They live in fear of being killed or attacked most of the time. It is articles like these that are dangerously close to sensationalizing these young transgender women. They are not dressed like this most of the time. If they were, they would likely be dead. Instead, they roam the streets in traditional male clothing, searching for food, money, clean clothes, simple companionship and support.

So in writing these profiles and taking these pictures, these transgender women become characters, one-dimensional sensations, not young people in need of shelter, clothing, food, medication and love.

But here are the words of the photographer, Christo Geoghegan, who took these picture of the Gully Queens and what he wanted to achieve:

“I wanted to be able to use the photographs and accompanying documentary film as a way for them to display their sexuality and personality the way they wanted to,” Geoghegan said, “and not the way that society had told them that they should.”

So we can say with almost certainly that the beneficiary of these articles is not the subject of what is produced. I was optimistic that the GoFundMe page would be a vehicle for fundraising, which it has been, marginally. (Please go and check it out here, money is being raised, but it appears to have stalled on its way to the goal of $10,000).

When I read this Huffington Post piece, however, I thought back to this excellent post by a Canadian indigenous woman. She writes about how to interact with indigenous people in Canada.

She wants writers to “center” indigenous voices and perspectives, to do your research, not treat subjects as mascots, to think critically about compensation, to not just extract, and to avoid stereotypes, to summarize briefly.

This article made me think beyond my usual role as a journalist, as someone who goes in, asks questions, tries not to disrupt too much, gets out, writes the story and moves on. Except that has always been hard for me to do. Especially when writing about vulnerable people. There is always this queasiness, this unease, this discomfort, that I am extracting something, that I am disturbing their lives. I tell myself I am doing a job, but I am always aware of the disparities and the structural inequities that put me where I am versus where they are in life.

Of course, there are clear boundaries in terms of compensation: to do so would be to compromise the integrity of the story and the information extracted. But is it ok to give money for bus fare if someone meets you somewhere? To give money for phone credit if you want them to call you? To pay for a meal?

These questions have come up for me here especially in Jamaica. I have done my best to respect boundaries and simply tell stories, but then I wonder why it has to be a white foreigner doing the telling. Why are there not avenues for these people to tell their stories themselves? There are other media outlets, of course, but none really awarded such legitimacy as mainstream media, at least in terms of attention paid.

In any case, please read this wonderful piece by Jess Houty. It has forced me to think beyond my role as a journalist, to stop pretending that I am just doing a job, to start taking more responsibility. I look back on one piece in particular, where I interviewed an impoverished young girl from rural St. Catherine. Her family asked for money and it was a strict policy of the outlet I was working for not to pay for interviews. But I was left with so much discomfort: I was extracting from them, what would they get in return? Would this piece make their lives better or worse? As it turned out, not much changed. And I suspect this is usually the case, but it is incumbent on the journalist to think these things through.

This will be a seemingly interminable, detailed post discussing the virtues of customer service (actually a lack of) amongst two of Jamaica’s largest companies. Specifically, Internet and cable providers. I think the incremental narrative is necessary to demonstrate how ridiculous it can be, and how much you can feel as though you have fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole.

So here it goes. As I finished writing this, I was on hold with Flow for 30 minutes. That is 30 minutes of wasted credit and 30 minutes of bad 80s synthethizer music in my ear. That is roughly $200 of wasted credit. “Why don’t you hang up and pay another way?” my husband asks me. Good question. The bill is in my landlord’s name so we cannot pay online. Going to the storefront usually involves non-functioning self-pay kiosks, or a long wait with a squirmy baby in my arms. Sometimes I pay at a Paymaster, which is marginally better in terms of the wait, but an extra fee is applied. So I waited on hold and eventually gave up.

Flow recently upgraded the payment system to include an option for automated pay (a live person is not needed), but mysteriously my account number refers to someone whose bill is up-to-date as of Dec. 11 of who-knows-what year. So I am left to wait on hold. I am usually cut off at least once or it is busy and then when I am on hold, it is usually at least a 10-minute wait. I do have to say, however, that the agents are efficient and polite, when I can actually locate one.

Flow charges have recently gone up, with no explanation, so we decided to succumb to Digicel’s aggressive Play campaign. Agents visited our house and left a friendly reminder on our doorknob to call if we wanted to sign up. And then a lovely woman visited our complex and persuaded us to sign up. It was cheaper, offered a landline and more television channels (although we rarely watch TV), so we decided to give it a try.

I paid the $3,000 deposit and the agent promised someone would call the next day to schedule a time to install it. No call the next day. I called her the following day and she said she would look into it and call me back. No call. I called her the next day and she said there was some kind of error and she would call me back. No call. I called her the next day and said I would like my deposit back. She repeated that there was some kind of error with our account (how could there be an error? I checked our receipt and all the information is correct and we have no history with Digicel). She then promised again that someone would be calling over the weekend and that they would have to “do something for me” to make up for the inconvenience. Still no call.

I decided at this point of ridiculousness to try social media. Whoever runs the Twitter account answered almost immediately, asking for my contact details, which I provided. They said someone would be calling me to arrange a refund, and that I could pick it up. Of course, no call has come in.

I am out $3,000 and have decided to try another avenue, through friends who work through Digicel.

There is no shortage of complaints about customer service from these two companies. And this is my experience. Unfortunately, Internet is essential for both my and my husband’s work, so we are forced to choose between bad and worse. Let’s hope I have a happy update at some point in the near future.

I’ve never really been sure what the fuss about Adele is, but this cover song is amazing. Enjoy!

A two-year-old boy was shot point blank in the head yesterday. Sometimes it is hard to fathom how such ugliness can come out of such a beautiful place. I hold my baby tighter today and pray for his family.

Today I will veer away from my seemingly all-Bolt all-the-time blog to post a wonderful podcast. It is an interview with a Canadian journalist who has been traveling in Syria and Yemen and Gaza. Regardless of her politics and agenda, she is shedding light on alternate angles and narratives from this part of the world.

It was inevitable that the tabloids would get to Usain Bolt at some point (again). It has happened pretty quickly this time. A Brazilian student is claiming she shared a night with the Olympic medalist. Bolt has a girlfriend of two years. The picture doesn’t even look like him, however. Perhaps it is someone trying to cash in on his fame.

Happy Friday. We took this picture with Usain Bolt a few years ago. We were shopping for groceries, so was he. He was gracious and took pictures with everyone who asked. I’m sure he won’t be traveling without some form of protection anymore.