Book Parties and Kitty Tiffs

So last night Katy Lederer hosted a little book party at her place to celebrate the publication of three books. As usual, it was an interesting mix of people from work and people from the literary community (and even those categories often cross). Actually, "mix" may not be the right word as the writers were in one room and the DESCO folk in the other, so I appropriately stayed in the kitchen which connected the two rooms.

Mew (her cat) and I had a little tiff. It was a normal kitty I love you, I hate you pantomime of rub me, scratch me, no wait too much stimulation so let me bite you, but now I'll lick the spot I just bit, scratch my ears again, but maybe I'll hiss this time while I purr. I told him we needed time apart and he needed to think about what he wanted and when he was ready I'd be waiting.

Katy decided to have each poet read a poem, so we gathered in the one room and as we started the noise of a radio or television filtered down the spiral black staircase. She sent me up to investigate and we found "strangers in the attic", friends of her roommate who had been there the entire time hanging out upstairs and we didn't even know. They kindly lowered the volume on their laptop and we heard from the following peeps:

My coworker Regan Good, who did not bring any copies of her book (it's out of print, but will be released perfect bound soon) read an old poem of hers that she found on-line. Her book is The Imperfect (David Wolfe Editions).


Next up was Michael Scharf who read a rather prosey piece from For Kid Rock/Total Freedom Spectacular Books).

And last was Jeffrey Jullich who read a poem from Thine Instead Thank (Harry Tankoos Books).

It was a nice night for a well attended little book party, a nice night to wander in Trader Joe's and around Union Square and down the streets on the way to and from Katy's. Reminders of why I love living in NY.

Xaymaca, Part Nine

My last days in Jamaica were emotional and magical. Friday June 1st was my birthday and much good news came that day for everyone around me. Fellowships, scholarships, job offers, book blurbs...it seemed to be a birthday for everyone I came in touch with. The day itself was full of dramatic thunderstorms and naps and that night Kei took me to get yummy cake and then to a low key party to see the film Bent which I had never heard of before (it's from 1997). It's a disturbing look at Nazi Germany's treatment of its queer community and the men forced to wear the pink triangle in the concentration camps. Its disturbing imagery seemed to underline my feeling of unease at being openly gay in such a violently homophobic country like Jamaica.

I heard stories that underscored this—openly gay and lesbian students on UWI's campus threatened and harassed at knife point about their sexuality--”Your kind's not welcome here.” “The only reason I don't cut you right here is the number of people around.” And the knife point interrogations of people perceived to be gay or lesbian. The worst story was an incident involving a family “burned out” of their home in downtown Kingston. At least that's what the news reported. The family was actually four men living in the same house (interesting that they were granted “family” status). The community perceived them to be gay and came to their doorstep, giving them an ultimatum to leave in 24 hours as they were going to burn the house. The men packed what they could carry and left, but one returned to retrieve a possession he forgot. The community was waiting for him, and in addition to the beating he received, they branded him. Actually branded him, heating a piece of metal from the fire they set to his house. He was in critical care at the hospital, but the media were not reporting this story.

The morning of the day I left we went to Hope Gardens, the Royal Botanical Gardens near Kei's house.

There are sections of the garden that make you feel as if you are in Europe, with its walls and terraces and sculpted hedges. And then there are reminders that you are not in Europe but the Tropics. Such as a parrot carrying on at the top of a leafless palm tree:



Here's a pond full of lily pads.



And a shot of a field and trees:



These white birds were so still they appeared to be statues. And then they all lifted up in unison:



Here's a fallen blossom from the Flame of the Forest tree:



There is an old amusement park here called “The Coconut Park” that has been abandoned to high ruinate. Kei used to use his father's stamps to stamp his hand to gain free entry when he was a kid. The place is overgrown in a creepy horror movie kind of way:



Ghost of the roller coaster:



More abandoned structures (there was a merry-go-round and tilt-a-whirl and a train that ran through the park amongst other buildings being reclaimed by the land):



Kei posing in Lovers' Lane:



After the park we drove around New Kingston, going to the UWI bookstore and a bookstore downtown, and visiting the National Gallery where I got to see work by the Intuitives and Barrington Watson's famous Mother and Child. We also visited Emancipation Park (nicknamed “A Penis Park” after the pronunciation of “Happiness” in a popular reggae song which offers commentary on the park's rather endowed sculpture of a freed slave).

