Gun ownership

 Hmm. Interesting statistics.

And Jamaica was on the same trajectory as Honduras!

Religion and crime

I hate upsetting my christian friends, but many years ago, I developed a theory that wherever you see an over-abundance of churches, it's a sign that there is also an overabundance of wicked people there!

And most are described as the 'good' church-going folk.😊

After living for over half century in the land of my birth, Jamaica, where people have told me many times, that the Guinness Book of World Records, singles us out as having more churches per square mile than any other country on the planet, it wasn’t difficult to find evidence that this is so.

Since that theory is always at the back of my mind,  I remember with great amusement, how on visiting Sicily, the home of the bloody mafia, on seeing the numerous church steeples around, I immediately started to count.

Covering around three blocks as we walked there, and counting as we went along, after recording around twenty five huge structures, I decided that I had better things to do with my time. This was so in contrast with Switzerland (from where we were traveling) with  it's low crime rate  and almost non- existent churches!

My theory  came flooding back as I recently visited Charleston S. Carolina, where just around everywhere you turn, you see  huge church steeples hovering over the city.

I  subsequently learned, that because there are over 400 places of worship of different denominations throughout that city, it was once dubbed "The Holy City.” 

Even the powerful  Southern Baptist Convention, (then considered "an institution of heaven" ) which is the basis of so much of Donald Trump’s religious support today,  had its genesis in Charleston during the 19th century.

 Of interest too, is the fact that the most most ostentatious church buildings date back to the 16th and 17th centuries, when slavery and brutality towards Africans was at its peak!

In 1816, free blacks and slaves, realizing that there was no regard for them in white churches, established the African Methodist Episcopal Church under the leadership of a pastor named Morris Brown.

Naturally, this was objected to by the good white folk and Brown and other ministers of the church were jailed for violating laws that prohibited slaves and free blacks from gathering without white supervision.

 In 1822, the church was burned to the ground, and the authorities, claiming a slave revolt was being planned there, arrested 313 members of the congregation and executed 35.

In 1834, all black churches were banned by the authorities.

Undeterred, members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church continued to meet in secret until the end of the Civil War in 1865, when they formally reorganized. 

 They adopted the name ‘Emanuel,’ meaning “God with us.”

At that time, the church was a wooden structure. 

This is it today.

Interestingly, it is situated on Calhoun Street, a street named after the notorious John Calhoun (1782-1850), who violently opposed the abolition of slavery and who  black Carolinians refer to as Killhoun, up to today.

It was at this church  that in June 2015, a white supremacist killed nine people including the senior pastor and a South Carolina State Senator, during a prayer service.

At the funeral on June 26, 2015, President Barack Obama gave the eulogy for the pastor who was killed in the attack and after a moving tribute, sang "Amazing Grace."

Today, that area is renamed " Mother Emanuel Memorial District " and a plaque 

has been erected on the church with the names of all who were killed and declaring their forgiveness of the murderer.

Yup, with a few exceptions, Charleston definitely confirms the theory about religion and crime.

At least in my mind.😊

 

Finding Marlis

I suppose you suspect that I got the title from finding Nemo and the answer is yes, but that is where  the similarity ends.

Marlis is a wonderful Swiss woman who along with her husband spent many years as a volunteer family hosting teenagers registered in an international exchange program from countries as far removed as the United States to Zimbabwe  Thailand, south Africa and of course Jamaica

Although we had only visited Switzerland once and very briefly too, my young daughter had been overwhelmed by the beauty of the country and when she got an opportunity to go on the one year high school exchange program ( a few decades ago) Switzerland was her first choice. That was how she met Marlis who became more than a mother to her, not only in looking after her welfare for a year, but teaching her great things including (horror of horrors) jumping out of a plane in the sport of sky diving.

Among Marlis' other  interesting attributes too was her hobby, training dogs to rescue injured people and take them to safety.

For decades therefore I have heard about Marlis and what a wonderful person she is, so when we recently decided do go to Europe for a vacation,  visiting Marlis became a must and it turned out to be a great decision.

