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Published: March 21st 2023
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Finely Dressed
Birthday girl’s 3rd birthday party out dancing. So many parties for this birthday girl. We'd already been out one night in Miami, and one night in Ocho Rios. Now it was our third night going out to find dinner, find music, and dance.
Pretty sure we started with a nap 😂😂😂. That's how every day was going on this trip, and man did we need it. Our lives back home are so busy these days, and even on vacation we're running around like we're on fire. It would be nice to get an actual break on our "break", but that's how it goes sometimes. We did our best.
Now is good time to mention that I was drinking marijuana. DRINKING, not smoking. This is because I feel that smoke has caused me too many problems--with my cardio and with my sinuses--and I want to give it a break. While ganja is now completely legal in Jamaica, and seems like it should have been all along, that doesn't mean anyone is obligated to smoke it. If all the other kids jumped off a bridge, would you jump too? I hope not.
What I did several times on this trip was to steep some flower in my
tea. I was using cinnamon tea bags (Jamaican stores have a wide-ranging selection of herbal teas) and ginger extract. The result was a cinnamon-ginger hot tea with cannabis. It tasted great, soothed all my insides, and went slowly to my head with happy feelings. Where the ganja flower came from, I don't remember. People were literally putting it in my hands as a gift out here. As I'd learned more than a decade ago hanging around Jamaicans in Seattle, this was a Jamaican custom: to give the Rastaman some herb as an offering. Even with my locks shaved off, my pale skin, and all my tattoos, many people in Jamaica still recognized me as a Rasta and treated me as such. The same thing happened to me the first time I visited Kenya. I don't know how to explain this, but there is a spiritual vibe that the King has put on certain people, which ones who are aware will recognize. Rasta is not just black skin and dreadlocks and people shouldn't get confused.
I brought a suit along on the trip that I thought I'd wear out on Chelly's birthday night, but since that had come and gone
I decided to wear it tonight. Chelly had OUTFITS. Outfits for days. So, after trying several of them on, she picked a winner for the night and we headed out.
Our host at the Mystic Ridge Resort let us know that there was something called a "round robin" going on in town, which would feature a DJ and chef's serving Jamaican food. It was some kind of a street party. We went first to check that out and picked up some good Jamaican food there on the street near the clock tower at the center of town. We were totally overdressed for this party, so we took the food to go.
We'd had a hot tip that tonight would feature live bands at Mongoose, but since we went there the night before, we tried our best to avoid repeating. We actually drove all the way out into the hills looking for a Reggae DJ party that I'd heard about in a place called Gordon Town. But... do to my not understanding that there was another Gordon Town in Kingston, and my contact not understanding that there was another Gordon Town in Ocho Rios, it turned out we were on the wrong side of the island for this party.
We went to the Mongoose parking lot, but there were no bands playing. Sitting in the car, we finished our food and Googled parties in Ocho Rios. With a couple more options in our sights, we headed out again, driving up and down the main strip investigating these leads. None of them were valid. Turns out a lot of the standby events that used to happen at the local resort bars and restaurants had shutdown in the recent years since COVID.
And that's how we found ourselves at Mongoose, again. This time the bands were ready to play and it was great. It was actually just one house band that played for the whole night, but with a revolving lineup of different singers. They sang a mix of cover songs and originals, so we got to enjoy some of our reggae favorites and hear some upcoming talent.
I was one of the only people dancing, but I was dancing the whole night. People were staring at me. That happens, especially when you stick out like a sore thumb by having a different skin color than the rest and dressing up cool too. I made friends with an older Jamaican Rastaman who taught me some dance moves and later challenged me to a dance to 'prove' if I'd retained the lesson. Turns out he was the fire dancer who'd performed at the beginning of the night, while we were out getting lost looking for a different party.
When the bands were done, the DJ took over with some classic dancehall and we saw all the old folks get up and bust it. It was funny how many people kept in their seats while the bands were playing, but got up to dance for the Dj sounds, but I guess that's the same thing that happened with jazz and the blues. One decades wild dance craze slowly becomes a sit-down dinner show or a museum exhibit.
It was funny how contemporary, and even new, all that classic dancehall stuff from the 80s and 90s feels to me still, but it's actually really old by this time. It was evident by the age of all the folks dancing to the DJ tunes: they were in their 50s and 60s. These must have been the tunes from their school days and early adulthood. My wife likes to make fun of me for having the musical taste--and political opinions--of an old, Jamaican man, but yeah, it's a thing.
That's about all I remember for this night.
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