We worked our way toward the airport, stopping at one of Kei's favorite spots:



I don't know the story of the Pilar del Caribe, but it's something to just sit on the beach and watch the waves crash over it. While we were there a number of couples arrived and climbed the ladder on the ship's side, going up into the sea-salt rusted structure.

A close-up of the ship:



We continued on to Port Royal, once the richest and wickedest city in the world, a home for pirates and wealth and gambling and whoring, and a place that sunk in a massive earthquake on June 7th, 1692. From here we looked across the harbor at Kingston as if we were out at sea, feeling the silence of my imminent departure descend around us, enjoying these last hours of each other's company. I looked up to see a frigate hovering overhead:



One of my last images of Kei, sitting on the sand dunes:



That's a version of my trip. There are more stories, stories I have censored, stories I will tell in poem form. And more of Jamaica to explore on a future trip: the Blue Mountains, Cockpit Country, Negril to name but a few places. In the meantime I will continue to learn about the island through its literature and through Kei's stories.

I hope you've enjoyed my attempts to document a pivotal trip that has set my imagination off in a new direction. I've already drafted a handful of new poems and have the sketch for a sequence that will chronicle the emotional and intellectual terrain of this trip. I'll let you know when the project is ready for its debut...

Xaymaca, Part Eight

After Dunn's River Falls we decided to visit some other (less crowded) rivers and falls in which to swim. Our first stop was the Cranbrook Flower Forest where Kei once again secured us a local rate entry fee (I believe I was suddenly in Jamaica for six months as a visiting writer at UWI--he's a good storyteller).

Here is the main entrance:



Our first meander took us to a large field full of school children riding donkeys and eating lunch and doing other school field trip activities. We realized we were on the wrong side of the stream and backtracked to discover more bus loads of school children descending upon the entrance. We started up the trail that follows the stream up to the river head where there is a pool for swimming. Here are some of the flowers and plants I saw along the way:









In one of the bamboo stands, a crazy whorl made a sea-shell like form. Funny how certain shapes repeat themselves in nature. You can also see how people carve their initials into the bamboo:



A bamboo copse:



And a Twilight Zone inspired shot of the path lined with bamboo:



Unfortunately, moments away from the pool and swimming we heard the plague of children coming down the path behind us. It started as a distant din that was quickly punctuated with the laughter and squeals and high-pitched voices of children. We stepped off the path and watched them pass, a never ending line of at least 200 school children. We watched the last tourists zip onto the final platform of their canopy zip line tour, and then worked our way back after the plague of children passed.

A number of peacocks and peahens were wandering about the gift shop when we returned. Here's a cock (they're prettier than the hens):



Our last stop was to a hidden waterfall near a power plant, off a dirt and deserted road. The water was cloudy from all the rain, and the water freezing, but swimming in the pool and standing under the falls was refreshing and exhilarating.

We headed back to Kingston that night and drove through Fern Gully at twilight. Before Kei told me the name of the stretch was actually called Fern Gully I commented how it reminded me of this animated movie called Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest and he wondered if there was some connection. I thought Bamboo Avenue was tunnel-like. This was quite something—the shade cast by the tall trees and ferns up the banks was unlike anything I had seen before. I can see why trucks are banned from driving through.


Final post on its way...

Xaymaca, Part Seven

I was told I couldn't leave Jamaica without seeing Dunn's River Falls, so that afternoon we drove to the falls. We were pleased and shocked to see the admission fees: lower for local residents (as it should be—locals should not be barred from their own treasures) be exorbitantly high for tourists (and why not, given all the ills that come from tourism?) But since I was getting more of the local tour of the island, Kei told me to get in line while he bought two local tickets for us.

As we walked to the falls I encountered some Banyan trees:



Me striking a pose at the falls:



And shot of the big waterfall behind me (yes, people actually climb this barefoot):





Pretty shot a ways down the falls:





Foamy:





The water twinkled like crystal. Not sure if this catches it:



You can climb the waterfall, by yourself, or on a guided tour. The tours make you wear special shoes and you hold hands in single file as you climb. They take your picture as you slide down rocks and fall into pools. You can tell who the locals are as they won't be in a tour line and will be barefoot.



