Motorbike Manners

I passed a man on a motorbike on my way to work this morning. This man was kindly giving his woman a lift to work behind him. Unfortunately this women had got dressed this morning without remembering that she would be on the back of a bike, and was wearing her very smart, but also very short, work skirt. Yup, you know the look, holding on tight with her skirt riding high, it’s a look we often see.

And I remembered the ladies* in India  who were either driving or on the back of their motorbikes in their saris. These ladies have perfected the art of riding a motorbike side saddle so as to maintain their dignity! And they are very talented at it – their roads are as bad as ours, their taxi drivers are as mad and they also have to dodge cows, yet they managed to sit their sedately, with their legs to one side while the bike twisted and turned all over the road at a rapid pace.

 Safety versus manners. Hard decision!

 *note that the Indians are ladies, not women…

I’m back

Back at work, exhausted, with jet lag and lots of dirty clothes at home and a very clingy cat who is upset that I went away and left him. But India was great, Goa is gorgeous, the conference was productive, lots of interesting people and most importantly?

 

Yup, that’s Kingston Girl on the back of the elephant! What else was I supposed to do with the half-day I had free at the end of the conference?

That’s one of the many shops nearby and that is the river at the bottom of the road – stunning. One of the cool things about the conference was that instead of giving us a boring mass produced bag with all our conference documents in it as you usually get, we got funky colourful bags like those in the photo made by local people. How appropriate for a conference discussing issues related to poverty and self-sufficiency and youth development?

Now back to reality…

In India

Yup, you read right. I’m in India! That’s why posting has been delayed as I was told last week that I’d be spending this week at a conference in Goa. So here I am. Sat in an internet cafe with bollywood music in the background. Remembering the good curry that I had for lunch. 

Ah well, it’s a hard job but someone’s got to do it!!! 

Ready for mas again!!

I have a confession to make. It’s one I’ve made on this site before, but I’ll make it again for my more recent friends. I love carnival. I love soca. I love jumping in the hot sun. I love glittery costumes. But I’ve never been to Trinidad.

2008 was supposed to be the year. But you know how these things go – elections get in the way, people aren’t sure if they’ll have jobs or leave, hurricanes distract you, the girls you are going with are in too many countries to make the planning easy… so it is only know that we are actually trying to get it sorted. Which is of course late to be doing it. Tribe is sold out. Flights are getting fully booked.

The question is: Is it too late? Should we postpone our dream for another year? Or should we go for it?

I need help! People who have done Trini carnival, let me know! Will we be able to get Tribe costumes through Carnival Junction or somewhere? I’ve looked and it seems that loads of people are looking, and no one is selling. Or should we jump with another band?

2008 or 2009…

I’m back!

A month without coming here has passed very quickly. And I’l be honest with you, I was tempted not to come back. But then the thoughts of the nice comments from you all, the amusement of meeting people in real life and the delicious dark chocolate from Grenadad (thanks Yamfoot!!) lured me back again.

So what’s been going on in my absence? I’ve tried to catch up with you all today but it will take a while.

Me? Oh, I’ve been seeing all my old friends and family, drinking too much pink wine, trying not to drown in the rain, grinning like an idiot at my best friend’s wedding (they are so happy and perfect for each other!!), and shopping way too much in England and then enjoying the weekend’s sun in MoBay with the man.

It’s good to be home.

Need to sleep…

I’m tired, very tired. Have too many things to finish up at work. Too many issues to explain to other people so they can cover them for me. Too many letters to reply too. Too many people to hide from.

And that’s just at work. Still need to buy coffee and rum. Still need to pack, still need to think about what I am going to pack! Still need to wash some clothes so I have clean clothes to pack. Still need to find out electricity bill so that I can pay it so that it doesn’t get disconnected while I am away. Still need to have a nice dinner with the boyfriend tonight (etc…) .

But I’m excited. I haven’t been back to the UK since I returned to Jamaica 3 years ago. That’s a long time to go without seeing my grandmother and other family members. A long time to go without seeing lots of my friends. A long time to go without eating fish and chips by the sea. A long time to go without going to a show in the West End.

So hopefully the excitment at the long time to go’s will make up for the tirednesses from the still to do list.  And it’s a long flight, I can get some sleep then.

So people, I’m off. Enjoy yourselves while I’m away. Have parties here if you want. Normal service will resume at some point, probably early August. We’ll see.

Glad to be home

Oh it’s good to be back in Jamrock. So what if things are chaotic, it’s still good to be home at last – a month is a long time to share a room, use a shower that floods the bathroom, eat kosher food, be followed by security guards and to hardly have any time off!

