Reflections on biology!

 I have often opined that if you dont learn something new each day, you are dead.

Guess I will live forever then, for am I sure learning a whole lot of  biology as I age.

That was a subject I hated at school and even now, I can still remember the image of that poor little frog in the lab with his heart pulsating, as he suffered from the long slit down the entire front of his little body.

 He had been dissected while still being alive.😭

I don't recall how old I was when I saw that, but remember clearly  vowing that I would never pursue that subject.

 No sah. Not me.

 As you age and different organs start deteriorating however, you have no choice but to learn as much as you can about how the body operates.

I had first heard the word arrhythmia about 40 years ago, when my doctor mentioned that I signs of it. After asking my educated brother (a doctor) about it, he mentioned that I would probably have to get a pacemaker when I got older.

From that day though, my heart never bothered me and I never thought about it until April 2025 when I blacked out and was rushed to an ER by four young, handsome  men from the fire department.  

The diagnosis was then Afib and SVT, all heart rhythm related problems. 

Now, before that, I thought your heart only raced when you saw a sexy man and had dreams of a wonderful liaison, but thats not how it works with old people.

Since asking questions of the cardiologist, his nurse and google, I  have learned everything there is to know about the heart, its chambers and how they all interact in that crowded space.

And no, thankfully I don't need a pacemaker as science has progressed wonderfully. Instead they will be doing a minor procedure called an ablation to get my rhythms back in sync.

The good news though is that despite hating biology and a skipping every class when I was young, I am now an expert in how the darn heart works.👍

Wonder which internal organ I will be studying next?

These lessons come naturally with old age, so there is no need to crowd your brain when u are young by studying them and experimenting on poor, harmless, little creatures 😊.

Hilo, Hawaii

 Hilo is the fourth largest settlement in Hawaii, with a population of 44,186. It has two well-known volcanos, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. 

The latter is active and I was looking forward to at least seeing where it was. 

I have heard a lot about the October surprise during the election period, but mine was terrible.😭.

For we stopped at Hilo on our family cruise in October 2024, but I could not go ashore as a unknown disease I had contracted in the last two years, struck.

I think it's either long COVID or effects from the damn COVID vaccine. It started about eighteen months and I have been to just about every doctor, urgent care, plus an emergency room, and they can't find a thing wrong with me.

It messes me up just about every two months or so and the symptoms include, dizziness, cold sweat. shortness of breath. 

The thing is, if I lie down for about two hours, it just goes away by itself so I have learned to live with it and stop wasting my time seeking medical assistance!

This disease has however always been considerate in that it has never bothered me when traveling.

Until we arrived at Hilo!

Then it struck just before breaksfast.

As the tour we arranged to go on started at 10 am, I had to go back to bed and miss that sightseeing tour.

Anyway, Michelle was good enough to take these pics and share them with me.

No pics of volcanos, but it looks pleasant enough.

Obeah

 Have I been living under a rock?

I had been under the impression that the more educated and enlightened people become, the less they are influenced by things such as obeah, guard rings and even some conspiracy theories. 

Clearly however I have been totally wrong.

For belatedly, as I follow American News, it is obvious that belief in dimwitted conspiracy theories are on the rise. 

In Jamaica, there are far more stories now about obeah related matters. 

You know, I have never gotten the impression that Obeah men/women were particularly wealthy, but I guess they must be very smart at hiding their fortunes. 

Or is it they are waiting patiently for their time to come?

I smile as I recall how many decades ago, as I was taking a taxi from the airport into Port of Prince, the capital city of Haiti, when during the journey, the driver enquired if I wished to visit a voodoo priest. I asked him why I should, and his immediate reply was. " So you can get rich."  When I asked him how come he wasn't rich, he explained patiently that his time hadn't yet come. 😂

Anyway, this resurgence of Obeah in Jamaica is no laughing matter and in fact it is really concerning.

Look at this news carried by Radio Jamaica on the 26th April 2022, under the banner headline;.

Medical staff at CRH halt work after being threatened by armed thugs

The story began; "Doctors and nurses at Cornwall Regional Hospital in St. James have stopped working after armed thugs this morning entered the institution and threatened them while trying to secure the release of a male patient who is said to be a don. Radio Jamaica News was informed that the gunmen demanded that the man be released into their custody but the medical staff resisted after stating that the patient was too ill and needed treatment. The men reportedly drew guns and threatened the hospital staff."

The report further stated; "Assistant Commissioner Clifford Chambers, head of the Area One Police, confirmed that there was a confrontation between doctors and persons who took the sick man for medical treatment. The information so far, which we're trying to confirm - let me make it clear - is that the persons who took that male there to be treated are of the view that is condition was not medical in the main but that he needs to go to a "obeah man" who can better help him," the policeman revealed. 

 

He said reports indicate that the doctors insisted the man needed proper medical treatment and this led to the confrontation. "

This incident follows closely on a report that a young school boy was killed over a "guard ring" last month and the exposure of the church run by Kevin Smith, where human sacrifices and obeah practices were taking place. 

Clearly therefore, instead of many young people realizing that obeah cannot affect them negatively or positively, they seem to be going in the opposite direction.

I wonder what they would have done if they got an anonymous letter in the post, containing a single brand-new razor blade with a long strand of hair wrapped around it, as I did some years ago? (Incidentally, as the razor blade was brand new, I put it into my own razor and shaved my legs😁)

Seriously though, I really don't know what next to expect in my beleaguered country.

 Obeah - YouTube

Jamaica an English-speaking country?