The beach where the falls empty into the ocean:



And here it is, the point where river water cascades over its last rocks to meet the ocean water. The river water is quite cold and refreshing, the sea water quite warm:









My feet at the meeting point:



Lots of local children play here as you can see:







A diffferent angle, looking from the falls out to the sea:



Kei came to find me, an inquisitive look on his face:



So I made him pose:



A breakwater:



And I couldn't visit the Caribbean without taking the requisite beach and aquamarine water shot:



The beach to the east:



The beach to the west:



Jet skis:



And me:



Stay tuned for a hike and some flowers and gardens...

White Woman Prances

A brief break from the Jamaica postings to tell you about an important portrait exhibit at the International Center of Photography. The exhibit is called "Let Your Motto Be Resistance: African American Portraits" curated by Deborah Willis. The ICP is located at 1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street here in New York. And the portraits are amazing, ranging from the 19th century to the present. I think my favorite was an old picture of Eartha Kitt.

Last night was the second of two events in conjunction with this exhibit, organized by the American poet Elizabeth Alexander. Four Cave Canem poets read their work: my friend Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon (go buy her book Black Swan; Ross Gay; Aracelis Girmay; and Tracie Morris).

The reading was great: Lyrae opened with a June Jordan poem and two Brooks poems before three of her own (though admittedly, the June Jordan poem's repetition as a device stopped working about three-quarters of the way through and it needed to be shorter); Ross Gay's wonderful anecdotes, such as Lafayette's letter to Washington at the end of the Revolutionary War about ending slavery then; and Girmay's interweaving of Hayden, Brooks, and her own work. Morris is an interesting performer (I've heard some of her sound projects before) though her end performance--where she vocally plays with different tones while repeatedly singing a melody and simple lyric over and over again--wasn't the best I've heard from her (but there were a couple moments where she hit it right and I felt an energy pulling from the portraits hanging on the walls around us). I was amused at how it made the white people, especially some of the skinny hipster women, uncomfortable, so much that at one point, this tall lanky gal at the front of the room hopped up and literally PRANCED across the front aisle in front of the stage and off into the side gallery. As if by prancing and being a deer she would be less conspicuous in her sudden need to leave.

Anyway, if you're in New York or will be visiting, check it out: ICP

Xaymaca, Part Six

We left Erna's for the coast. Our first beach was small and vacant save for a lifeguard raking trash from the sand and rocks and a man cutting grass up the hillside. We swam in the warm aquamarine water and dried off on the beach. I watched a white crab emerge from its hole and start a dance toward the water and back, quick to retreat at any sign or glance from me.

Heading along the North Coast we encountered a police check-point where they ordered us from the car and searched it. I remained surprisingly calm as I stood on the side of the road and Kei opened the trunk—I've never been that close to a machine gun so casually slung over a shoulder. They let us go, clearly frustrated that they couldn't find any contraband (namely ganja—white man traveling with a black man who has dreads) and not because they would have prosecuted us, but because of the monetary bribe they could have extorted from us.

We were going to stop by a waterfall on the way to Ocho Rios, but rain struck and stayed all the way in and we wound up at Island Village, an Epcot Center like tourist attraction for Americans and Europeans who come off the cruise ships. It was the first concentration of white folk I saw since coming to the island and I was immediately revolted by them and the whole culture of tourism which just seemed so demeaning to both tourist and local. The locals hustling and offering taxi services, crafts, weed—the tourists maneuvering around these somewhat aggressive peddlers. It got us talking about Jamaica Kincaid's book-length essay A Small Place and her wonderfully bitter and humorous attack on tourism on her home island of Antigua.

Here's a shot from their coffee shop deck/porch (my first-world need for an iced coffee brought us here):

A shot of Kei:



And a shot of me:



And a very close-up shot of me:

We walked through town a bit and went to have a jerk lunch (my first taste of jerk chicken and pork), visiting the falls at the ruins next door which were quite swollen from all the rain.

