It has affected us all!

We Jamaicans are scattered throughout the world. Two things remain true about us though.

 Firstly, no matter how far away from home we migrate to, most of of hang on for dear life to our Jamaican roots. 

Secondly, many of us either received a devastating blow from the most vicious hurricane to crash into the Caribbean, destroying much of the south west section of our beautiful island home, or have friends/family who were.

 That was hurricane Melissa which struck on October 28 2025. (https://joan-myviews.blogspot.com/2025/11/i-weep-for-black-rivervictims.html?m=1)

In our family, those who received the worst blow were my 91 year old cousin Nellie a retired teacher, and her 92 year old husband.

Third from right, 91 year old Nellie, beside her is 92 year old husband EV, and beside him my cousin Dor, who keeps the family fire burning on the island👍.


When our African ancestors were freed from slavery in 1834, most had no education.

For you see, the devout Christians who had enslaved them for centuries after kidnapping and bringing them across the Atlantic, had deliberately kept them in ignorance.

Fortunately, there was a handful of Christians who did not subscribe to the religious dogma, that Africans were not human.

Among them was a religious sect called Moravian.

Recognizing that the newly freed slaves needed to be educated, in 1861 they established a teacher training College for women, named Bethlehem, in Malvern, the rural district in which I was born.

Although my great grandmother had no formal training, she had become a teacher.
However her daughter, my grandma, who got the opportunity for higher education,  attended Bethlehem teacher training College as did many other female members of my father's family.

 In fact, I recall with some embarrassment how when I was horrified that my daughter wanted to become a teacher after I had spent so much money sending her to college, she reminded me that the family has a tradition of teaching and it had nothing to do with money!🫢🫣.

As usual, she was right.

I even traveled to nearby Cuba some years later, to meet many cousins who were born there, as a grand aunt had migrated to that neighboring island to teach English.

So yes, Nellie proudly carried on the family tradition for decades before retiring to Brighton near the St. Elizabeth /Westmorland border. This district is some 35 miles from Black River, the epicenter of that miserable hurricane.

At age 91, she and her 92 year old husband

spent many terrifying hours in the night of October 28, trying to stay safe and dry, as the hurricane peeled the roof of their home piece by piece.

Fortunately they were eventually rescued by kind neighbors. 

This is what is left of their home today.😭.

It took Dor (who lives in the city and fortunately was unaffected by the monster), weeks to locate them, and even now, three weeks later, the area still has no electricity or Internet and only spotty cel service. 

I guess many will say they escaped with their lives so they should be grateful.

But how do you really rise and rebuild again after 90?

Many Jamaicans are in similar situation, but when you have your youth, it's a natural advantage, psychically and psychologically.

A section of Bethlehem Moravian College.

Update 31st December 2025.

Although it appeared incredulous that my 90 plus year old relatives would be building new accommodation, they sure are!!

Hope they will feel much safer here. 🙏

Many fun experiencess 👍

Sri Lanka is quite a well developed/progressive country which appears to be  doing very good now, after the economic/political upheaval in 2022.

Damith took me to visit what he calls the "bush" where he grew up. 

Having been born in real "bush" in Malvern, St Elizabeth, Jamaica, where we only had 2 shops, one gas pump a police station and a post office, I was shocked at what he called a bush in Sri Lanka 😂.

From information gleaned since my visit, while the country has no precious minerals, it has developed vibrant manufacturing, tourism, export and agricultural industries.

It is well suited for agriculture as it is so huge and has more than enough rainfall, rivers etc. It exports tea, rubber, foods, spices, palm oil and of course does large-scale rice production/processing. 

That is well-needed here as according to Professor Damith, most Sri Lankans eat rice for breakfast, dinner and supper.🫢.

To get to the 'bush,' we took a long- distance bus from Colombo to the huge town of Matugama, overnighted at the Diya Ulpatha Tea Garden resort and moved around on tuk tuk or bike. (Damith owns his own bike and leaves it in Matugama with a friend. (Gama means town in Sinhalese, so whenever you see a name ending in that, it's self descriptive.)

His so-called 'bush' areas also fall between the villages of Welipenia and Ittapana.

We stayed overnight at the small, nice, rustic hotel in Mahgama and could see sections of the UNESCO recognized Sinharaja Forest Reserve
from our hotel room.

Below are pics of our little hotel and it's grounds.

Just posing. Haven't ridden a bike for almost 40 years😊.

I first met Damith and Sharlene decades ago in Jamaica when we were all members of the Fun and Thrills Adventure Club. We toured my country extensively, hiking, cycling and swimming in every river we saw. So I knew him to be a strong cyclist, but he surprised me by being a competent motorcycle rider as well!

So in the 'bush', he would tow Sharlene and I separately, leave the first towee

 at a central spot, then return to pick up the other.

On other occasions, he and Sharlene would travel in front on their bike while I would follow behind in a royal carriage aka tuk tuk😊.

Among the places he took us was the Welipenia River. It separates the Western Province of Sri Lanka from the Southern and is is supposedly crocodile infested. 

Damith says his father gave him a bitch-beating for swimming in it.😂

In the olden days, people crossed in small row boats but modern technology has taken over. 

Local people now use a manually pulled rope ferry to traverse it. 

The cost to take a bike or tuk tuk across is a mere 11 cent US and it runs regularly.🫢.

Wonderful memories in pictures.

'Ferry' carrying people and their transportation across the Welipenia River.

