Goodbye to JA

Things end. That’s all there is to it. And one of the prices human beings pay for the gift of rational consciousness is a constant awareness of the transcience of all things, ourselves included. It’s enough to move us to profound sadness, lunacy, even religion, but as a Truth it remains immutable. So it has been a week of endings, and even though beginnings as a rule tend to be much easier to deal with than endings, I find myself struggling to begin to write about the end of my time in Jamaica, which is why I’m rambling like this.

Kashawn and Joanne, next to last day

Let me rewind ten days or so. The ‘A’ Shift vs ‘B’ Shift cricket match was played on a day of endings, the final day The Four (as Amy, Dan, Andrew and Simon will now be known) spent at Marlie Mount Primary and Infant School. But I’m going to start a day earlier, a week last Thursday, on Parents’ Day, when instead of normal lessons, all the boys came in the morning with their mums and all the girls came in the afternoon with their dads. Without really knowing what other schools do, I’ve been impressed by the way Marlie Mount  regularly holds different events to get parents and members of the wider community involved in school life. It gives the kids a break from normal school routine which they enjoy, and it makes a nice change for us too.

The format was pretty similar to the Heroes’ Day celebrations, with the kids putting on performances in the morning and afternoon, ice cream on sale and, allegedly, games being run by us six volunteers. I say ‘allegedly’ because no one had really told us what was going on until Mr Thomas informed me the previous afternoon that he wouldn’t be in all day, and did we mind doing some sports for the kids and parents? We didn’t, but with no time to prepare we weren’t really sure what we were meant to be doing. As it happened, it didn’t matter much, because the parents showed absolutely no interest in joining in and the kids just treated it as a mass PE lesson.

Final 'A' Shift cricket practice

By the late afternoon when the girls were doing their singing and dancing for their dads, there was really fun party atmosphere. One of the dads did the MCing and was great, getting all the girls involved like a kids’ TV presenter, and soon everyone was dancing and singing and having a good time. It was the perfect way for the departing Four to hang out with the kids and have a laugh before they went, and the party vibe continued through the next day. There was an inter-shift netball match to go along with the cricket, and a couple of impromptu additional PE lessons as that lot made the most of the last day with their final classes. I unfortunately missed the highlight of the day because cricket was over running – during afternoon devotion, Mrs Mapp and Miss Cross had The Four up in front of the school to show off their dance moves. I’m reliably informed Simon’s cowfoot was awesome while Andrew just completely cut loose and showed everyone how it’s done. I just wish someone had filmed it.

The day ended in a flurry of hugs, handshakes, thumb touches and farewells, and it was hard not to get caught up in it all, even though for me it was only a practice run for the real goodbyes I’d have to say a week later. As we walked away, it was hard to tell whether everyone was feeling happy or sad – all of us I’m sure have come to feel genuine affection for a lot of the kids at the school, and even though it was obviously sad to see four of us saying goodbye, no one was walking away without a smile on their face. How could you not, all the laughter and enjoyment we’d had all day? The kids in Jamaica definitely have sunshine in their hearts.

Warming up with 6R...

That night we’d arranged to meet Mr Fogarty in Juici Patties for a game of pool after missing him the week before. We ended up carrying on from there to a bar in Old Harbour I’d not been to before, and had one of those nights that started out as a few quiet drinks but ended up with flasks of rum being bought and yet more sampling of local dancing customs. The night could well have continued, with party animal Amy insisting on heading over to the go-go club when we got home at 1am. I opted out – we had bigger fish to fry the next night, and anyway, I needed to get up earlyish to get my laundry done.

There had been talk of going up to Ocho Rios, one of the two major tourist destinations on the island’s north coast, for the weekend. But Andrew returned from the party he’d been to in Kingston the previous week with news – the following week his mate was putting on Mavado at the same venue. Mavado is currently as big as it gets in Jamaican dancehall. Known as ‘The Gully God’, the rivalry between his ‘Gully’ crew and Vybz Kartel’s ‘Gaza’ posse dominates Jamaican popular culture at the moment. But whereas Kartel is all image over substance – he’s one of these wankers that can’t help take the gangster posturing to its logical conclusion and is currently banged up awaiting trial on several murder charges – Mavado is actually quite good in as much as he can sing and his songs are catchy. Not having had any sniff of an opportunity to go and see a big dancehall party in Kingston with a big name performing, I was well up for going along, and so it was we all set off for another big adventure into the Jamaican night.

... then posing with them

It started well enough – I didn’t know if busses still ran past 11pm when we finally set off, but after standing around on the roadside for a couple of minutes, a bus carrying just one passenger pulled up to take us to Spanish Town. The driver asked if we would like some music, and then stuck on a CD of current dancehall hits at ear-bleeding volume. It was like having our own party bus, and I sat back sipping my gin and juice genuinely excited about the night ahead. From Spanish Town, we took two taxis which raced each other all the way to Half Way Tree, where Andrew’s mate Pag was waiting to pick us up in his big Toyota jeep. It was a bit of a squeeze, especially with his giant boom boom box resting on our knees at the back, but I’d assumed it would only be a couple of minutes journey. Wrong. The party wasn’t in Kingston at all, it was all the way up in Stony Hill, an affluent suburb right up in the hills above the capital.

As we arrived at the venue, a large converted warehouse, Pag broke some bad news to us – there’d been some kind of mix-up over Mavado’s booking and he was out in Canada somewhere, which kind of ruled him out of performing. It was a bit disappointing because we’d all been looking forward to seeing a big-name act, but the worst thing was that word had already got round and it looked like there wasn’t going to be much of a turnout – it was 1am already and there was hardly anyone there. It was bad news in a cavernous barn of a venue that the previous week had packed in 2500 – without a good crowd, there was no chance of a good atmosphere. There wasn’t much we could do about it though, we were pretty much stuck there until Pag drove us back. So instead of rubbing shoulders with Beenie Man and other A-list Jamaican celebrities like Andrew had done the week before, we had to content ourselves with watching the trickle of outrageously well-dressed young men and women who had made it to the venue and avoiding the attentions of the local hookers, one of whom took great delight in walking over to us and pulling her top down to ‘show us the goods’. But that’s Jamaica all over, classy and seedy all at once.