Hoping for sun the next day, we decided to find a place to stay and after a few attempts (I made Kei go alone to inquire the last time, convinced it had something to do with my presence; it worked), we got a room at Turtle Towers (there are four, which I named after the TMNT). They have turtles in a trough at the front office:

The rain stayed all evening, so we saw the one movie at the theatre in Island Village (the unfortunate, full-of-missed-opportunities Shrek 3) and then walked through town to have some yummy Indian food where we saw a lovely white lesbian couple that made me worry if they would be heckled on their way back to their hotel or cruise ship or wherever they were staying.

We woke to sun, and walked to the beach which was shut off from the public by a high fence and barbed wire. Unless you're off the cruise ship or have a key from one of the water front hotels, they don't let you on the beach, which fueled my distaste for the tourism industry and the necessary evil it plays for the economies of island nations. After the beach, we hit the pool where for the first time in many summers I thought I'd work on a tan.

A canal that led to the ocean was muddy from the rain, but miraculously clear that morning:

Another shot from Island Village of a cruise ship docked in the distance:

Up next: lots of waterfalls.

Xaymaca, Part Five

Back in College I took a course on Caribbean Literature, a class which made me fall deeply in love with the landscapes and cultures of the West Indian archipelago. When it came time to do my senior honors thesis, I chose to write about Derek Walcott's work, and so merged my three areas of interest: poetry, visual art, and the Caribbean. But prior to Walcott I fell in love with the work of three women: Jamaica Kincaid, Michelle Cliff, and Erna Brodber. The last of the three, Erna Brodber, blew me away with her first novel Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home. I wrote at least two papers on the book, trying to decipher its sometimes impenetrable poetic prose, and I have carried the image and metaphor of the kumbla with me ever since.

When Kei and I first met, one of the things that bonded us to each other was the fact that I had not only heard of Erna Brodber, but had read her work (which is often hard to get in the States). So I took great delight when he told me he knew her and that we should visit with her.

The trip to Erna's was breathtaking. We drove up, north of Kingston through Stony Point and Junction. If you've never experienced motion sickness, ride on the road through Junction. Its sharp turns and curves and fast ascent and descent make you clutch your stomach as you try to take in the lush canopy around you. There's even a spot at the top of the one climb where a cluster of buildings beckons you to pull off and rest before continuing. Passing thunderstorms and torrential downpours slowed us and forced our windows shut, but it was worth it to see the sudden waterfalls cascade off the hillsides. We crossed a narrow one lane bridge over a wide river where huge boulders broke up the river bed. I felt there must be a story in those giant shapes. Or at least one should make up a story for them to account for how they got there. After a wrong turn (take the low road, not the high road) we made our way to Woodside, where Brodber lives.

This is the front gate to Brodber's home and community project called “Blackspace”:

Rain struck again when we arrived, so we dashed inside and Erna made us some mint tea using leaves from her garden. She seemed to remember Aimee, or at least the program in Vermont that allowed Aimee to study abroad in Jamaica back in 1999. And once again, the mere mention of the fact I worked with Lorna seemed to immediately warm her to me as it did others—Lorna is clearly a revered figure here, at least in the literary and cultural circles to which I've been exposed, but I suspect beyond those circles too.

She gave Kei and me separate studies: he stayed in the Brown Study...

...and I stayed in the Brown Study (Tree):

This was my workspace:



Me taking a break from work on my bestiary:



It felt very much like a retreat. Here's another shot of the space:



Kei came to check out my digs:

Mine did feel a bit like a treehouse. As we walked from her kitchen, down the stone stairs cut into the hill side, the fragrance of guava overpowered my nostrils. I saw guavas on the ground and looking up at the guava tree I saw the biggest spiders I have ever seen, easily the span of my hand:

Kei says they eat mosquitoes. They look like they could eat a small bird:

They did get me thinking about Anancy tales, the African trickster stories often in Brodber's books (in the American South we know many of these stories, or the role of the trickster, in the Uncle Remus Brer Rabbit stories). I prayed the mosquito net over my bed would keep out any wandering spiders:

And their webbing is like rope. I accidentally walked into a strand on my way up from Book Space, Erna's little shop where people can buy copies of her hard-to-find books, and I bounced back before it broke.

