Overproof

During my volunteer training, I was told that people working overseas tend to experience, to varying degrees, a pretty standard pattern of emotions - initial excitement and thrill giving way to a sense of displacement and homesickness as the novelty wears off, followed by periods of frustration and exasperation at what becomes everyday routine, before finally you end up worrying about going home and leaving behind what now seems normal.

Jayvan in action

Five-and-a-bit weeks in and the lacquer of the honeymoon period is starting to lose its shine. I'm thinking about home more, wondering what people are doing, wondering what I'd be doing if I was there. I can think of a couple of explanations for this. For one, the first week I moved to Old Harbour I found getting in touch with home difficult and it started playing on my mind. Access to the internet became more sporadic and it took me over a week to work out where to get cheap phone credit to call the UK. I went nearly two weeks without speaking to Daisy and my mum and dad had got to the stage of checking my bank account to see if there was any evidence that I'd been robbed and sent for a swim wearing concrete armbands. Feeling cut off made me miss home.



Grade 1 PE

The second reason is that I haven't got much to do and boredom is starting to creep in. After really enjoying my first week at Marlie Mount, summer school has been a disappointment so far. It only runs 9am til 12am Monday to Thursday, so it leaves me with a lot of time on my hands. But what is frustrating is that I'm only doing about an hour every morning actually working with the kids. I've been asked to help out with PE and that's all it runs for each day. The rest of the time I feel a bit like a spare part. It is also slightly annoying that the Principal asked me to draw up a plan for what I could/wanted to do during summer school which I spent ages on, doing it completely blind as I hadn't been given a timetable or any idea how summer school would be run. I had some good ideas - I spent an entire Sunday night making cards to play grammar bingo and I wanted to film the kids reading out a news script to practise their reading and speaking skills. I doubt the plan has been read, even though I've printed it out and given it to her twice.

Making Porridge...

On the plus side, at least this didn't happen at the deaf school, where I really would have been climbing the walls if I'd not had anything to do all day. At least here there's always someone to pass the time of day with, I can walk into town if I want to or just kick back in the yard and listen to the radio. Days are filled with simple pleasures - books, cups of tea, games of draughts, walks to the shops to buy a bag juice (sweet syrupy drinks that come, you guessed it, in a small plastic bag) - and setting myself small challenges - learning to make corn porridge, trying wood carving, and doing my washing by hand (ok, so this was more a necessity than choice, my first mistake being to put far too much detergent in the water, which promptly took a layer of skin off my knuckles when I started srcubbing clothes like the women do. At least it killed nearly three hours).

On my second Saturday here I was up at 5.30am to go for a walk. I'd mentioned that I'd like to see Old Harbour Bay, a small fishing village about three miles from Old Harbour itself, and Joel, one of the late Mr Bryan's nephews who has just left school, said he'd walk me down there on the proviso that we went at dawn. I had no idea why, nor am I in the habit of rising at such an hour to take a morning constitutional, but I agreed anyway. My reward was to get to see the land at its most beautiful - whereas Jamaican sunsets are short and abrupt, dawn comes on languid and graceful, giving you plenty of time to watch the sun lazily stretch its arms over the misty green landscape while the sky drifts from purple to pink to blue. Now I know what people mean when they talk about it being the little things that count.



Joel at the Bay



Having far too much time on my hands, I've done some thinking about time and how we occupy it. I've heard the theory that leisure time is a luxury of the privileged, but I wonder if it's not more accurate to say that it is the ability to afford to fill your leisure time that is the real privilege. Back home, I can barely sit still for ten minutes without needing something to entertain me, and I don't think I'm abnormal. We all seem programmed to be constantly hunting the next stimulation fix, there are whole industries dedicated to meeting our thirst for entertainment, flogging us hundreds of crap TV channels, 24/7 wi-fi internet access, CDs, DVDs, gadgets or satisfying our huge appetites for food, booze and sex. Our boredom thresholds are miniscule, and it costs us to make sure they aren't crossed.

...And washing

The lifestyle in Jamaica is very different. Here, people talk openly about their biggest concern being to have enough food to eat on any given day. I've heard more than one person talk about living hand-to-mouth, with jobs scarce and wages piss-poor compared to the high costs of basic necessities like food and fuel. It isn't that people don't like to enjoy themselves and have nice things (Jamaicans are obsessed with mibile phones for a start), it's just that entertainment is really treated like a luxury, not a daily right. Just watching the way people will simply sit around, sometimes talking, sometimes not, for ages at a time because when all is said and done, they can't really afford ot do much else, has made me think hard about how much I take enjoying myself for granted.