Sayimg goodbye to Abigail

With the early morning air high up in the hills surprisingly cool, we had all returned to huddle in Pag’s car by about 4am and slept the best we could until he very kindly drove us back to Old Harbour at about 7am (I was sandwiched in the tiny boot comically wedged between the door and the speaker box, so it wasn’t the most comfy journey I’ve ever been on). And that was just about that as far as the Four were concerned – the rest of Sunday was spent doing absolutely nothing, and although Andrew, Amy and Simon went out that night for a last party, I really couldn’t muster the energy, and wanted to be in school early the next day anyway. They came up to school for a last goodbye that morning and in the evening me and Joanne were left to get used to having a quiet house (and a room to ourselves) again. It also meant we only had a week ourselves before we would be heading back.

I’ve always said that working at the school was my main priority while I was here and I really wanted to cram in as much as I could during my last week. Miss Ellis asked me if I would take the guitar I’d borrowed from the school to her class and use it to teach a science lesson about sound. I did some brushing up on sound waves, resonation, amplification and pitch and did my best to come up with a lesson that sounded physics-y enough, but I found it much harder than writing an English class, a reminder that I’m going to have to remember how to do other subjects if I want to teach primary. I threw together a half-hour lesson all the same, using a tub with an elastic band round it to demonstrate the effect of resonation compared to twanging a band just stretched across my fingers, but I’ll freely admit it was probably not the most enthralling lesson the kids had ever had. I ended up teaching it twice that morning though, as Mrs Samuels collared me and said her class was doing the same topic and could I help her out as well.

Marlie Mount Dance Troupe

I spent a couple of afternoons working with the reading teacher Mrs Johnson as she took Grade 2 classes. I’d only really done reading work with Grade 4 and above before so I was interested in seeing what happened with younger kids. I found out that Jamaican kids don’t learn the alphabet the way I did at school – whereas we learn it phonetically, or the sounds of the letters, first, Jamaican kids learn the names of the letters, the ‘Ay, Bee, Cee, Dee’ like the song, and then learn the sounds of the letters in school, which was what these classes were doing. It seemed strange to me to see seven and eight-year-olds who didn’t know what sound the letter ‘U’ made, I’d always taken it for granted that phonics was just how children learned to read. It was also quite entertaining listening to some of the sounds the kids made – ‘V’, for example, wasn’t the abrupt ‘va’ sound I’d learned, it was a long drawn out ‘vvvvvv’ made without opening the lips.

Ashleigh with the bracelet she made for Daisy

Taking all these classes on top of PE and cricket training meant the time flew. Me and Joanne finished a bit earlier than usual on Wednesday to go and do some present shopping, but Joanne had already been quietly collecting a hefty stash of gifts by getting her netball girls to make her bracelets. Some of them were really good so I asked if I could get some to take for Daisy, and was promptly presented with a couple made by a lovely little Grade 5 girl called Ashleigh. Then all of a sudden it was Thursday and the goodbyes really started in earnest. Half way through my final cricket session with the ‘A’ Shift boys that afternoon, me and Joanne were unexpectedly summoned into the staffroom by Mrs Mapp. We got there to find a group of teachers stood round a little table on which were neatly laid out a cake with ‘Goodbye Paul & Joan [sic]’ written on it in icing, a couple of bottles of grape fizz and two gift bags. I’ve had a few jobs in my time, but no employer I’ve ever had has gone to so much trouble to say goodbye properly. I was genuinely touched – we had speeches from the principal, vice-principal, senior teachers and even the chairman of the board, thanking us warmly for our time and the work we’d done while we were at the school. As gifts, we got a Jamaica T-shirt each, a key-ring and a Marlie Mount School cup. But best of all, I got a plaque with the following engraved on it: “Presented to Paul Newham. For your invaluable service to the school family. Thank you for your time and dedication. November 2011.” There’s nothing like being appreciated in life, is there?



Like a cat crying

Straight after the little get –together in the staff room, after saying goodbye to the ‘A’ shift cricket boys, there was a little concert being put on for the parents as a follow-up to the Parents Day the week before, so it was like we were getting a treat to say goodbye as well. But we knew the tables were going to be turned the next morning – after the other four had been made to dance in front of the whole school the previous week, we’d already been told the same was expected of us. I’m a great believer in knowing your limitations in life and sticking with what you are good at, so I wasn’t about to make an idiot of myself by attempting to dance in front of 700 giggling kids if I could possibly help it. Instead, I decided I was going to sing, which, as anyone who has ever heard me sing will know, was a brave decision if I wanted to avoid ridicule, but still a better option than dancing. So that evening I sat down and learned how to play Bob Marley’s ‘Three Little Birds’ and ‘One Love’, blagging a way of playing the famous hook riff in ‘Three Little Birds’ an octave lower so I could play it on the four-string school guitar and working out a simple arrangement to make a medley of the two songs. With about half-an-hours practice, I was ready to face by far the biggest audience I’ve ever sung solo in front of in my life. We were at school bright and early, waiting patiently as the kids had their usual Friday morning sing-song belting out bouncy up-beat Gospel songs, and then it was our big moment. Joanne volunteered to go first – she’d decided to get all the kids to sing ‘There’s a White Girl in the Ring’ as she danced round in a circle shaking her thing. It was brilliant, the kids were literally shrieking with laughter and making a deafening racket clapping their hands and stamping their feet. All I was bothered about was just not being awful – as long as I could more or less hold the tune, I’d be happy. So with Miss Cross holding the mic for me, I just blasted it out. I didn’t even have to get to the end of the first line before my song selection got a howl of appreciation and everyone joined in, swaying and dancing all around me. It was a magic moment, 700 voices singing ‘Every little thing is gonna be alright’, and despite the warm morning sunshine, I felt a shiver run down my back as the adrenalin sent me soaring.

Thanks Paul & 'Joan'!!