We dined with Erna at 6 in the house. She made fresh guava juice from the guavas (I couldn't get enough!) and she's a strict vegetarian (“I haven't eaten flesh since 1980”) but her son Timothy made chicken for us meat eaters. He is a classically trained pianist studying music ed at SUNY Buffalo. And in that wonderful mix of modern and provincial life (like Right Said Fred's “I'm Too Sexy” blaring from the small house across the road), he was playing the video game Grand Theft Auto while we had tea earlier that afternoon. We spoke about the chickens she used to raise at the house, how they were named after British Queens, (the roosters had plain boy names), and the day Timothy came home looking for his favorite chicken only to discover it had been cooked for dinner. He couldn't bring himself to eat it, which got me thinking how difficult it is to eat something you've named. After dinner we settled down to watch Erna's guilty pleasure, the soap opera The Young and the Restless.

I should mention their magic cat, Jerry. Jerry is a slinky kitty. He has a white body with gray patches like islands or continents. When Terry (his sister? Mate?) abandoned her newborns, he became their surrogate mother and offered his body for warmth. But without the teat, they died.

Here's Jerry on my bed. I don't know where he was that night, but he had green stickers all over his head and ears. I groomed him, and he was eternally grateful, purring through slitted eyes:

Jerry evidently hasn't been pulling his weight around the house (read: catching mice) so Timothy has cut his food rations. This makes for a very loud Jerry as he begs for food all day. But Jerry is magical. He appears and disappears at will. One moment I turned and he was peering at me through the wood slat shutter on the window, literally a cat on a tin roof. The next moment I saw his shadow around the corner—he somehow made it inside to have his shadow cast from that angle, but when I turned the corner he was opposite the locked door, meowing, and not inside at all.

The next day, morning flooded Woodside with that early lemon light. Kei and I went for a walk before breakfast to see the Church which used to be the Great House for the area's plantation. We passed a stinking pile of Otahiti (pear-shaped, apple-like fruit) knocked down to the steam's banks by yesterday's storms, and we passed many school children. The boys wore a brownish almost khaki colored uniform, like boy scouts, and the girls white blouses and plaid jumpers. Two girls took particular notice of us: “Two white men! Whiteys!” Now Kei is clearly not white (as you'll see) and so we found it amusing that they used the term “whitey” to mean not just someone with white skin, but someone who was clearly a foreigner or not of their community.

The girls were Halyssa (the older; sounds like Alyssa but with an H sound) and Brit-tany (the younger, not pronounced Brittany) and Halyssa had no fear. She took Kei and me by the hand and let us right up to the Church, switching between patois and English as she warned me about the wasps and told me about the history she knew. Behind the church were many graves, and when she took a stone off one and through it, I warned her that the grave's duppy would come haunt her that night.

Here's Kei with Halyssa:

Here I am with both girls:

And here's the church:

They loved the camera. Halyssa asked me to take a picture of the man down the hill, in the field:

We finally encouraged Halyssa to get to school or she'd be late, and her sister Brit-tany, suspicious of us from the beginning, stood on the school hill with her hands on her hips and shouted “Halyssa. Come! Enough whitey!”

We walked down some other roads, past the community center, and took some more pics. Here's one of the distant mountains, and the Flame of the Forest flowers in the canopy:

And one of me:

We returned to Erna's and had breakfast. This time she brewed some lemon grass tea, again from natural plants in her yard, and we talked about how she didn't think I was American. She thought I was English, or at least European. This happened to me before when I was in Ireland and the people wouldn't believe I was American. “Too articulate to be an American.” Before we left I bought a copy of Brodber's new novel, The Rainmaker's Mistake and as we drove to the coast to start our day of beaches and waterfalls, the rain followed.

Next up: Ocho Rios.

Xaymaca, Part Four

We roadtripped home from Calabash with Kei's friend, the poet Tanya Shirley. Tanya did her MFA at the U of Maryland and we chatted up MFA programs in the States while making ample amounts of witty and crass jokes, especially concerning the legendary Virtuous Vagina. We stumbled upon a late day funeral, an image that struck me as the women, all clad in outfits and hats of black and white, walked down the road from a church higher up the hill. It was quite a turnout, tying traffic up (mostly in the opposite direction, thank the lord). You can check out some of Tanya's work in Kei's Anthology New Caribbean Poetry, just released from Carcanet.

