Playing Ball

I returned from Negril with that nagging end-of-holiday feeling that’s somewhere between sadness and impatience as you just want to get home to crack on with normality again. It certainly felt like I’d had my last big adventure here – with just three weeks to go, it was doubtful I’d venture far afield again. And besides, the closer I get to D-Day, the more thought I’m giving to the mundane matters of life back home. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the last week completing my PGCE application, making preliminary plans for finding a place to live back in Leeds, and even giving some thought to how I might earn some cash.

Birthday boy Simon and Kara

But if I had any illusions about letting my final few weeks slip by quietly, Jamaica had other ideas. No sooner were we back from Negril than it was Simon’s birthday. The day itself passed off reasonably quietly – being a good northern lad, he didn’t want to mess around with cakes and such idle fripperies, all he wanted to celebrate was a big pan of mash potato. So, armed with two bags of spuds which I reckon cost roughly eight times what you’d pay back home, I set about making a slap up meal of mash, beans and onion gravy. The mash wasn’t half bad even if I do say so myself, but the way the rest of our lot drooled and cooed over it you’d have thought we’d all been living on stale bread and water for the past fortnight. After that we wandered into town to grab ice cream at Juici Patties, one of the few things there actually is to do in Old Harbour on a weekday evening.

Wid me gyals

The birthday night out proper was penciled in for the next day, where it was decided we should make a return visit to Shell Dung Thursdayz following the previous week’s carnage. There was an argument to say this wasn’t really a bright idea – it was a school night and, considering what time Jamaican club nights get going, it was highly unlikely we’d be home before 4am if we wanted to make any kind of a night of it. In normal circumstances, this might not have been too much of a problem, we could simply roll into school late, do the sports and social clubs most of us help out with during the teachers’ weekly two-hour planning session, and then go home. However, on the Thursday Mr Thomas informed us that he’d organised staff vs students football and netball matches – me, Dan, Andrew and Simon were all needed for the football team, while Joanne would be coaching the netball team. Worse for her, she had also re-arranged a class she’d had to cancel the previous Friday when we went to Negril for that morning, and had to be in school for 8am. Not wanting to let the class down again, she decided in the end to put sense before valor and didn’t come out. 

Amy wasn't too impressed at meeting Akon...

The plan was to go out relatively early (i.e. midnight) and stay no later than 4am, giving us a fighting chance of getting four or five hours sleep and not having to chase a bunch of energetic 11-year-olds around a field in 35-degree heat whilst hanging out of our collectives arses the next morning. But as far as large groups of people and going out are concerned, plans are a complete waste of time. I’d decided to take a quick nap at about 9pm, and when I was awoken at 11.50pm and saw nobody had started to even think about getting ready yet, it dawned on me I might end up regretting what happened in the next five or six hours the next day. I’ve kind of got used to going out late while I’ve been here, but this was ridiculous – it was gone 1.30am when we finally left the house, a mere seven hours before I planned to get up so I could take cricket training before the football. I’d have been tempted to wonder whether it was worth it, but when we got to the club, the place was jumping – it was apparently some anniversary celebration for the Shell Dung nights, and people had turned out in force. It was another really good night, and it wasn’t as if we weren’t sensible – we left before the end and got home at something like a respectable 5.30am.

Think I've lost control of my face

I didn’t feel very sensible the next day. After about three hours sleep, I dragged myself up, only to realise Joanne, who’d leant me her phone while she borrowed mine to call home, had set the alarm wrong. There was no way I was going to make cricket training, but I didn’t much care – my immediate concern was conserving what little bit of energy I had to make it through the football match. The strange thing was, as I walked up to the school in blazing sunshine, I didn’t feel like crawling up into a ball somewhere and letting fate do to me as it saw fit – I felt good, excited even, like I had so much energy and enthusiasm I couldn’t help but put a jaunty little spring in my step and smile about how great everything was. I was still drunk.

Miss Cross in action

The school was already in a state of excitement when I arrived. The netball match was about to start and there were kids swarming all over the court, some of them nearly besides themselves with anticipation at getting to watch their teachers make idiots of themselves against their peers. I watched as much of the game as I could before the football started, and the star of the show was undoubtedly Miss Cross, the vice-principal. In her mid-sixties and due to retire at the end of this year, Miss Cross is a formidable giant of a woman and not the kind of person to give any quarter whatever the circumstances, certainly not when educating a bunch of pickneys in the ways of sport. She was like a magnet for the ball, bouncing around and barking orders with the energy of an 11-year-old. In the end, it was a pretty one-sided match, finishing 6-3 to the teachers.