This is the famous Ceylon tea.  The young leaves at the top are reaped weekly. It is a major, cherished sector in Sri Lankan export industry.

While Damith and Sharlene rode around on their bike, I often followed behind in this tuk tuk "carriage". The owner says this one is a jaguar😊.

Inside the 'jaguar'.

We were introduced to many childhood friends in his home town.

Anjani is a professional Dancer. She dances in the Buddhist temple as well as with her university group. Her mom (in the back in above picture) also danced at the Buddhist temple in her youth.

I sometimes followed Damit in a tuk tuk while he and Sharlene rode around on the bike in front of us.

Damith's childhood friend Ajanta, brought me from the bus stop in Matugama to the hotel on his bike.

He is a kind of eccentric and an electronics genius. For example I saw satellite dishes on his neighbor's houses but he built the antenna below from beer cans and it appears to work well.😊.

Ajanta's antenna made from beer cans. It seems to work well.

This symbol has been vilified because Hitler adopted it. However it has been used for centuries by ancient cultures like the Etruscans. Adjanta, a dedicated Buddhist, has one over his front door.

The pyramid contraption that Adjanta 

built. He meditates inside it for hours and says it's so hot that if you put coconut milk inside it for 24 hours, it turns to oil! Don't know if that is really possible, but suh mi get it so mi gi it!😊

Section of the so-called 'bush' town of Matugama, near our bus stop.

Sharlene and Damit on their bike.

Damit visits his friend Anusha at her store in his village. 

I still can't get over how well maintained the roads and drainage are all over Sri Lanka, for during monsoon season, it rains on and off every day. In my country, it doesn't rain half as much but they can't keep up with road maintenance. Something stinks😡.

( I have only seen one potholed-filled road so far after travelling hundreds of miles both in towns and off the main roads. That made me feel at home, but in a bad way.)

I must say, May 20th 2025 was a fantastic day, only surpassed by my surprise birthday celebration that night. 

(https://joan-myviews.blogspot.com/2025/05/my-birthday-sri-lankan-style.html)

For old time sake

 It's wonderful to reunite with old friends. Actually, I have been in constant touch with Phil. I just haven't seen her much.

In fact, she may very well be the person who I have known the longest, (family excepted), as I think we first met in Infant school when I was around age 4!

I don't really see many people from the cool hills of Malvern in St. Elizabeth, as most of us have migrated to various corners of the world.

My brother and I with our friend Phil

Phil and Bernie 

But Phil has remained in Jamaica and has established herself as one of our most respected and talented artists.

She gave my brother this lovely piece she painted.

And I discovered that she has a green thumb too!

Definitely a green thumb😊.

My brother and I

Phil gave me these two lovely abstracts.

Yup, getting together with old friends is really special.

Mitzie saved the day/Cousin Delroy.

 The greatest fishermen will tell you that often, they go and spend hours at sea and come home without any fish.

Well that didn't happen to the big fisherwoman, Mitzie, but the rest of us returned empty handed.

Her's was a Silver Snapper 

Oh yea, I got a bite and was bringing in a little one, but alas just feet from the boat, it jumped off and took off like Bolt.

And Bernie got a bite too but his fish did not tarry long at all.

Regardless, we had a wonderful day meandering along on the long, impressive Black River, with its beautiful scenery and serenity.

Quite a big croc

We never saw many large Crocs this time, but a few babies were in the hatchery.

And did you know that the 26,000 acre Black River Morass had natural gas? I certainly didn't but when we saw the smoke, the fisherman explained that on hot days, the sun ignites sections of the morass that are shallow and dry. 

Successive governments have decided not to exploit this reserve though, as it's too important as an environmental resource.

I agree totally.

 As I always say, if I don't learn something every day, it means I am dead. And I ain't, as I am enjoying life.😀 

The only slight disappointment on this trip was that we had heard about this restaurant called Miss Lou which was famous for its delicious curried crab. It's in a district called Slipe. We heard the road to get there is terrible, but we didn't have to drive to get there, as it's right on the river!

In case you never heard though, sections of Jamaica were badly damaged by the terrible hurricane Beryl about 3 weeks ago. 

And while where we are escaped,  almost the  entire island seems to have lost electricity and it is being restored very slowly. So many small businesses people are having serious financial challenges.

Well Slipe still has no electricity so Miss Lou cannot cook her crabs.

Really hard on her.

Slipe bridge

Miss Lou's crab place.

PS. ( August 26, 2025.)  As we had in St. Elizabeth, we took a quick trip to Munro to visit our cousin Colonel Delroy Ormsby who had managed the Silver Sands properties for decades.

We had been unable to get him by phone for weeks so journeyed to his farm where he lived after retirement from Silver Sands.

Glad we did, for although he looked well, hardly had we returned home to the US before we got a message that he died.

Today, 08/26/2025, which incidentally was the birthday of my late mom Madeline Marshall, is the 1st anniversary of his death and I was happy to get pictures and videos from his widow Blossom, of his funeral and memories. I am storing them right here!

His daughter's wedding 

A painting given to him by his squad in the Jamaican defense force.

The late Delroy's son Simon and granddaughter Raquel.

My late dear cousin Delroy's memories.🥲

Below are other fishing memories🙂.

The would-be fishermen below.

 😁

What a beautiful, serene environment!

Captain Kai

Not even this almost empty cooler can spoil these memories.😁