Having returned from Country, we stopped by the poet Mervyn Morris' home to escape the rain (he lives close to Kei and we were out for a walk). He has a lovely wife Helen and we sat and chatted about cricket, teaching, Calabash over Red Stripe and baked peanuts. I think I have a poem in my head when the conversation took a turn on the nature of enjambement vs. enjambment. The concise OED was brought out. Laughter at the strange characters in pronunciation #2.

We passed the controversial American Embassy (like a military fort/compound) and fear gripped my stomach when I saw the flag at half-mast. I hadn't seen the news in days and thought something had happened. But in that way time shifts when you are abroad I quickly realized it was Memorial Day back in the States.

A note on roosters and lizards: the house next door to Kei's has multiple roosters (perhaps bred and raised for cock fighting) and they are loud. They start their call before the sun rises but do not stop when it is up. They carry on all day long and wherever we went, there seemed to me roosters nearby, the soundtrack to my entire visit. Here's a cock shot:

As for lizards, you can find them in the oddest places: behind the curtains, on the walls and ceilings, on the windowsill. There's a particular hour of the day, which I call “The Hour of Lizards” (poem's coming out of that one) where I always seemed to see more of them than normal. I came to think of the lizards as part of the décor in that way the outside and inside merge in the home space: a shifting wall pattern or design on the plaster.

Next up: our visit to Erna Brodber and Blackspace.

Xaymaca, Part Three

Once Kei returned from the UK the afternoon of my second day, we began the search for a car to drive to St. Elizabeth and the Calabash International Lit Festival. Thus began a long Friday evening where we eventually wound up at the Miller family house with a beautiful night-time-ridge-top view of Kingston. And we convinced his cousin Chris to drive us to St. Elizabeth, after stopping at Island Grill to get some food.

The trip out of Kingston on one of its new highways filled my nostrils with the smell of diesel and jerk and then burnt sugar cane as we went further out. My favorite stretch of the road trip was Bamboo Avenue, a long stretch of road that feels like a tunnel, line with bamboo copses.

Jamaicans drive very fast, and there were many times I thought we would crash, unable to see where the road veered or suddenly stumbling upon oncoming traffic traveling just as fast as we. Or stumbling upon steer, cows, goats in the road. But eventually we made it to Parratee, near Black River, and stayed here, between the sea and the swamp:

A tree outside our place in Parratee:

A boat:

The water is really calm here due to a reef out in the distance and the location of this side of the island (sort of a Southwest inlet out of the way of the tide and current that comes from the Southeast--Kei's cousin Chris explained it one morning on the beach as the crabs darted in and out of their holes and naked black boys swam in the shallow water; Chris is a coastal engineer who won a scholarship while I was visiting to do a two year coastal engineering Master's program in Norway and Europe--another birthday blessing on that magical day.)

Stormy day. A random stray dog on our porch (I told you they were everywhere, and always on the lookout for scraps).

Stormy morning, but I like the mood and the boat in the distance.

The Calabash International Literary Festival is held every year in Treasure Beach, about a 25 minute car ride from where we stayed in Parratee. Here's a shot of Calabash's opening under the main tent:

Imagine reading with the surf crashing behind you.

We stayed long enough to hear the chap who beat out Kei in the Commonwealth Prize for the Canada/Caribbean region, D. Y. Bechard. The writing wasn't bad, but the reading was terrible. Perfect example of the long wind-up: giving too much contextual information to read a very short excerpt. He could have read more self-contained selections that stood on their own. Needless to say, he didn't do a very good job of "selling" his work.

We spent most of the festival socializing, or having good "lime" as they call it. I met more people than I can remember, but we met up with a fun crew of writers, many of whom were Trinidadian and affiliated with the CRB (Caribbean Review of Books). They were all staying at The Lyric, a rental down the road that became our shadow Calabash when we were ditching the scheduled events. It's funny, that Saturday night, as we hung out in the Lyric's common room drinking wine and talking about the Coolie Duppy, a critic from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Carlin Romano, was interviewing Nicholas Laughlin out on the patio by the pool. You can read Romano's article about Calabash at the Chronicle of Higher Education here: "The Harder They Write: Does 'Caribbean' Literature Exist?"

