Fairmont Toastmasters Club

[Janet Wong]

COME BACK, YU HEAH!

Welcome to Jamaica, mam. The customs officer looked at our Canadian passports as we landed at Montego Bay Airport in Jamaica. ‘Is it your first visit here,’? she enquired. No, I answered. When was the last time you came here? I said 22 years ago. She placed here pen on her desk and all 300 lbs. of her shook with a loud belly laugh. My husband and I looked at each other and wondered what in the world was so funny. She got up from her desk and walked towards us with a big smile on her face. I backed away as I envisioned myself being hugged and suffocating to death in her ample bosom. But she only shook my hand and said, Next time don’t wait so long to come back. Come back, yu heah!

I could not ever envision a customs officer at Pearson Airport doing something like that. But that’s the Jamaica I remembered and wanted my children to see, the Jamaica they only heard about, the warm friendly people and the beautiful country. The old Arawak Indian name for the island is Xaymayca, the land of wood and water and it is really that. It’s not only surrounded by the Caribbean Sea, but it has rivers and waterfalls. It’s Harry Belafonte’s Island in the Sun, a Garden of Paradise.

Jamaica is in the Caribbean, 90 miles south of Cuba, 500 miles south of Florida. It is 112 miles long by 42 miles wide, and has a population of 2.7 m people, and is the 3rd largest island in the Caribbean, after Cuba and Hispaniola.

It was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1494 and was under Spanish occupation until 1655. In 1655 the British took over, and Jamaica, like Canada is still a part of the British Commonwealth. From 1655 – 1838 the British brought slaves into the island to work the sugar plantations. In the 18th century, Jamaica was the world’s largest sugar producer. It still plays a big part in the economy especially for its export of Captain Morgan Rum and Appleton Rum. In 1839 slavery was abolished and some of the freed slaves became small farmers, and the others made a living as best as they could.

In the years 1839 – 1962 there was a national movement for decolonization and in 1962 Jamaica became independent. Its’ flag is green, gold and black. The green represents hope and agricultural wealth, the gold stands for sunlight and mineral wealth, and the black for hardships of the past and future. This can be summed up as ‘Hardships there are, but the land is green and the sun shineth’.
The agricultural wealth stands for the sugar cane, bananas and many other fruits, but the mineral wealth comes from bauxite which makes aluminum. In the 1960s Jamaica was the largest producer of bauxite.

The capital is Kingston which has the 7th largest natural harbour in the world. The point of land which forms the harbour is called Port Royal, once the famed hideaway for pirates and buccaneers. In 1680, a former pirate, Henry Morgan was a governor of Jamaica. How many other countries can say they had a pirate as a governor?

There are beaches around the island, and the better known ones, in Negril, with its nude beaches, where you can get married au natural, Montego Bay and Ocho Rios are in the north coast. The Blue Mountain range runs through its center, and that’s where the famous Blue Mountain coffee comes from. The beaches are beautiful, so are the mountains.

Music is everywhere, from Bob Marley’s reggae beat to the sounds of steel drums. There seems to be a party every night.

My family came back this time as tourists, to see the attractions we missed while we were living there. Apart from the natural beauty, it’s the people we remember the most. Once we were looking for an attraction in the mountains and got lost. A gentleman in his 70s walking up the hill said it was just around the corner, to follow him. He declined to get in the car, so there we were driving behind him, while he ran up hill for about half a mile to the place we wanted to go. Another time we were walking near the hotel and admired someone’s watermelon growing in the garden, it was ours immediately.

We left the rural area after a week, to stay with my father in a suburb near Kingston. Over the years in telephone conversations and visits my father had told me of the increasing crime rate in Kingston and surrounding areas, the murders and gang warfare. We drove through the residential areas, and all the houses were fenced in, gated and padlocked. Windows were covered with iron grills. This was a back to reality call. The front doors had padlocks also. It was like we were in a jail. Every house was a private jail, side by side. After living in Canada for so long, with no gates or iron bars across the doors and windows, it felt very strange. At plaza entrances also, cars had to go through a barrier opened by a security guard, and around the plaza, armed guards were stationed.

We stayed a few days in the area and then went back to Montego Bay, to its façade of beauty and peace. When we boarded the plane back to Toronto, it was with a bittersweet feeling. At the same time I was looking forward to getting away from the news of guns, gangs and violence, back to Toronto the Good, back to homes with no gates or padlocks I remembered the customs officer’s words, CUM BACK, YU HEAH! Yes, I will return Jamaica, one of these days, I’ll cum back, yu heah!!