As I stood looking round at all the little faces I’d got to know over the previous few months, I knew that I was sad to be saying goodbye, but it wasn’t a day to feel sad. It was a great day – after devotion, me and Joanne went into a Grade 1 class and got them to make Christmas cards for us to take home (saves money on crap pictures of wreathes and reindeer!). Although we were a bit gutted that Ryan hadn’t been sent to school that morning as we’d picked his class on purpose, at least we got to see Chad before we’d left, as he’d moved back to stay with his Dad. I took the ASTEP class for a final PE lesson and then was invited to have lunch with the lovely Mrs Anderson and lovely Miss Lindsay in the ASTEP room. After that, I had to try to squeeze a last cricket practice with ‘B’ Shift around going to 6R/6E’s class at 11am, where Mr Fogarty had summoned me and Joanne. In the end, I just set the boys playing a game and left them to it. Both Joanne and I have spent more time with Miss Ellis’s 6R and Mr Fogarty’s 6E than any other class, so we guessed we’d be getting some kind of special farewell. But we hadn’t really expected all the kids to have clubbed together to buy us a card, another Jamaica shirt each and a huge KFC bucket for everyone to share! In the circumstances, I felt it was appropriate to put my personal views on the Colonel’s evil empire and the morals of eating birds to one side, so I tucked in with all of them as we chatted away. Me and Joanne had both got to know some of the kids in those classes very well through cricket and netball as well as teaching lessons, so it was nice that we got to say goodbye to them specially.

 

Getting me plaque, innit

After saying goodbye to the cricketers I went straight to the cubs. Mrs Frith, the pack’s Akela, has been pretty ill and not in school for the past fortnight, which has spoiled plans for the group to go to Kingston next week for a big meeting. They had been meant to sing the version of ‘In the Jungle’ I wrote for them, but as I’d missed the last two meetings I hadn’t really been involved much in rehearsals. I decided to do a couple of run-throughs with them for old times’ sake and then just let them do what they badgered me to do every week anyway – play football. At the end of the meeting, after the house netball matches had finished, Joanne came over and videoed us doing ‘In the Jungle’ one last time. I just about had time to eat some lunch and then me and Joanne both did our last PE lesson, fittingly with 6E, while Mr Thomas was away for the afternoon with the football team. We decided just to let everyone do what they wanted, so all the girls played with hula-hoops while half the boys played basketball and the other half played kwik cricket with me.

6R and 6E

As the classes assembled at the end of afternoon lunch break, we stood in the quadrangle and said our last goodbyes to the school, but weren’t asked to perform this time. As I walked across the baked playing field under the relentless sun for the last time, I was smiling – it was hard to believe that my time here was done, but what a time I’d had. I’d told the school a few minutes earlier that I felt privileged to have been welcomed as part of their community, and that’s exactly what made it such a special place. In a place where things are far from easy for ordinary families, Marlie Mount School is a beacon of community spirit and the hope it brings.

Girls on the town

That night we’d arranged to meet some of the teachers in Old Harbour for a few drinks. For what I swear was the third time in as many months, the gas bottle in the kitchen ran out bang in the middle of me cooking curry and rice, so we were late (as usual for me). Mr Fogarty, Mrs Ellis, Mr Thomas and Miss Barrant all came out for a few drinks, and although we tried our best to talk them all into staying out to go to a dance, only Mr F took the bait. We went to the town square first, where we got treated to some more free master classes by the local all-star teen dance troop, once again featuring the skinny little wonderkid who we’ve been told is aged anything between nine and 13, but who is regardless of his age pure class to watch, leaving most of the older lads who are all damn good in the shade. Then it was on to what in the past few weeks had become our regular party haunt across the road behind Gateway Plaza. It wasn’t up to the standard of Shell Dung Thursdayz – it was full of kids, and there’s something that doesn’t sit right watching 15 and 16-year-old girls performing some of the more risqué dance moves in the dancehall repertoire. I was also starting to feel the effects of drinking Guinness Foreign Extra and white rum from 7pm, so for once we didn’t stay to the end and beat a tactical retreat at a fairly reasonable hour.

Ty in a rare moment out of the sea

Saturday was all about one thing – the beach. Me and Joanne both agreed that the number one priority for the final weekend was a last pilgrimage to the Caribbean for what would be our last day sunbathing in several months. I invited Monique to come along with Tyreen, and as we were all waiting for the bus to Spanish Town, who should pull up but the delectable duo Mrs Anderson and Miss Lindsay, who were on their way to Kingston and kindly offered to take us part of the way. Hellshire beach was a lot quieter than it had been the previous two times we’d been, which in a way was good because all I wanted to do was sleep in between swimming. I hired a big rubber ring for Ty and after initially throwing a tantrum because he was scared to go in the water, he ended up spending most of the afternoon in the sea being pushed around by Monique.

Fya picking Daisy's 'bash

Sunday was all about one thing as well – the Yard. In the past five months, everyone at Mighty Gully has been like an extended family to me. They’ve welcomed me, housed me, fed me, looked after me and befriended me, and treated me like one of them. I’ve lived with them, shared with them, laughed with them, partied with them, watched their quarrels and been sympathetic ear when needed. This place was the base for my entire experience in Jamaica, and I wanted to say goodbye properly by giving everyone a damn good feed. The night before, me and Joanne made a last trip to the busy Saturday night market in Old Harbour with Jayvan and Kadaye and bought up food for a feast  – yam to roast on a wood fire along with some breadfruit Jayvan had picked, chicken to fry, goat to curry, pumpkin and cabbage to steam, ingredients for rice and peas, and a bottle of rum Kadaye got for a fiver off a friend who sells it at wholesale prices. Kadaye insisted on doing the cooking, and from 11am her and Shawn were in the kitchen, with extra coal stoves set up outside so many pots were needed, cooking up a Jamaican Sunday lunch to remember.   

Chef Kadaye dishes out her feast

After doing some laundry, I went with Rastaman Fya to pick some calabash over by the canal behind the yard. I spent the afternoon making one into a cup from Daisy while chatting to the carvers, playing with the kids and drinking a likkle rum. I’d purposefully not eaten much all day in preparation for the feast, but mid-afternoon food just started to appear – first of all Marsha handed me a big bowl of ital stewed peas, rice and vegan coleslaw, which I shared with Joanne despite the peas being one of the best things I’ve tasted since I’ve been here, and then Shawn produced some absolutely mouthwatering fried dumplings which he’d seasoned and rather than sweetened as you’d do to make festivals. Then it was the piece de resistance – Kadaye’s masterpiece was ready. My plate was overflowing with steamed cabbage and pumpkin, rice and peas, roast yam and breadfruit, garden peas and fresh coleslaw which she’d made with lime juice and was one of the best things on the plate. Joanne’s plate was just ridiculous – she had pretty much the same quantities of everything else as me, plus curried goat and two pieces of fried chicken. I’d have loved to have seen her demolish the lot, but alas, she played the tactical game and saved half of it for breakfast. I’d been planning to do the same, but once I started eating I just couldn’t stop, it was too nice. I was pretty stuffed by the time I’d finished, but that didn’t stop me polishing off what Monique couldn’t eat, including half a chicken. Well, if I’m gonna eat KFC, it’d be rude not to sample the homestyle, right?