Every time I hear someone say Jamaica is an English-speaking country, I have a good laugh.  Not only because the last survey (2007) done on the topic showed that less than 18% of  us speak it, but because of the hilarious experiences I know about.

The first was when relatives from Nicaragua, Bluefields to be exact, sent their children here to learn English.

For the benefit of those who don’t know of our close connection to that part of the world, let me explain our links.

As you probably know, in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, thousands of Caribbean people including Jamaicans, went to Panama to seek work on the canal project. That was a dangerous project and thousands died, but when it was completed in 1914, some persons returned home. However, many others decided to seek opportunities in the region and those who did not remain in Panama, moved up to Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and even over to the San Andres Island among other places.

Interestingly, it was the Jamaicans who named an area on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua where they settled, Bluefileds, after our own Bluefields in Westmorland.

This is where some of my relatives settled and it was some grandchildren of one of my cousins there, who were sent to Jamaica to learn English. They went to live in Clarendon with another relative who operated a bakery there. While there, they attended elementary school nearby.

Well, that project failed badly, so after a few weeks the parents had to come and retrieve their children, for not only did they not learn a word of English, but also every second word out of the mouth of the babes was a bad word.

I heard an even more amusing story from a young lady I met in Florida where she was studying psychology. She told me she was born in East Asia, Myanmar to be exact and her parents who were doctors, wanted herself and her young brother to learn English. They found on the internet, this beautiful island in the Caribbean where it was revealed that English was spoken. Excitedly, they wrote to the government to enquire if there was any demand for doctors and were quickly recruited.

When they arrived here, they were posted to a quite large, supposedly progressive district in St. Thomas, where, she then nine, and her brother then seven, were enrolled into a local elementary school.

She enjoyed her time there and better yet, how quickly she was becoming proficient at  ‘English!’

Three years later, she was sent to a prestigious high school in Kingston and from the first day, every time she opened her mouth to speak, her colleagues in class laughed uproariously!

At first, she couldn’t understand why, then someone drew her aside to tell her she was speaking patois they were not allowed to do so in class!

Long story short, she eventually learnt English there and was happy to report that she is now tri-lingual, speaking her native language, patois and English!

I don’t how common it is for foreigners to move here to learn English only to learn that we are not really an English-speaking Country. Unfortunately, the problem does not only lie with school kids and some parents but teachers as well. For how well I remember how often I had to go in to see the English Teacher at a Spanish Town high school when I lived there, because she was marking things wrong in my children’s English homework book, when they were right!

I love patois to the point where I now have a you tube channel teaching whoever wishes, to speak Jamaican patois. I, however, love learning other languages for I totally agree with the Canadian, Yama Mubtaker, that “If people had the right skills and intention to communicate well, there would be no conflict. The better we are at communicating, the better our lives will be.”

You know, we have many young ambitious Jamaicans all over the globe teaching English. By not ensuring that all our own citizens master this international language, we are really stymieing their progress in the midst of the myriad of opportunities worldwide in so many different areas.

Why don’t we use some of these specially trained young people  who are teaching foreigners all over the globe, to teach English in those sections of Jamaica where people’s progress is being impeded because of their inability to communicate in this important international language?

Let’s start living in the real world instead of the land of make believe.

English speaking indeed!

 

https://youtu.be/EG_UIhU0uac

(268) JAMAICAN PATWAH - YouTube

 

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The Poor in Cuba versus the Poor in Jamaica, Haiti etc.

I could never live in a communist country as I value my freedoms too much. However, after visiting my family in Cuba over the Easter holidays and seeing in general how the Cubans live, I am convinced that the poor there have much better living conditions than the poor in either Jamaica or Haiti.

My little cousin Brian

To begin with, there is no vulgar gap between the rich and the poor there as most people are poor but most importantly, they are not starving and their health needs are looked after.

My cousin there lost her home in 1963 to hurricane Flora and was given a two bedroom flat in a two storey building and she has never had to pay a cent for living there. Granted because they do not own it, they do not paint it or look after it but it is solid and comfortable.

Further she has all the lifestyle diseases that most of us get with old age, eg. diabetes etc and she gets total free health care and pays very little for medication. In addition, she gets a extra half liter of milk every other day to ensure that she is getting good nutrition.

 In Cuba too, education up to university level is free and the only thing the parents have to pay is the a small fee for the uniforms. Granted a doctor only starts at about Can $30 per month when he graduates, but at least he has a great education and therefore possibly a good future because he is educated.

In Jamaica and Haiti if you are sick and poor, by the time you get medical attention you are dead after living a life of constant pain and no one cares whether you starve or not and getting medical attention or even the simplest operation is as hard as winning the lottery.

Yes there are beggars in Cuba but few and far between and in the general, the people look far healthier than our poor do. Yes wages are low but basics including transportation and food is subsidized so people eat well.

Cuban adults and teens are very responsible too as you do not see them walking around with a string of uncared for children as you see here and in most Latin American countries. While the government does not restrict the number of children people can have, they offer free contraceptives and abortion and because the people recognise that they do not have much, they do not breed indiscriminately but have only one child or two at the most two and because they do not have  a slew of kids stressing them out, they really cherish them.

I was felt so warm all over as I watched the parents drop off kids at a kindergarten near us and the fathers hugged and kissed their kids, even the boys as they watched until they were safely in the school yard. Of course they dropped them off on bicycles or walked, but they were there for them  all the way and you could feel the love and see how much they cherished their kids.

Yes poverty is all over the country there as it is here and in Haiti but at least in Cuba, poverty is not a sentence to perpetual suffering and I suspect, that having grown up not knowing what freedom is, when they migrate it is for the same reason that out people migrate and that is to try and get by better, economically.