Now it’s back to sorting out things at work, renovating my apartment and trying to get myself a costume for frenchmen in carnival… and obviously starving myself to fit in said costume!

So before I forget all about Israel, here are some photos to amuse you…

The Negev Desert – truly a stunning sight, especially in the evening light. Cameras can’t capture it at all.

The Dead Sea – really anyone can swim here, just don’t get the water in your eyes!

 

Sea of Galilee – gorgeous, there is something about this place. Jesus preached his sermon on the beatitudes here and I can see how inspiring this place is.

Haifa – a view of the city I was based in, with the Ba’hai gardens leading down to the sea.

Jerusalem – our security guards wouldn’t allow us to go to the Temple Mount but we did get to the Wailing Wall at the front of the photo.

Acco – an intriguing ancient city near to Haifa

Jaffa – the ancient heart of Tel Aviv

Hope you enjoyed!

Still Alive!

Yup, I’m alive and surviving Israel! So far no major bomb scares (a guy was arrested in a bomb in Tel Aviv on the same day that I was visiting there but it is a big city and I am only one person so it’s not a real scare), I have avoided climbing over any big walls that I’ve seen, I looked from a distance at the barbed wire which seperated us from Syria (the security guard who accompanies us on trips refused to let me go any closer) and currently I am perfectly safe as the computer room where I am staying is actually the bomb shelter. And fortunately I am coming home this week. Which means that I should miss the war which is being predicted for this summer…

And how I am looking forward to coming home. I am looking forward to having my own bedroom again, to having a bed with a mattress thicker than 1 inch, to eating meat AND diary at the same time, to being able to take a bus or go shopping on a Friday afternoon or on a Saturday, to being able to go out without people constantly warning me about bomb attacks and to not having classes 6 days a week!

But despite all of this (or maybe because of it all?), Israel has been an facinating experience. The course has made me think and ask lots of questions, the culture has been very different to anything I’ve experienced before, the historic and religious (especially the Galilee) and natural sights (particularly the Negev and the Dead Sea) are amazing and I can definitely agree that it is a complex society. My main regret is that I didn’t get to go to any Palestinian territory and to see enough of Jerusalem (sorry Dutch Pot, didn’t have long enough there to see you!). 

More stories when I get home…

More dreaming!

I hope this works – I’m stealing ideas from cream today!

create your own visited country map

Seeing this makes my feet itchy. It reminds me that there is so much of the world left for me to visit! Until then, some notes on my limited travels…

I think that my favourite city would have to be Barcelona. It is just so alive and so colourful, and the food is great!

I’ll admit that I have kinda cheated with one bit of colouring – Kenya. I haven’t been outside of the airport. But I did spend an enjoyable 6 hours or so there in the departure lounge which was also in use by their national rugby team… mmmmm. Need to go back properly. I was tempted but didn’t cheat by putting in Zimbabwe as I never actually got out of the plane there!

I think that the place I found ‘most foreign’ to me was the Ukraine. Coming from the Caribbean where we place so much emphasis on education as the way out of poverty, I found it hard to comprehend that there were people sitting around who were unemployed despite having PhDs in Physics and other similar areas.

I tried to come up with a best memory but I couldn’t narrow it down! Options included riding a camal in the Sahara, watching the sun rise after trecking for hours up a mountain in Malawi, dancing salsa in Prague, drinking too many cocktails in New York, just sitting and watching the world go by in Amsterdam and too many more.

And when I think of those memories, I realise that I am making the right decisions again – other people mnay have expensive cars and lots of clothes, but I’d rather have those memories and be able to look forward to making more!

So next on the list is Cuba…

So, where do you love?

Memories

I can’t quite put my finger on why exactly it happened this morning, but as I drove out of my gate I was suddenly reminded of Greece. Maybe it was the bright bright blue sky, the incredibly vivid green of the bushes, the red of the poinciana standing out as I came down the hill. Or maybe it was a song on the radio that brought it all back, or a reminient of a dream that I had had. Maybe it was the smell in the air, that hot yet clean smell you get after rain.

Whatever the reason, I was suddenly struck with memories. Memories of my one and only trip to Greece, a week in Kefalonia about 5 years ago. I could almost taste the fresh salads you got with your meals – if you were able to convince the restaurant that although you had a british accent, you didn’t need chips with every meal. I could feel the hot sea and the sand between my toes. I could smell the lethal ouzo – smelling it was enough for me. I remembered the twin beds in our room, and falling through the gap that always developed in the night after we’d pushed the beds together.

I hadn’t thought of that holiday for ages. It was packaged away at the back of my mind – like much of the rest of the two years I spent with that boyfriend. Yet this morning, it decided to come out. And despite having moved on from him a long time ago, it made me smile.