I don’t know if the feast knocked everyone out but the yard has been strangely quiet tonight. Right now, the girls would usually be getting ready to go to the weekly pool party, but all said they didn’t feel like it, so I’m sat here ending my Jamaican adventure as I started it in that big empty apartment in Knockpatrick, just me, myself, my thoughts and my words. There’s too much to say to try to sum up my time here, and the Yard is calling, where I can look up at the clear stars for the last time, drink a last rum and listen to Irie FM. All I want to say is thank you, thank you everyone who made this possible, at Mighty Gully, Marlie Mount School, CCCD, and Everything Is Possible. I have truly been blessed, and tomorrow, a new adventure.

I Don't Like Cricket, I Love It

For several weeks I’ve been promising the boys who come to cricket training that before I leave, I will arrange some kind of match for them, freeing them from the restraints of practicing and learning to let their innate competitiveness run riot. The difficulty has been that we are in the middle of football season, which presents two problems – it would be difficult to arrange a match against another school as it is very unlikely they’d be training for cricket yet, and use of the school playing field on the two hour slot on Fridays when both shifts are free to play sports is prioritized for the football team.

'A' Shift celebrate their victory

The first problem was easily solved – as I have to run separate training sessions for the two shifts, it made sense to organize a match between the two. This met with enthusiastic approval from all the boys, as beating your own school mates is even better than beating people you don’t know. The second problem was a bit thornier, however – Fridays are the only time when Mr Thomas can train the entire football squad together at once, and is therefore when he holds practice matches. Much to the frustration of all the boys who play cricket, we were going to have to be patient until, finally, Mr T said we could have a match on Friday 18^th November, my penultimate Friday at the school and in Jamaica.

News of the match obviously caused wild excitement, and my next problem was going to be team selection. Anyone who has ever had any involvement in coaching youth sport will understand the genuine torment and soul-searching I went through as I agonized over who was going to play – how do you break it to a group of enthusiastic under-11s who turn up for training day in, day out that they’ve not made the team for a big match without feeling like a complete and utter bastard?

An expectant crowd awaits

My first tactic was to rely on natural selection to whittle them down – many of the boys are terrible time keepers and I was fairly confident that, despite making it clear that everyone had to come to a final practice for each shift if they wanted to be on the team, a sizeable number would fail to show and could therefore be reasonably discarded straight away with my conscience clear. This worked too well with the ‘A’ shift – attendance at practice was unusually low all week, and after the final session I still only had eight players. In the end I had no choice but ask permission for some of the ASTEP boys, who are on a special programme to help them catch up to high-school standards on a separate timetable to the rest of the school, to be excused lessons on Friday so they could play. The problem with this was that the ASTEP boys are older, bigger and stronger than the other students – Clayton (known as ‘Granddad’ he looks so old) and Owayne in particular are both about my height, built like rugby players and capable of bowling quick enough to make me think twice about facing them without pads on. I tried to balance this out by picking two of the more promising younger boys, Ronaldo from Grade 2 and Tyreece from Grade 1, but even then the smart money was firmly with ‘A’ Shift.

'B' Shift captain Joseph Pryce hits a boundary

For the ‘B’ Shift team I faced entirely the opposite dilemma – I had more than 30 boys turn up for final practice. Even so, there was a serious issue with bowlers – as far as possible, I wanted to stick to proper match rules, which meant having bowlers who knew how to keep their arms straight and bowl legally. So my fist selection criteria was quite simply, do you fling or no? No? Then congratulations, you’re on the team. But knowing that ‘A’  Shift still had by far the better players, I had to break one of my principles. I’d warned some of the boys who liked to flit off to football practice and then come over to me to have a bat before disappearing again that I expected them to train properly with me all week if they wanted to make the game. Two of the genuinely good players on ‘B’ Shift, Joseph Pryce and Dan Dan, didn’t take the slightest bit of notice and, right on cue, wandered off half way through the final training session to play football. I was pretty pissed off and let them know as much, telling them they could forget playing on Friday, but in the back of my mind I knew they’d have to play – it’d be a slaughter otherwise. Just to improve my mood, it started raining. Still unsure of who to put in five or six places, I had to hastily reschedule the final selection session until 10am Friday, an hour before the big match was due to start.

Friday morning broke fair and hot, with a gentle breeze from the north mercifully taking the edge off the humid conditions. With a dusty, stone-strewn strip of denuded running track scattered with occasional clumps of wiry grass serving as the wicket, I fancied the ball might just get the better of the bat. There was also the slight concern that the ball might get the better of the boys as well – we were using a pretty hard plastic white ball, with a solitary pair of pads shared between the two batsmen the sole form of protection for anyone on the field, which meant byes would probably feature heavily in the scoring as I got the impression whoever was stuck keeping wicket wouldn’t fancy going after the ball with bare hands much.

'A' Shift opener Shamar Casanova

I’d told 18 boys from ‘B’ Shift to come Friday morning, knowing in my head that six of them would definitely be playing and wanting to take a look at the others to fill the final places. More than 25 turned up, all carrying kit and eager to play, but with only about 40 minutes to run the rule over the dozen or so I’d singled out the previous practice, I had to break hearts before a ball had even been bowled and tell those who weren’t on the ‘squad list’ that they wouldn’t get a look in. Then more bad news – Dan Dan, who was nailed on as opening batsman with captain Pryce, forlornly told me he was sick and didn’t want to play. Good news for little Akeem Shaw, who snatched the final place made available. However, things weren’t all entirely well for ‘A’ Shift either – three of the team I’d picked two days earlier, including little Tyreece ‘Chineyman’ who, for a six-year-old, has a great eye with the bat, didn’t turn up, meaning I had to rush in whoever else had turned up hoping for a game.