About sums it up, really

I was still feeling overly smug and cocky about the prospect of charging around in the midday heat, and I couldn’t help but laugh when Simon rolled up about five minutes before kick-off, white as a sheet and clutching a huge bottle of water for grim life. We’d chipped in to buy him a bottle of brandy for his birthday, and he’d clearly over-indulged the previous night – he really didn’t look like a man relishing the prospect of an exhibition match against a bunch of kids. My mirth would soon return to bite me, however. It took about 10 minutes for the heat to suck the last of the alcohol out of my system, leaving me a gasping wreck of a man, sweating profusely, body aching, limbs refusing to obey my instructions, capable only of giving the ball to one of my team mates as quickly as humanly possible every time the ball came anywhere near me. That first half was one of the longest half hours of my life.

Goal hero Andy in action

I might have been a passenger, but on paper that wasn’t nearly enough to make it an equal game. Mr Thomas, who had played professionally in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, seemed content just to toy with the boys by going on ridiculous dribbling runs and seeing how long he could keep the ball from them, but Mr Samuels, a six-four giant built more like a rugby player than a footballer, turned out to be a behemoth on the pitch – not only was he incredibly skillful for a big guy, he was also obviously very competitive, and fought for every ball like it was the World Cup. With those two, plus Andy and Simon who are both pretty handy players, the first half was a stroll, and we went in 3-0 up.

Marlie Mount FC plus assorted fans

The second half was a different story. Ironically, after bolting down about a litre of water during the break and having a brief lie down, I pulled myself together and got my second wind. But whether it was down to fatigue or complaceny, we totally took our foot off the gas as a team and started to try to play at walking pace (probably why I could keep up better), which didn’t work against a bunch of lads used to charging around in the blazing sun for hours on end day after day. They have a couple of good players as well – a little Grade 6 lad called Meike in particular has all the skills – and they soon pegged us back to 3-2. In the end, it was only a well-taken solo goal from Andy that saved our blushes as the boys scored a third to totally own the second half, the 4-3 final scoreline flattering how the teachers played after the break.

Packing the crowds in

The football match marked the end of quite a busy week at school. As I try to cram in as much as I can before I leave, I’ve found myself staying at school for longer and longer, and on Wednesday and Thursday of last week I found myself working right through both shifts, 7am to 5pm. It’s tiring, but I don’t mind – it’s what I’m here for after al, and at the end of the day, it’s my choice. The main reason I was working such long hours was because I was teaching classes on both days, two hours at a time. On Wednesday I’d agreed to go into a Grade 4 class after lunch in the afternoon and teach them some descriptive writing. One thing I’ve quickly realized about planning lessons is that the internet is an absolute godsend – all you have to do is take a topic, stick it in Google with ‘lesson plan’ after it, and away you go, all the hints, tips and even full-blown plans to copy direct you could ever hope for. I found a great exercise for descriptive writing – split the class into five groups, hand each group an item of food, and then get each group to write as many adjectives as they could to describe the food using one of the five senses. The best part was ordering the kids NOT to eat all the biscuits and crisps I’d handed out to them before the exercise was finished, and then getting to bollock them as I watched all the furtive cramming of morsels into mouths, and the black market distribution of goods under desks. Inside I was killing myself laughing at it all.

New arrivals at Mighty Gully

I have so far stood up and taught a class maybe just a dozen times, and although I still feel kind of nervous beforehand, doing it gives me a huge sense of satisfaction. I still have a hell of a lot to learn, I know – my lesson planning is pretty much guess work, I have no idea how to time a class properly, I’m not very good at judging when kids are getting bored and restless, but I’m getting there. I even write my first plenary (after looking up what it meant!) for my Grade 6 classes last Thursday, when I got them to write descriptions of and draw pictures of an alien or a monster they made up. And my classroom management, which a few weeks ago was worse than ineffective and usually resulted in bedlam erupted as soon as the proper teacher left the room, has got much better, mainly because I’ve worked out that shouting your head off all the time is not a good idea – kids actually respond to gentle coercion and humour! The experience of teaching kids here, though, has been far and away the most important and most rewarding thing I’ve done since I’ve been in Jamaica. It has made me realise what I want to do with my life and I can’t wait to get started.