A storm hit on Saturday:

Kei and I sat out on those rocks with a stray dog before the storm hit.

Stormy Calabash bay. You can see by these photos my aversion to photographing people...

...but not hermit crabs.

Highlights of the Festival were readings by the American poets Elizabeth Alexander and Terrance Hayes, and the three "superstars"--Michael Ondaatje, Maryse Conde, and Caryl Phillips.

A blurry Ondaatje entertaining everyone with an excerpt from Running in the Family concerning his grandmother's fake tit.

In the end, Calabash was a blast. It was fun to see Kei in his element, clearly well known in the literary circles of the Caribbean, and I enjoyed meeting many of his friends who were all fabulous and interesting individuals. One fun story to leave you with before the next post:

D. Y. Bechard, the Canadian writer I mentioned earlier, won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Book. Now while we may look similar, we definitely do not look alike, and yet after he won I had a handful of people congratulate me on his win, thinking I was him. I believe we were both wearing white shirts, and we were two of the only white men there, and we both had wavy hair. But still...Kei thinks I'm clearly better looking than he, and so should take it as an insult.

Xaymaca, Part Two

I spent my first night in Jamaica sitting out in the driveway with Kei's sister, Shauna, talking about her time in the States and Boston and her decision to move back to Jamaica to find a job as an educational psychologist (which she got while I was there--I'll tell you about my magical birthday in a later installation). While we chatted a garage cover band entertained us from a house down the street and up the hill. They weren't bad. At least the musicians weren't. The lead singer, though...well, at times it sounded like karaoke night. He should stay away from Police songs and Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit" and anything that forces him to use an upper register.

There are many stray dogs in Jamaica. And many guard dogs. They seemed to be quiet while the band played, but in-between songs you would hear one bark far off up the hill. And then another would join. And another. And you could feel a wave of barking barreling toward you, down the hill. All the dogs of the neighborhood would join in (including Eddie) and then the wave would pass, and you'd hear the call carried on down the slope, into the valley. Every time it happened it seemed as if a message were being carried from Point A to Point B. Some very primal message.

I woke the next day to many mosquito bites which I tried my best not to scratch open as I re-read Erna Brodber's Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home. My former student, Alana Wellington came to visit during the afternoon and we caught-up and chatted for a couple hours about our lives since we last saw each other. She has had many adventures, including teaching English in Peru for a year, and had also returned to the island and was seeking work as she prepared for applying to medical school at King's College. Shortly after I left she secured an interview and then a job to be an EMT for a private company in Jamaica (congrats again Alana! And another one to add to the list of my magical birthday...)

Here is the room where Alana and I sat and chatted:

As you'll notice, there are no screens on the windows (I didn't notice screens on any windows of any building in Jamaica), which allows lots of light and air (and lots of mosquitoes and ants!)

A view from the upper level of the house.

Another view. As I mentioned in Part One, you'll notice houses (in this picture and the next) built on top of that ridge in the distance. In Kingston, the wealthier you are, the higher up you build on the surrounding hills.

Kei's house is pretty far up one of the hillsides and is a typical middle class household. You should see the view from the water tower on the hill above his neighborhood. It's quite panoramic and relaxing.

This is one type of many (three?) different kinds of mango that grow in Kei's yard. He made fresh mango juice the one day using these mangos and limes (and some other secret ingredients...). You can grab limes off the trees just by reaching through the window (convenient when it's raining).

This is ackee:

I had some for breakfast the one day. Wish I could describe it, but you just need to try it yourself. It's good, though I believe its rind is poisonous. (The Jamaican diet is full of starchy foods like breadfruit and yams, but my favorites were plantains and calaloo, which I tried to eat every day.) UPDATE: Alana tells me this: “Ackee cannot be eaten until it is fully ripened and the pods have opened on their own. That's why one must be careful who s/he chooses to buy the fruit from (on the side of the road, at the market.)”