To get to Solothurn  from Venice  we took a train to Milan, then Milan to Zurich then another to the final destination.

Actually, I have never traveled by train in Europe before and believe me it is a wonderful experience which I hope to repeat time and time again, due to the sheer efficiency of the integrated system. Also, the landscape was absolutely breathtaking in parts, what with the numerous well kept vineyards and mountains from Venice to Milan.

 However, I now wonder if it is possible to travel through Italy without some mafia influenced person trying to take advantage of you.

We had an interesting experience as we were about to board the train from Milan to Zurich. As I tried to put my quite bag on the train, a huge man (built like  a bouncer) assisted me to lift it. I was a bit impressed by his "gentlemanlyness" but became overwhelmed when not only did he lift it in but took it down the corridor and stowed it in the luggage section. Then although he did not have on uniform, he did the same for the other  two members of my party! It was only when he finished that the real motive became clear, for m,y son in law, thinking he was being generous, offered him a 3 euro tip, only to be menacingly told, he wanted 5!
Quite a shakedown.

Anyway, once started the journey to Zurich the incident was quickly forgotten as we started travelling through a series of pristine valleys that were absolutely to die for. It was as if we were forever accompanied by huge, calm blue lakes dotted with the sails of fun lovers on both sides of the rail and overpowered by the unending range of  variegated mountains of different  shades and sizes.  It left me concluding that it is probably the sheer beauty of the Swiss landscape plus of course the famous Alps, which accounts for that country being  such a  popular tourism mecca, for from my perspective, it couldn't be the weather!

At Solothurn there was Marlis patiently waiting to take us to her small colorful hamlet (population 300) nearby where tastefully laid out agricultural fields with potatoes, sunflowers and vegetables beside the green pine treed mini forests, gives the place the look of a photograph that had been that had been photoshopped!

A homely gem

Not only is the area beautiful, but it is very central, only half hour from Bern (capital of Switzerland) and one could even see Matterhorn (in the Alps) clearly from there.

The hotel that she booked us at too was a homely 138 year old gem which had once been a farmhouse. The only possible drawback there was that it was right across the road  from a church whose bell tolled from 8.45 to 9 am on a Sunday morning but then I have very little sympathy for people who like to lie around in bed!

The church across the street

What was interesting though is that although the bell tolled forever, the church remained closed (the Sunday we were there) for the Swiss, we were told, tend not be very religious people,which is probably why they are so peaceful, giving the country such a low crime rate! (Incidentally, the largest church in Switzerland was built in 1893 and is still  in operation in Bern but more as a tourist attraction than a place of worship.)  It is interesting  also that although Switzerland has had both internal and external peace for years, they take no chances and since 1990 it was legislated that every house built must have a bunker!

Although the weather had deteriorated quite a bit since we got there, the next day Marlis and her friend Rene were early to take us on a tour of Bern (established in the 1700's) which is not only absolutely beautiful with its historic buildings but it is modern and orderly as well, to the point that from the main road, you can tell if the underground parking lots have space without having to bother to enter, as the flashing board outside has all the information you could need. (Boy don't they think of everything?)

Yup, Marlis turned out to be everything my daughter had been telling me for years thus meeting her brought a wonderful European tour to a magnificent and memorable end.

Also, after visiting  Solothurn, Bern and Zurich this trip,  I am reminded that Switzerland is still a charming place to visit,  although socially, women seem to be still under the thumb of the men, for can you believe that up to 2014 there is still no law to guarantee equal pay for men and women who do the same job?. But then, I said the place is charming, not paradise on earth!
                       

                                           Memories.... A pictorial memorial of old Bern

The steepest railway line in Europe is in Bern

Old Bern with is cobble stoned streets

View of a section of Bern from the parliament building

JOAN WILLIAMS, moderator of Joan Williams on Line  broadcast on POWER 106, describes herself as an unapologetic addict to the Jamaican outdoors. A foundation member of FUN AND THRILLS ADVENTURE CLUB, she explores the island at any given opportunity cycling, hiking or swimming with that group, family, Jah 3 and anyone else who will have her. In 1995, she published the popular TOUR JAMAICA and the 4^th edition is now an ebook available at;

http://www.amazon.com/Tour-Jamaica-Joan-Williams-ebook/dp/B00EJWCSHS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389464644&sr=8-1&keywords=tour+jamaica+by+joan+williams

Contact; gratestj@gmail.com

Ps. Jasper died in September 2014. Walk good my friend. It was great knowing you.