Tavin on his way to figures of 3 for 7

The match was to be played as 15 overs per side, with a maximum of three overs per bowler. ‘A’ Shift won the toss and chose to bat, with captain Jammar Barrett and Shamar Casanova, promoted in place of the absent Ramone Oakley, opening. The pair made a solid start despite some tight bowling early on, plundering a boundary apiece off the bowling of Justin in second over. But the advantage swung in favour of ‘B’ Shift with the introduction of tidy left-armer Tavin in the fourth over, removing Jammar caught and bowled for seven after a typically undisciplined hoik from him. ‘B’ Shift pressed home the advantage in the next over, Tajay getting Shamar to play all around a straight one to be bowled for nine, but their joy was to be short-lived – Jammar’s dismissal had brought Clayton to the crease, and the gentle giant took no time in announcing his intentions, smashing the first ball he received from Tavin for four. That was to be the first of 12 boundaries, including two maximums, as Granddad put the entire ‘B’ Shift attack to the sword in merciless fashion, eventually retiring on an unbeaten 53. Support was sparse bar from an entertaining cameo from Oraine Stevenson, who bludgeoned a six and a four before trying a shot too many against Tavin and being hauled out caught. Tavin secured a bit of personal glory the very next ball when he clean bowled big Owayne Bryan, who had been muttering about how he should be batting further up the order, for a golden duck, handing the left-armer impressive innings figures of 3 for 7. However, it was not enough to prevent ‘A’ Shift posting an imposing 137 for 7, which given the pitch conditions was going to take some chasing.

'Granddad' Clayton, who top-scored with 53no

‘A’ Shift’s defense of their total couldn’t have started in worse fashion, however. Pryce, probably the most technically gifted batsman on either team, quickly unsettled the normally accurate Twain Campbell with a four off his second ball, punishing the wayward balls that followed to take 17 off the first over. As well as plenty of runs coming off the bat, byes began to be leaked alarmingly. Whereas Pryce had marshaled his troops admirably, setting good fields and making decisions with authority, Jammar was all over the place in his captaincy, standing with his hands in his pockets while his fielders argued over who should be where and leaving gaping holes for overthrows and byes to whistle to the boundary. The score was 38 after just two overs, and the momentum was firmly with the batting side when Gevaughn, opening in place of Dan Dan, was run out for 18. Much of ‘B’ Shifts’ hopes now rested with Pryce, but even when he was dismissed for an attractive 32, which included seven boundaries, by opposite number Jammar, things still looked good – with six wickets in hand and 7 overs remaining, knocking off the 50 runs still needed looked more than doable.

Ronaldo celebrates his match-winning hat-trick

However, in cricket, abject defeat is never too far from the jaws of glorious victory, and following Pryce’s dismissal, there followed a collapse of epic proportions. Its inspiration came from a source both unexpected and, for me, personally very gratifying. I’d picked little Ronaldo Holness from Grade 2 partly because he turned up at every practice and was always very eager to learn, and partly because he has some real promise – for a little lad, his bowling action is very good and he bowls very straight even if he doesn’t quite yet have the power to get the ball the length of the pitch with just a single bounce. The older boys, of course, scoffed – why was I picking this likkle pik’ny, he no good. I ended up having to order them to let him bowl, and with Pryce and Gevaughn still at the crease, his first over was smashed for 16. But undeterred, I ordered him to be brought back for a second spell, and it turned the game. After four dot balls in his second over, with his fifth he clean bowled Joshua for a duck. With the next ball, he tempted Justin into a rash shot which sent the ball flying high into the sky, and was safely snaffled by the waiting Twain. On a hat-trick, there was no question of him not carrying on to finish his spell, and to my great delight, he promptly completed the hat-trick by clean bowling Asa for another duck. Fittingly, he then picked up the final wicket of the game, having Tavin caught by Jamar for yet another duck, sparking scenes of wild celebration and claiming figures of four for 16, the man-of-the-match award and victory for his team. It was a great turn-around for ‘A’ Shift, who won by 32 runs, but a poor capitulation from their opponents, who had no fewer than seven batsmen dismissed without troubling the scorers as they were skittled out for 105.

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.

Negril

Negril might not exactly be the authentic Jamaica nowadays – far too many white foreigners and a rash of synthetic bars and all-inclusive resorts – but it isn’t quite like tourist-trap resort towns I’ve visited elsewhere in the world, either – it’s far too Jamaican for that.

Bloody Bay, Negril

Virtually cut off from the rest of the island by land until a coastal highway reached round the western Great Morass in 1959, the once-sleepy fishing community living on this pristine seven-mile stretch of idyllic Caribbean beach on Jamaica’s western tip was discovered by American hippies in the 1960s and 70s. News of Negril’s natural beauty, as well as the laid-back, anything-goes atmosphere encouraged by the mingling of hippies with the local Rastafari community (and, I suppose, the pungent local ganja, rumoured to be the best on the island), soon spread far and wide, and growing numbers of visitors  have brought an inevitable commercialism.

It is, however, commercialism the Jamaican way. There’s something cynical and patronizing in the way the town’s riotous recent past still gets used to market it as some kind of haven of free-love and hedonism (much the same thing as happens with Glastonbury Festival), but the slick, big money, westernized operations still have to rub shoulders with the street vendors and hustlers who look to cash in on foreign money the old fashioned Jamaican way. There are also laws keeping all seven miles of beach public and not allowing any buildings to be built higher than the tallest palm tree, meaning the town’s greatest assets are thankfully open to all at all times of the day of night, and there’s no sign of the high-rise developments which have changed Montego Bay and Ocho Rios so much.

Party crew

I didn’t think I was going to get the chance to go, as the five-to-six hour journey by bus and taxi made it seem a little pointless to do in a weekend, but Dan, Andrew, Simon and Amy arrived bang up for going, so we all decided we should make the effort. As it was Amy’s birthday last week and is Simon’s this, last weekend seemed like a perfect excuse for a double celebration, so I begged Friday and Monday off for us all from a slightly reluctant Mrs Mapp and found some decent accommodation going cheap up in the West End of town, towards the cliffs famous as the best spot on the island to watch the sunset.