Kizzee and Simon

We didn’t have much planned for the weekend – Friday was a complete wash-out, and I had a sickening pile of laundry to plough through on Saturday, so I was expecting a quiet one. But they say some of the best times are those that just happen, and that is how Saturday panned out. As I was sat scouring my way through my mountain of dirty underwear and sweat-stained t-shirts, Sean told me there was a Set Up (a Nine Night) being held that night just down the road in Church Pen ahead of the funeral of his ex’s mother, and did we all fancy going? It was perfect, there wasn’t much else going on and I’d hoped the others would get a chance to go to a Set Up before they left, so I eagerly said yes. After finishing my laundry and watching the last half-an-hour of England’s surprise victory against Spain (which was a bit like watching Zulu, the way we sat back and desperately fought off wave after wave of attack), I planned to walk into town to get some cash out and do some shopping. Joanne, Simon, Britney and Mumsil joined me for the walk, and we ended up having a lovely afternoon wandering round Old Habour, stopping at Juici Patties for lunch and then walking out to the rail line, where Britney and Mumsil had told us we could watch the one daily passenger train pass by from a high bridge over the track and the adjacent toll road. The train never came, but we had some great views over the New Harbour housing schemes down to the sea at Old Harbour Bay and back the other way over Marlie Mount to the high hills beyond, with a gorgeous sunset colouring the sky deep pinks and blues.



On the bridge looking over Marlie Mount



The only acceptable way to end a Saturday afternoon is with a few beers and a traditional pub game, so we spent the early evening back at Juici Patties playing pool. Then it was back to base camp to get ready and wait on Kaday, who’d taken Andrew to Kingston to meet a friend of his from back in Bradford who’s now living over here. It turns out that the guy is quite a big promoter and the dance Andrew was going to was major deal – Kaday was nearly beside herself that Gyptian was playing, but for some reason had turned down Andrew’s invitation to go along with them. Her mate Cherise wasn’t so shy and told her she should ring Andrew back and ask if they could both still go – she phoned him as instructed, but completely bottled out of asking him if she could still meet up with him. In the end, Dan intervened and told Andrew straight up that Kaday and Cherise were practically wetting themselves wanting to go meet Gyptian, and could they still go? Andrew went off to speak to his mate, and about 10 minutes later the phone went – yes, if they could get to Half Way Tree again, his friend would get them picked up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a grown woman as excited as Kaday was, she couldn’t stand still and was literally bouncing off the walls as she ran around laughing and wooping as loud as she could.

Big up da preacher DJ

I’d only really passed through Church Pen before on the main road to Spanish Town and Kingston, so I was quite interested to see what it was like walking up to the Set Up. It was quite different to the last one I went to, which was in the yard of one of the big plush houses up by Marlie Mount school – this was in a communal yard shared by perhaps three or four small wooden houses which you reached by walking down a side street off the main road and then turning right down a narrow alleyway lined with zinc fences until it opened out into a cul-de-sac. Compared to the bright lights, professional band and staffed bar of the last Set Up I’d been to, this was much more down-to-earth and intimate, the low lighting and repetitive drum track booming over the soundsystem giving the whole thing a hypnotic feel. A formidable preacher-cum-selector toasted religious songs over the backing track with all the energy and bravado of a Dancehall DJ. I can’t say I ever remember dancing to Christian songs before, but the way the woman was whipping the crowd up you felt you didn’t have much choice. Rum also probably played a part – as soon as we got there, Sean conjured up a large bottle of pretty lethal punch from somewhere and presented it to us, and needless to say I took care of my fair share. Sean was a star all night, it was like he was hosting the party the way he ran round and made sure we were all ok. When Joanne asked where the loo was, he whisked her off to the home of some people he knew, and when she asked for some food, he managed to find her a couple of fried fish even though the main party food had run out.

Tea at Hellshire Beach

Joanne had already decided that come what may, she was going to the beach on Sunday, which was fine by me. By Jamaican standards, the Set Up hadn’t been a late one, and I think I’d got to bed by a relatively respectable 4am, but I was still knackered Sunday morning and a day lazing on the beach at Hellshire was just what the doctor ordered. In the end, only me, Joanne and Amy went as Simon was feeling ill and Dan decided to stay behind to keep him company. The beach wasn’t quite as busy as the last time we’d been on National Heroes’ Day, but it was still a lot livelier than Negril beach had been. The day’s most memorable incident, however, had nothing to do with the sea, sun or sand, but happened when we’d packed up to go home and stopped in a strange little cookshop which had been built around a sprawling low-branched tree for some food. There was a group of Jamaican guys and girls in there drinking rum and dancing to music, and as we waited for our food, one of them came over and started chatting Amy up. This in itself is nothing unusual, but about a minute after he’d introduced himself, the guy pulled out his phone to show her a ‘personal’ self-portrait of what, I’m sure he thought in his mind, the main asset he had to offer a white foreign girl. Amy’s face was a picture – her jaw literally fell open, she went bright red and started howling with laughter. The chat-up routines are something I’m definitely going to miss about Jamaica.