Cruising , the way to go

I think I became addicting to cruises when I went on the first one with my parents when I was 14. In those days I found the huge ship awesome but each year as competition steps up, the cruise industry is growing by huge degrees of awesomeness, with the beneficiaries being those of us who love to travel.

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This latest cruise was my first taste of Disney and it was really great although I must admit if I was a kid it would have been out of the world.

What I enjoyed most was the really great choice of destinations because for me to have gone to Sicily, the French Riviera, Naples, Pompeii, Rome, Venice in one swell swoop is just impossible to beat. And the excellent tour organisations attached to Disney were so efficient and the guides so knowledgeable,  that one was able to gain a great deal of information and see everything that one wanted to at these wonderful destinations.

One important lesson I learnt from this trip (the cruise people did not mention it at all) and I hope I will not forget the next time I go to Europe and that is, in Europe not only is the US$ not king, (as expected) but no one wants to accept it! So wherever we went we had to change cash into Euros to do any business and in Switzerland, we had to change to Swiss francs. (I had a similar experience in Cuba too as there no one wanted it or the Canadian $ either so you had to go to a cambio to change cash into pesos.) 

As I see it therefore, whenever one is not using a credit card in Europe, it is easier to just  travel with a debit card, go to a ATM machine and collect the withdrawal in the relevant currency for each day the ATM's change their rate in keeping with international standards.Anyway, back to destinations, we had quite a scare on the way to Pisa as the front tyre of the bus we were driving in suddenly burst as we were crossing a bridge. The horrendous blast scared the daylights out of not only the passengers, most of whom had been sleeping and had a rude awakening, but also the driver as well. He was however deft in  bringing the bus safely to the side of the road and as we were only 15 minutes away from Pisa we did not have to wait too long to get a replacement bus.

Actually, there is so much to say and remember about the various places we visited that I swear I have to get around to doing a separate blog for each one soon.

What was especially heartening about this cruise too was the number of Jamaicans who were working on the Disney Magic. I never knew before that  there was an actual recruiting centre in Ocho Rios so it was not unexpected that the majority of the workers came from the St. Ann/St. Mary area, although I did meet a few from Kingston  and elsewhere.Even the head waiter assigned to us was from Jamaica and boy did he make it specially great for  us by arranging jerk chicken, stew peas and rice, oxtail etc to be served to us in addition to the other delicious choices at dinner.

Heartening too was the wide selection of reggae music played in the "fun area"on the 9 th floor (Lido deck) almost every day.

It was clear that whoever the DJ was, his favourite singers were Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley but he did not stick on them too much to make it boring for our music going as far back as Harry Belafonte was played at some point.

As I said earlier, if I were a kid the cruise would have been out of this world, and that is of course because the entertainment was geared towards kids so some nights it left me a bit bored.

 However the Disney ensemble outdid itself on two nights with performances fitting of Broadway. In fact, I had the pleasure of meeting the lead singer from one of the performances, a beautiful African american young lady named Christine from Michigan, with a voice range equaling Whitney Houston's and she assured me that is where she was headed but was just enjoying travelling for a while.

Yup a Disney cruise is definitely more than worth the money for family travel

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JOAN WILLIAMS, moderator of Joan Williams on Line broadcast on POWER 106, describes herself as an unapologetic addict to the Jamaican outdoors. A foundation member of FUN AND THRILLS ADVENTURE CLUB, she explores the island at any given opportunity cycling, hiking or swimming with that group, family, Jah 3 and anyone else who will have her. In 1995, she published the popular TOUR JAMAICA and the 4^th edition is now an ebook available at;

http://www.amazon.com/Tour-Jamaica-Joan-Williams-ebook/dp/B00EJWCSHS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389464644&sr=8-1&keywords=tou