Amy and my big ugly cake

Come Friday morning, I would have been pretty excited had it not been for the fact that I had a touch of rum flu courtesy the previous all-nighter in Old Harbour and about three hours sleep. Amy’s birthday had been marked in appropriate fashion, and suffice to say I in particular wasn’t really relishing the idea of six hours rattling like a smackhead across 200 km of potholed highway. Amy seemed to have had fun though, which was the main thing – she downed something like three bottles of tonic wine as we sat in the bar next door early evening, so I reckon she was set fair from there. The five volunteers clubbed together to buy her a bottle of rum and a card and I baked her a huge misshapen square cake so she could blow the candles out.

Rude Bwoys

The party was at the same place we’d been the previous Friday, and went much along the same lines. This time, though, we had a much bigger crew – us six, Kaday, Kaya and Kara, Jayvan, Cherise, Shaun, Shanique, Kim and Marsha, the oldest of the Bryan sisters, who said it was going to be her first proper night out in two years. After carrying five of us into town on his first trip, Shaun then somehow managed to cram the other nine into his taxi on the second, easily beating the previous record seven passengers in a taxi I’d seen in Albert Town.

Dancehall Divas

I won’t bore you with the details of what went on inside, you probably get the picture by now – rum, dancing, rum, a bit more dancing, more rum, rum and a lot of dancing until I nearly dropped a girl on her head attempting some dance move or other (Joanne last week, Shanique this) and then it’s time to go home. Kaday finally showed us all why she’s got a reputation as a bit of a dancer by demonstrating her ability to do the splits, much to our amusement, and we also bumped into a few friends we’d made at the last dance, including Sweaty Palm, a young guy who dresses flash and dances like crazy (hence he’s always dripping with sweat) who’d been showing Joanne how to dance last week. He was out with his family this time, although I didn’t believe it when his sister pointed out their mum to me, more from the way she was dressed and how she was dancing in front of the live streaming video camera than any consideration of her being youthful.

 Far too soon after going to bed, I was cursing my stupidity for not bearing in mind I had a day’s traveling cross country to do while I was partying the previous night, and I was already running late. It’s not even that overproof gives me a particularly bad hangover – I’m still mercifully immune to them – but it does give me an epic thirst which I knew I’d be battling with all day as I toiled through the convoy of busses and taxis we’d be taking. With nothing else for it, I stuffed myself with beans on toast, buns, birthday cake and tea, and we were soon setting off under a spitefully hot sun.

The beach me a reach

The journey to Negril would take us from Old Harbour to May Pen, then on to Mandeville, Savanna Le Mar and finally Negril, a minimum of four busses and taxis if we didn’t have to change in Santa Cruz on the way to Sav Le Mar. I’d done this journey as far as Santa Cruz a few times already, but after that it was new territory for me. In other circumstances, I would have enjoyed it, but as the standard of transport gradually deteriorated with each leg of the journey, so did the levels of discomfort and irritation rise, somewhat detracting from any possibility of taking pleasure in the scenery. The long hike from Mandeville all the way to Sav La Mar, taking in some stunning coastal scenery, was particularly brutal – the bus was rammed full and there wasn’t even room to shift your ass slightly, condemning you to a purgatory of numb bum as the blood supply to your derriere was slowly but comprehensively cut off. I seriously thought I was going to stand up at the end to find my entire backside had gone necrotic, I was in that much discomfort, and things weren’t helped by the fact that the weaving and bumping round the winding roads and over treacherous potholes were making me feel proper sick.

It was late afternoon by the time we finally got out in Sav, straight out of the bus and into a taxi run by a guy called Eggie, apparently because he used to eat so many eggs when he was younger. I’d heard Negril was a place where hustling visitors for whatever goods or services you could possibly sell was one of the most common forms of employment, and Eggie didn’t waste any time giving us a full demonstration. First, he negotiated a rate with us to take us all the way to our accommodation rather than dropping us in the centre of Negril where we’d have to take another taxi to our final destination, then started giving us the spiel on how great the local ganja was. Half way into the journey, he suddenly pulled over and disappeared for a couple of minutes, returning with a fairly sizeable bag of marijuana which he then offered round to each of us. We each explained we didn’t want it, but he wasn’t deterred – as we got out the taxi, he tried the classic hustlers’ trick of thrusting the bag into my hands, asking me what price I’d like to pay for it, in the hope that I’d be too flustered or scared of causing offence to refuse this hard-sell tactic. I stood my ground, however, and told him that something I neither wanted nor needed had no value to me, so I didn’t want to give him anything for it. He quickly took it back.

Long Bay, Negril

Dusk was already falling as we arrived at where we were staying, the Mango Tree Cottages on Tigress Lane, off West End Road. I had been expecting a ten-bed dorm – instead, it turned out we’d booked too quite pretty little cottages, sat in a beautiful garden full of trees. I’d had an e-mail off the owner, Alan, the day before and guessed that the wiry, brown-skinned and blue-eyed guy who welcomed us was Headly, his caretaker. He didn’t say much, and didn’t show all that much interest when I asked him when he’d like us to pay the balance of the bill, but he made sure we had everything we needed and left us to it for the evening. Not surprisingly, everyone was pretty knackered, so our plans extended no further than walking up the road where we found a decent Italian restaurant to eat in and then all tuned in for an early night.

The next morning we awoke to a surprise – I’d had several missed calls from Paperfoot since the previous evening, and when he finally got through to me, it turned out he was also in Negril with Janet, Charma and Maz, the other volunteers who were staying up in Albert Town. Ten minutes later, he pulled up at ours in a car and we had ourselves a driver for the day. There’s only really one place to go in Negril, though – the only question is exactly where on the seven miles of sand you want to park yourself for the day to soak up some rays and drink a few juices.

