Crash, Crash, A Healing Touch, Guinness, Underwear, and Some Dancing

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“Bloody Hogwash!”

Tuesday, 3:30 p.m. We’re in a car returning from Duckenfield when we get in our second car accident of the day. This one, we think, is not our fault. This one, we explain to the giant Rasta man and his two accomplices walking toward us, could not possibly be our fault. But let’s reverse a bit for some back story, shall we?

Tuesday, 8:15 a.m. Jessica is right on time to pick us up. Jessica is the woman who Nancy and I go to the jail with on Fridays, but today she’s invited us to the school she has adopted in the country, where we will be throwing a “Christmas treat.” Our first stop is the Colin Powell Plaza - which is the new housing for all the American ambassadors to Jamaica - where we are picking up Lucy. It should be mentioned that the view from the plaza is magnificent and is particularly beautiful today as the dense layer of fog that usually lies overtop the city is not there this morning. So we’ve picked up Lucy and are now on our way to meet Caroline but, en route to the British High Commissioner’s compound where Caroline lives, we have managed to get into our first accident of the day. We are at a stop sign behind a Toyota Rav4 and Jessica has accidentally rear-ended his vehicle. Jessica’s left front headlight is crushed and the surrounding bumper is dented in. The only damage on the Rav4 is the acquisition of a slight paint scrape on this rear bumper. He is under the assumption, however, that said paint scrape means there must be something askew with his transmission. Riiiiight. After assessing the damages, trading insurance information, and chasing away the O.E.W (one-eyed-witness) who thought it necessary to wipe the broken glass fragments from the scene of the accident before we could take pictures, we got back in the car and proceeded to the British High Commission. There we add Caroline, Cathy, and Lindsay (a male Lindsay) to our traveling troop, and they will be driving in Caroline’s massive Range Rover. At this point, Nancy and I are in the presence of near royalty. Jessica is the wife of a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter pilot who is serving as some kind of ambassador to Jamaica. Lucy is the wife of an American Ambassador who works at the embassy. Cathy is the wife of the British High Commissioner. And Caroline is the wife of a British Ambassador and, it should be added, is crazy. Not crazy like certifiably insane, but crazy like she wears pink tank tops and lime green high heels and lots of perfume to the jail because, she contends, the prisoners deserve some happiness and if that should come in looking at her, then so be it. Crazy like that. Nancy, Lindsay, and I are just common folk with no connections to politics or the military.

The two-hour drive to Duckenfield is just gorgeous, with postcard-perfect views around every turn. Upon arriving at the school in Duckenfield, we are immediately attacked by 70 tiny pairs of arms that want to be hugged and picked up and thrown in the air. Or rather, that just want to raid the ice cream that we’re trying to carry into the kitchen. We know this because they’re yelling “ICE CREAM! ICE CREAM!” and jumping at the frozen containers. We are in charge of feeding over 100 mouths, the majority of which belong to children between the ages of 3 and 6. It is a frenzy! We had counted on the children and teachers being there, but had not anticipated the 20 or so parents who appeared out of nowhere to “help,” aka - take advantage of the free food. Three hours and 300 pictures later, we are leaving Duckenfield and driving back to Kingston when we get into our second car accident of the day. This time we are coming around a sharp turn when we realize that there is a cliff and a pedestrian walking on the cliff on one side and a giant truck cutting the corner of the turn on the other side. Not wanting to hit the pedestrian or drive off the cliff, we instead opt to stay in our lane which is, apparently, the same lane in which the giant truck had opted to drive. As the truck cut the corner, the back of his truck hit the front right side of Jessica’s vehicle, leaving a dent to match that of the morning’s events. This time there is no O.E.W. There is, instead, an angry Rasta man and his two accomplices who are walking toward us and laughing as we explain that this could not possibly be our fault. Worse yet, while walking to the truck to get the driver’s non-existent insurance information, one of his accomplices tries hitting on me which, I told him, would not keep us from filing a police report.
“Bloody hogwash! What the bloody hell?! Oh, you poor things….” exclaims Caroline when we call her cell phone to tell her we have gotten in another accident. Jessica, who is usually quite a loquacious individual, is silent for the remainder of the ride home.

And Now For A “Touch” From Our Sponsors

Monday, 6:00 p.m. We’re all sitting down to a fabulous Mexican dinner (fabulous because it was my night to cook, of course) when Paola starts telling us of another of her hospital visits. She visits patients at Kingston Public Hospital and today she has had a “truly, truly, truly” amazing experience. As it turns out, Sr. Paola has a healing touch! The man she went to visit had a lot of pain in his stomach, and asked Paola to touch him while she prayed for him. She obliged and, as she prayed, the pain in the man’s stomach started to disappear and he was able to relax. But where, we wonder (and admittedly, we were wondering out loud) was Paola touching him??