Coming up in Part 3...Calabash.

Xaymaca, Part One

I arrived in Jamaica the evening of Thursday, May 24th. My first observation happened in the Air Jamaica "lines" at JFK. I use "lines" loosely as the concept just didn't seem to apply. Every time I tried to join a "line", someone would appear next to me and then try to get past me without waiting their turn. This happened when I checked in to get my ticket. It happened when I went through security. It happened when we boarded. There always seemed to be a desire to jump the line, or at least form a second line.

My second observation was on the plane (Air Jamaica Flight 14). Aside from two or three newly wed white couples, I was the only other white face on the plane--no honeymoon to clearly mark me as tourist. This was the beginning of an experience I think everyone should have to go through: being the "only one" in a group. If you have enough self awareness you might just begin to slip out of your skin and think about what it was like for that one black student on your college campus. The daily fear and confidence preparations you deal with just to go out by yourself. Of course being the only black face brings a different set of prejudices and assumptions than being the only white face. I found people treated me in many different ways, from simple curiosity (who is this single white man in our midst?) to affluent western tourist. And how I was treated often depended on my companions (or lack of companions): when you are alone and wandering around vs. being with locals.

The flight had some turbulence due to tropical storms that seemed to follow me around the island, but we landed quite smoothly in Kingston, descending over the bay as if we were going to land on the water itself. And when we touched down, the entire plane erupted in applause, perhaps in part a thank you for the smooth landing, the safe landing, and perhaps in part out of thanks to be back on native soil. It made me smile.

I was held up at Customs briefly as I didn't know Kei's home address in Kingston, but luckily his friend Michelle Anderson was waiting to pick me up and the information booth was able to page her. We had to call Kei's sister, Shauna, to get the address (such creatures of habit we are that we drive so often to a place and can't remember its name) but they let me through after asking me about my writing and what kind of writer I was and what kind of writing I do. I wasn't about to put "receptionist" under occupation. Though perhaps I could have gotten away with "model"--the woman at the information desk asked if I came for the fashion show going on that weekend, and when I said no, she said "Oh. Well, you look like a model."

Michelle was my first tour guide as she drove me to Kei's home. She pointed out the way to Port Royal, to your left when you're exiting the airport, all the way out at the tip of the small peninsula that separates the bay from the sea. Two-thirds of Port Royal sunk in an earthquake back on June 7th, 1692. The place was a home for pirates and whores and known for its loose morals and easy pleasures. I believe it was described as "the richest and wickedest city in the world" and Michelle mentioned the "odd" people there, those with gray eyes and black skin and other combinations of interracial mating. I sensed a hint of judgment in her voice which immediately drew me to the place (Kei and I would visit my last day there, hours before I left).

As we drove into Kingston I noticed a number of billboards that said "Follow the Hummingbird" and when I asked, Michelle informed me that the Hummingbird is the national bird of Jamaica, and that the signs lead to New Kingston and the National Field where a large international cricket match recently took place.

As we drove through the low lying areas and up into the hills I noticed how stratified the city is when it comes to class. The poorer you are, the lower you are in terms of altitude (poorest living sea level). As you climb the hills, the houses get nicer, with the biggest and richest on the very tops of the ridges around the city. These houses are like mansions, with swimming pools and all. One neighborhood is even called "Beverly Hills".

Kei lives in Hope Pastures, an area near the Mona campus of UWI (University of the West Indies) and the Royal Botanical Gardens. Here are some pictures of his family's lovely home.

31 Forsythe Drive. To the right, bougainvillea cascades over the front gate:

Inner gate. Due to the high crime rate, most homes are equipped with stylized burglar bars on all doors and windows. I was struck at how fancy the patterns could be on such a functional decoration to the home.

Front hallway which leads to the front door and stairs down to a large veranda. This is looking up from the downstairs veranda.

This is Eddie. Eddie shies away from people, but likes to go on adventures in the neighborhood and visit with his friends. The concept of a "domesticated" animal is different here. The animals have social lives of their own, and wander at will.

The house is built into the hillside, so this is the lower level on the slope.

I call this "dead tree with twinkle lights".

Up next in Part Two: more views and some Jamaican cuisine.