Ready for a snorkel

The ‘centre’ of Negril is a roundabout where the town’s three main thoroughfares join – Sheffield Road, which takes you inland towards Sav through the town’s residential district, Norman Manley Boulevard which follows the coast right along the seven miles of beach and beyond, and West End Road, which winds for a few miles out along the cliffs where sunset-watchers congregate. It is also a good place to watch the collision of cultures between Jamaica and the West – here, outside the Burger King, Scotia Bank and some neat little shops, is where many of the local hustlers ply their trade. As soon as we got out the car, there was a steady approach of would-be taxi drivers and tour guides, Rastas selling sensi and kids begging us to buy them a Burger King. The presence of plenty of whiteys isn’t all about the money grab, though – later in the day, we saw one middle-aged white guy in a white shirt and a hat sat outside the corner shop chatting with a bunch of Jamaican guys sipping rum. When we passed again several hours later on our way out for the night, he was till sat there, visibly in a state of refreshment, having a whale of a time.

Stocked up on snacks and booze, we made our way round the corner and over the Negril River bridge with it’s pretty collection of fishing boats and finally hit the beach. It really is a sight to behold – we were stood at the southern end of Long Bay, one of two bays in and around Negril, and in front of us was a stunning sweep of white sand stretching far into the distance, lapped gently by the calm green waters, with the shallow cliffs rising behind us. In the corner of the beach where we entered there’s a bar and copse of twisted, wind-gnarled trees practically falling into the sea, while the entire length of beach rolled out in front of us was lined with bars and palm trees. It does a pretty good job of living up to its reputation as a paradise on earth.

Andy getting down with the fishes

One thing that did surprise me was how quiet it was – even though it was a month before high season kicks in, I still expected Negril to be fairly lively, but the beach was practically deserted. We were near companionless except for the steady stream of vendors roaming the sands, all looking a little lost with no one to sell their wares to on a Saturday afternoon, but that didn’t bother us – we had sun, sand and beautiful warm, shallow sea, who needs other people? After a couple of hours sunbathing, swimming and lunching on the best patties I’ve tasted here so far, sold by an old guy on a bike who claimed to have made them himself, we got talking to a guy who’d just landed his glass-bottomed boat on the beach next to us, who offered to take us snorkeling to the reef which protects the bay. Normally I don’t bother with things like that on the grounds that they are usually bloody expensive, but by this time I’d had a couple of brandies and the guy offered to take us for a very reasonable 15 quid each, and everyone else was up for it.

The last time I went snorkeling was probably when I was about 12, and that was just paddling round the rocky bits of a beach in Menorca. I’d never been snorkeling off a boat before and was inexplicably excited about the fact that I’d get to wear flippers, although once in the water I found out they were and absolute pain in the backside coz the reasonably strong current kept pulling on them and made my ankles ache after a while. We were maybe a kilometer off the shore but the sea was still shallow enough to see the bottom easily – I could dive to touch the sea floor no problem and in places the coral was so high it was awkward to swim over it without it scraping your belly. I love the sea anyway, and there is something incredibly relaxing about floating around in the water, looking down at the fishes and sponges and sea fans while the tide buffets you around, the outside world cut off by the roar of the ocean in your ears. There was plenty to see – huge shoals of bright yellow fish sheltering under craggy coral outcrops, tiny electric blue fish which flashed in the sunlight as they swam, small rays hugging the seabed and strange eel-like creatures with long protruding noses which hung upside down in the water. Joanne also saw jellyfish and a star fish.

Sunset at Rick's Cafe

Once back on dry land, we gave Paperfoot a call and he came to pick us up to drive us up to Rick’s Café in the West End to meet Janet, Charma and Maz. Rick’s Café is a Negril institution, a bar sat up on a prime bit of clifftop offering panoramic views of the sun setting over the sea as well as some pretty hair-raising cliff diving courtesy some fearless local youth. It is also a total tourist trap – the bar and restaurant are as plush as anything you’d find at home and completely un-Jamaican, there’s a swimming pool and at $4.80 US a beer, I didn’t have any qualms about walking 50 yards down the road to the nearest supermarket and filling my bag with bottles at a third of the price. The place was teeming with Americans (as Negril apparently always is), and we even saw a wedding party there.

Me about to plummet

The cliff jumping at Rick’s Café is both a spectator sport and participatory, with guests invited to test their mettle against a 35-foot plunge into the small U-shaped inlet below. I naturally assumed we would all be up for giving it a go, and had no qualms about being the first to strip off and climb onto the purpose-built platform. It was only once I was up there that I started to wonder whether this was such a good idea – not just because 35ft suddenly seems a long way when you are looking at it straight down as a vertical drop, but also because of the slightly disconcerting disclaimer printed next to the platform informing me that what I was about to do could result in spinal injury, broken bones, ligament and tendon damage and a range of other medical conditions I didn’t really fancy. Oh well, in for a penny and all that… in these circumstances, all you can really do is make like Van Halen and jump, so away I went. A split-second of gut-wrenching acceleration and adrenalin later, I hit the water, suffering no worse than a minor slap to the soles of my feet. I climbed the steps back up to where the rest of them were sat, beaming and enthusing about what a thrill it was, expecting someone else to get up immediately and follow excuse. But all I got in reply was a chorus of muttered excuses and glances away – some people have no sense of adventure. 

Muscle Brain

Rick’s Café had been busy enough to give us some hope that there’d be some life in the town after dark, but as we headed back to the beach end of town, we realized that wasn’t going to happen. Paperfoot drove us a couple of miles down the beach to a big resort bar called Margaritaville, which was deserted. We had been hoping there might be parties and fires to be had on the beach, especially as it was Bonfire Night, but again it was not to be – all we found was a private wedding party being held at a bar a little way down the beach, which at least gave us some music to listen to as we chilled on the sand. Again, though, it didn’t matter that it was quiet – it was magically beautiful, with a sky lit up with a three-quarter moon full of bright stars reflected on the calm inky sea below. It was, we all admitted, a place for lovers to walk and talk enjoy the romance of nature, which wasn’t much good seeing as we were all either single or had left our other halves back home.

