As much as I
love the convenience of living in the USA, nothing can equal my annual visit to my homeland, Jamaica.
To begin
with, I always try to coordinate these visits with mango season, especially
when East Indian mangoes are coming in, as that is my top favorite. Boy, did I
ever get a whole heap this year. I was tempted to smuggle some in but luckily,
I didn’t as I traveled through Miami airport and they dug up my luggage on my
return.
Ass holes.
This year was extra special though, since it was the first time in years that my visit coincided with that of my daughter and granddaughter. Naturally my brother and sister-in-law were already there, so we all stayed with them at their home in Silver Sands most of the time.
We had a wonderful
time using Trelawny as our base. As usual going fishing was on the top of
our list of activities and for the first time in my life, I caught a fish that was probably close to a pound! We didn’t
stray much from Silver Sands, as it has the best beach in the island, in my
book. Before the
younger ones arrived, my brother, sister in law and I journeyed over to the center of the island to the world famous
mineral spa at Milk River, as some of us not so young ones were
having some aches and pains.
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| Milk River spa |
We didn’t know it before we drove there, but it
had just reopened after having been flooded a few days earlier when the country
was inundated with rains. As a result, the water was not as hot as normal, but
soothing none the less.Milk River bath was established some 300 years ago, after a runaway slave who had been beaten half to death by his wicked slave master, found a stream in the hills, bathed his wounds and was miraculously healed. Subsequent tests revealed that the stream coming out of the hills, had one of the highest radioactivity levels of any mineral spring The water is promoted as being good for a long list of ailments and although the pool is closed, there are six private baths open for use.
After
leaving there, we headed along the South Coast highway (built in the
1970’s) which is almost impassable today, to visit the manatees, called sea
cows locally.
They are endangered, and a family is kept at Alligator Hole but unfortunately, we never saw them as the keeper said they were up river.
Incidentally, Alligator Hole is in a swampy section of the Milk River and there are crocs in it but they don’t interfere with the gentle manatees.
A correction though, for while the sign there says Alligator Hole, there are no alligators in Jamaica, only crocs!
From there
we wended our way gingerly on the badly
deteriorated
South Coast highway over to Little Ochi where the food was great as usual.
A few days
later, I jumped on the convenient Knutsford Express to visit friends and family
in Kingston.
Thanks to my knowledgeable cousin Dor, I was introduced to some
marvelous improvements taking place in downtown Kingston.
These range
from strategically placed info boards on many historic buildings to a sculpture of two important founders
of our nation, Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley and the unbelievable transformation
of Water Lane.
For blocks intersecting with that street, outstanding Jamaican
artists have given their skills to create murals depicting Jamaican life all
around.
A dramatic and
most welcome turn around in the entire area.
When the kids
arrived, we visited the Puerto Seco beach and although it has been nicely
upgraded and child-friendly, it’s just not as lovely as the good ole Silver Sands
beach.
They being adventurous, visited Mystic Mountain, but because of my dislike
of heights, I hung out with my friend Chris at her beach house nearby, until
time to pick them up.
They had a ball there and at Dunn’s River falls before
joining us on the lyme by Chris.
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| Silver Sands beach |
We separated for a few days as Michele and Maddy wanted to hang out in Kingston with the Williams clan who celebrated her recent milestone. That was her earning a PhD after many years of dedicated study and sacrifice. While in Kingston they boated over to Lime Cay to swim before returning to the country to join me for a few days a Bahai Principe in Runaway Bay. It’s not a bad hotel but boy do they need a good chef or two!
While they
were away, we journeyed to Seaford Town in the hills of Westmorland, a
place I had always wanted to visit. This settlement is called locally, German
Town as after the Abolition of Slavery (Aug. 1, 1834), many planters had a
shortage of labor so imported indentured workers.
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A section of Seaford Town
One was the
establishment of a European settlement by Lord Seaford, then owner of
Montpelier Estate and Shettlewood Pen which were located in St. James. Over one
thousand Germans were brought to Jamaica with the promise of being granted accommodation,
land, and employment. This township was entrenched on five hundred acres
of land. However, over the years, through assimilation and migration mostly to Canada, (I understand they left in droves during the turbulent 70's when the communists tried to take over Jamaica), there are no more true
blooded Germans there anymore and the use of any German language has virtually
disappeared.
When
I asked a young lady at the gas station there where the Germans were, she
pointed to the burial ground beside the Roman Catholic church there. 😅 A visit to the cemetary and a cursory glance at the tombstones, definitely confirms that this area was once inhabited by Germans, due to their names. That is the only evidence that this rural middle-class village was ever populated by those nationals. As usual, this visit home was as interesting and invigorating as expected and I cant wait for the next East Indian mango season.
Talk Jamaican: Milk River - YouTube
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Memorie
Milk River where the manatees are kept