New Meaning to Drinking & Driving

Wednesday, 12:30 p.m. Nancy and I chose to sleep in after getting home at 3 am (Jamaican company Christmas parties are NOTHING like corporate Christmas parties in the US). Anyway, all of the cars were gone so we had to take a route taxi to work, which would have been fine aside from the fact that our taxi driver, we soon discovered, was drinking a Guinness. And it’s not like he was drinking it right before he got into the car, but he was tipping that bottle back as he was driving through downtown. Is that legal here???

Love and Provocative Underpants

Friday, 10:00 a.m. We had a "Christmas treat" for the prisoners at Tamarin Farm today, so instead of the four of us that usually go, we were a group of about 12 instead. After a phenomenal rendition of the Little Drummer Boy and Silent Night, amidst other Christmas favorites, we served lunch and talked to the prisoners. Tamarin Farm is not a scary place, as most of the men there are foreigners who were just dumb enough to get caught trying to smuggle drugs out of Jamaica. Usually, they'll request items from us and we bring what we can. Today, however, one of the men slipped the following note into my hand and gave me a seductive wink. The note says: "A good day to you. First I must say my name is Rohan Taylor and I lick you OS MUCH. You are a very nice girl. Love you." Nancy was even more lucky....she didn't get a note but a bracelet from one of the inmates. We are such lucky girls! But oh, the fun didn’t end there! After leaving the jail we always stop at PriceSmart (basically a Jamaican Sam’s Club) to buy lunch and supplies. So today we stopped with a shopping list from one of the prisoners, Dane. The list included Q-Tips, shampoo, razors, and boxer shorts. So Jessica, Nancy, Sr. Paola and I are standing in the men’s clothing aisle looking at packages of underwear. The boxers are quite nice, but the packages cost more than $20 US, so I suggested getting briefs instead, which cost only about $7 US but are rather….shall we say: provocative. Jessica feared for Dane’s safety and thought buying him such risqué underwear would be sending the wrong message - particularly in a prison. During this conversation concerning provocative men’s underwear, it should be noted that Sr. Paola’s face never deviated from that of complete and utter horrification.

Christmas in CrazyVille

Friday 6:00 p.m. We have been invited to the Deanery 2 Christmas Celebration at St. Elizabeth’s and Nancy and I are pleased to go because it means we don’t have to eat turkey and cheese sandwiches for dinner. We are slightly concerned, however, because we are well aware that this will be a gathering for the Over-Fifty-And-Under-Religious-Vows crowd. Upon our arrival at 6:00, we learn that the party doesn’t actually start until 7:00, so we spend an hour talking to Stefaney, who has also arrived early, hanging decorations, and drinking Sr. Sophia’s coconut rum and pineapple juice concoction. Soon, the other guests start appearing: some other nuns, a deacon and his wife, a few priests, and our saving grace is that Fr. Burchell, who has shown up 2 hours late, has brought with him Tommy (our gorgeous men of the Caribbean calendar cover-boy.) We eat dinner and desert and then Fr. Peter announces that there will be a SingSong where everyone will sing Christmas songs native to their homeland. We hear from Tonga, Canada, Finland, Jamaica, India, and the US, and it is not soon after that we discover just how much Fr. Peter has had to drink, as he is doing the 12 Days of Christmas dance and thinks that he is 8 Maids A-Milking. Shortly after that, we are entertained by Fr. Burchell himself. Wearing a fair amount of tinsel around his neck and Nancy’s scarf tied to his head, he is singing a Jamaican song about a manger and suddenly Nancy is standing and she is supposed to be the Virgin Mary and she is holding above her head an alcohol shaker wrapped in a facecloth that Sr. Sophia has given her to symbolize the Baby Jesus. I wonder if that’s blasphemous? It is becoming increasingly clear that Christmas in Jamaica will be an altogether ridiculous experience….I can’t wait!

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Photos

En Route To Duckenfield
The view much of the way was absolutely gorgeous...picture perfect. The only drawback was that there was nowhere to actually stop to take pictures, hence the crooked photo.

Mmmmmmm....Ice Cream
Covered from head to toe in sticky ice cream, but he couldn't be happier.

Like a Lion in Zion
At the school in Duckenfield: a gorgeous Rasta with his little boy.

Where's All the Whiteys Come From?
I bet some of these kids had never seen white people before...we must have been a shock for them.

Crash & Burn
Both the left and the right side of Jessica's front bumper looked like this by the end of the day.

Tamarin Farm
Tamarin Farm is a jail where the inmates farm the land during the day. They're pretty much all there on drug charges, so they're not dangerous, and they help out because the food they farm is used to feed all the prisons in the Kingston area.

6 Geese A-Laying
Fr. Peter re-enacting the 12 Days of Christmas dance. We THINK he's trying to lay eggs here, but no one's quite sure.

Gypsy Burchell?
Fr. Burchell looking quite nice in Nancy's scarf, my necklace, and we think the silver tinsel really complements his eyes.

Blasphemous
Fr. Burchell, Fr. Peter, and Nancy sing about the Baby Jesus while Nancy rocks said "Baby Jesus," aka - the martini shaker.