Cliff jumpers

We didn’t get much choice about where we were going next – Paperfoot had told us practically the moment he met up with us earlier that morning that he was taking us clubbing that night, and there is only one club in Negril. I already had a fair picture of what The Jungle would be like, and I wasn’t disappointed – before we reached the tackily decorated ‘jungle’ theme plastic exterior, we were greeted by large security gates and, to my dismay, security on the door. I’ve fallen into the habit while I’ve been here of carrying a flask of rum in my pocket whenever I go out, partly because it’s what everybody else does and partly because it is cheap. But as I watched them conduct body searches on everyone going in, I faced the horrible prospect of both losing my beloved overproof and having to pay what I knew would be criminally inflated bar prices inside. In the end, a last minute random change of tactics saved me – I decided to switch the flask from my side to my back pocket, not really expecting it to make much difference, but for some reason the door woman patted down my pants all the way down the sides without ever once getting close to reaching round and trying my back pockets. I was home and dry, and had managed to smuggle booze into two of Negril’s most famous tourist spots in a matter of hours.

Showing The Jungle how we do it

Inside was much as you’d expect – four rooms, a tame R&B soundtrack, and a décor which meant you could have been in any big commercial club anywhere in the world. I’d have much rather have been in one of the small outdoor ‘lawns’ which serve as typical Jamaican clubs – from the ones I’ve been in, there’s a much better atmosphere, the dancing is hilarious and I’ve developed a bit of a soft spot for dancehall anyway. It wasn’t even busy, which made the large rooms seem lifeless, but it was what it was and we made the best of it. On finding a small downstairs room belting out disco and 80s classics, me, Amy and Joanne did a thorough job of making total tits of ourselves on the dancefloor, much to the amusement of the bar staff. And then another of Negril’s hustling institutions made their move on us – hookers. I think in all three of them approached all four lads one by one, pretending to be girls out on the town looking for a good time for about 30 seconds until money was mentioned. My favourite was the first to approach me. I was sat down and she just walked up to me, smiled and sat down in my lap, gyrating suggestively. After about 10 seconds of this impromptu lap dance, she turned to me and asked ‘Would you like to give me some money for my sexy dance?’ Now, I’m no expert, but when it comes to selling a service to someone, I wouldn’t have thought it’s a very good idea to demonstrate said service and then give the prospective buyer the option of coughing up or not. I looked at her blankly, said ‘No’ and watched her pout all the way to trying it on with the next mark.

Paperfoot the crab catcher

Sunday was like a reprise of Friday, except this time we mercifully didn’t have to trek two-thirds the length of the island on a rickety old bus. Paperfoot was pissed off with us because he’d wanted to pick us up at 10am to go see Janet and the girls on the beach, but it was well past 11 by the time we’d dragged our carcasses out of bed and were ready. He got his own back by driving us all the way to Bloody Bay, at the far end of Norman Manley Boulevard from the town where all the all-inclusive resorts are, and simply dumping us on a stretch of beach there, muttering that Janet was ‘up the way so’ somewhere before driving off in a huff.

There are, of course, worse places to be dumped – Bloody Bay was until about 2000 pretty much untouched, but despite all the large-scale resorts which now dominate it, it is still incredibly beautiful, absolutely teeming with palm trees just a few meters back from the water’s edge, and even shallower than Long Bay. On this occasion, the public beach law felt like something of a blessing and a curse – yes, we could walk all the way along this lovely stretch of sand, but it also meant we had to witness dozens of rich white holidaymakers living out a sanitized fantasy of Jamaica which we knew was laughable, and had paid a fortune for the privilege. Every 20 yards or so there was a stall selling the usual Bob Marley t-shirts, crap wooden nic-nacs and ‘Jamaica – No Problem’ towels, while guys with guitars strolled up and down serenading tourists with Marley songs for a few dollars. As lovely as it was, it was shit at the same time. Worse, we walked all along the beach back towards Long Bay and found the public beach laws didn’t apply to the small headland separating the two beaches, it was owned by one of the resorts and no, we couldn’t pass through, we’d have to walk all the way back to where Paperfoot dropped us off.

Dog the crab catcher

Having finally grabbed an over-priced taxi back to the corner of Long Bay we’d been on before, the rest of the afternoon was spent chilling on the beach there. A large soundsystem at one of the bars gave the place a bit more atmosphere than the day before, as did the bigger numbers of people there, mainly Jamaicans. There was also a bit of surf up, which made playing in the sea even more fun, although I’m not quite sure why I enjoy being knocked off my feet and having salt water forced up my nose so much.

The soundsystem was scheduled to play on until midnight and we’d been told there’d be a decent party after dark, so we decided to return to the beach later on, minus Amy, who had caught far too much sun and wasn’t feeling the best. Given how many people we’d seen around over the past couple of days, it was questionable just how banging this party was likely to be, and sure enough, we arrived about 8.30pm to find just a few handfuls of local youths stood around while a few lone Rastas bopped around to the Marley and Peter Tosh being blasted out over the now-calm sea. Again, though, the quality of the party hardly mattered – how many times in my life am I likely to be sat on a stunning beach in early November in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, watching the stars and listening to reggae?

It felt a bit weird leaving on Monday morning, like we’d just bailed on a holiday a couple of days in before we’d even got into the full swing of it. Negril has a charm which makes it very easy for me to understand why huge numbers of people visit year after year, and you don’t need to go bang in the middle of holiday season when it’s all beach and bikini parties to see it. For the drive home, Dan had got talking to a taxi driver who’s said he would take us all the way back to Old Harbour for about 13 quid each, the catch being that two of us had to sit in the boot. As we pulled away, he told us he was going to have to teach us to lie – ‘The police don’t like us having more than four people in the car, so if we get pulled over, tell them you were robbed in Negril and I am helping you get back to Old Harbour.’ First thing we came across on the road out of Negril was a massive police checkpoint, with officers lined up on both sides of the road pulling vehicles over for spot checks. The coppers had a good look at us as we passed, but no one motioned for us to stop, and even though the driver kept checking his mirrors for a couple of miles after, no one followed either.

The return journey also gave me the chance to enjoy some of the Westmoreland scenery I’d not been in the mood to take in properly three days earlier. As we headed away from Sav on a stretch of coastal highway which hugs the shoreline, Ini Kamoze’s stomping ‘Jail House’ came on the radio, and I had one of those moments where you know even as you’re experiencing the moment that it will be a memory you carry with you for the rest of your life – the beautifully calm sea stretching out to the horizon, the burning sun riding high above, the small, brightly coloured fishing huts hugging tiny strips of sand, the overgrown hills tumbling down to the shoreline. Right then I didn’t have a care in the world.