Take drinking, for example. After not minding the novelty of very little alcohol while in Mandeville, since I've been in Old Harbour I've definitely rediscovered my thirst and started wanting a drink again. People here drink, but alcohol is very much a luxury, a rare treat to be enjoyed as and when you can afford (and alcohol is far from cheap). By being around people who don't regularly head off to the nearest bar as soon as they've had their tea,
I've realised how much of a ritual drinking is to me, almost a default response to avoiding boredom - if I haven't got anything else to do, I automatically start thinking about booze. And I'm far from alone in this back in the UK - let's face it, prowess in the rites of Bacchanalia are a considerable source of national pride.

Young Jason gets an introduction to punk rock

Anyway, enough philosophising - let's just say I haven't exactly gone thirsty the past few weeks, even if I have been mulling it over some. As I've said, Jamaicans are not averse to what they'd call a good 'mash up'. First and foremost, I've been initiated into the secrets of overproof white rum, Jamaica's infamous contribution to distilled sugar cane beverages. The name is self-explanatory - overproof has not been put through a secondary refinement process which lowers the alcohol content to between 40 and 50%, meaning it is literally 'over' the typical strength or 'proof' of most rums you find. As 'raw' rum, you can smell and taste the molasses it is made from, thick and treacly, and at 65% it packs a healthy kick, giving your mouth and throat the sensation of having important layers stripped away if you choose to drink it neat. It is best enjoyed with two parts cold pop to one part rum, the Jamaican boys preferring Boom!, a local version of Red Bull, while I personally go for ginger beer. The other great thing about overproof is that it is cheap - a 200ml bottle plus chaser is about three quid and will see off a couple of you, a 500ml bottle is about a fiver with chaser and will easily get five people bouncing. Buying a bottle to share in the yard has quickly become part of the routine on a Friday and Saturday.

The Yard

After my wholesome dawn walk on my second Saturday here, I got to enjoy an entirely different experience (and equally little sleep) that same night. Kara was tagging along with her sister's boyfriend, Sean, and some of his friends to a 'party' up in Old Harbour, a party being what we'd call a club night. I was invited and jumped at the chance to see if Jamaica lived up to its reputation for knowing how to let its hair down. My first lesson was that Jamaicans don't do early when it comes to going out. At 10pm (a late start for me) I was stationed in the yard armed with a bottle of white rum ready to get the pre-loading going. Everyone else was locked in their rooms resting ahead of the frolics to come. By 1am when everyone was finally ready, I'd polished off the (small) bottle of rum with some belated help from Sean and was starting to wonder if bed might not be the best idea.

I had a quiet word with myself, pulled myself together and we were soon in a taxi which turned out to be driven by a friend of Sean's from Kingston, with another mate riding shotgun. The ride was in itself an interesting start to the night as our driver decided to drag race a much flasher vehicle, proving he had less respect for his car's engine by flooring it in first and winning the day. I got out at the club smiling - I've always liked driving fast. The party was at the back of a large plaza in an open court yard. I was let in for 300 dollars instead of the advertised 500, Kara reckoning it was because I'm a 'whitey' - I guess standing out pays off sometimes. At first, nothing much was happening, 1am still apparently being early. But I soon clocked that it was nothing too unfamiliar - very bass-heavy soundsytem blasting out dancehall, some of the guys in particular dressed far flashier than you'd usually see back home, but nothing to make me gawp. Yet.

This was where I found out Jamaicans really do know how to party. For the first round, Sean insisted I try Magnum, a local tonic wine that tastes a bit like a sweeter Buckfast. Then it was in for the serious stuff. After handing over money to buy a Dragon Stout and a drink for Kara, Sean instead returned from the bar sporting a full bottle of Apple Smirnoff, lemonade and more Magnums. Let's just say I was soon pretty drunk. Kara could barely stand up.

By this time, Crazy had turned up and the party was really starting to bounce. I can't say I dug much of the modern Dancehall stuff that was being played - the DJ would cut songs really short and just seague them into eachother on his laptop with little finesse, and also spend a considerable time talking over them. But a fair few reggae classics were being thrown in and that kept me moving around a bit. However, by this time there was more to the entertainment than the mere music. I'd heard plenty about how overtly and showily sexual Dancehall is, but the 'dancing' has to be seen to be believed. This wasn't just your average grinding, where female buttock and male lunchbox get more closely acquainted. The 'moves' on display wouldn't have been out of place in a cheap British porn film - I swear to god, there were girls in the tiniest hot pants bent double so their hands were flat on the floor while their partners gripped their hips and did a good imitation of a Jack Russell in heat. The lot with me were laughing at me as I just stood and watched, no doubt with a look of bemused astonishment on my face. I couldn't help it. There was nowhere else to look. I wish I'd taken my camera.

We left the party proper just before dawn but stayed sat outside for about an hour until it shut down while Kara tried to sober up/slept. I did pretty much the same thing all of Sunday, bar an abortive and still drunken trip to try and get on the internet at about 10am, which only resulted in me getting the hell bitten out of me by mosquitos as I tried in vain to get a connection. And despite the heat and the sweat, I still didn't have a hang over. It's good to know I've still got it.