A hoy, ye maties! - Jamaica day twelve
Well, yesterday was a day of waiting, and lateness. But it was also a day that opened up some interesting ideas and created some good memories. The plan was to go to Port Royal, the site of the richest and wickedest world during the sixteen hundreds. That's right, the same Port Royal that is featured in the Pirates of the Caribbean. Unfortunately we got there too late to visit the museum and take a tour but a local kinda tagged along with us and gave us some great history of the place. Although I wasn't enjoying it as much as I should have because of some serious neckpain (blasted body!) some of the things he was saying definitely had my imagination soaring. He spoke of the earthquakes and how there is a whole sunken city under the water that you can see on a clear day. People still scuba dive (though not right now because of government excavations) and the ruins can be explored, occassionally treasure is found! Also, he spoke of the evil of the place, how people were hung in the fortress - the same one whose wall we were standing on as he spoke these words. He told of the famed people, pirates and captains who traversed those shores and of the plights that the people encountered from diseases being carried from overseas. When Cholera hit, it was so bad and spread so fast that people were buried alive as soon as it was discovered they contracted the disease in the hopes that they wouldn't spread it to others.
The village people are descended from pirates - and whereas in most places in Jamaica light skin is a sign of affluence, here - it is a reminder of a bucaneering past! Many of the people around the town were around Clinton and my shade and almost every elderly person we saw was very fair skinned, a couple to the point of me thinking they didn't even look like they had any black in them. The town is really run down, and it's a shame. Although I'm not a fan of commercialism, the government could be making a killing off of this place and creating lots of jobs if they spiced it up some, especially with the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
After waiting 45 minutes for the second most famed fish on the Island we were told they still hadn't even started to cook it and so we had to leave without it in order to try to make our next event. The wait was kinda nice though, sitting on the second floor (patio style) of the restaurant with the ocean, palm trees, mountains in the background and a strong breeze coming off of the water. We ended up being about 20-25 minutes late for the concert but it was all right. It was a University choir concert that we were told was going to be very cultural. The first half was rather dry - beautiful, but dry. The second half though, that's where the culture and fun came in. Folk songs and tales, some Calypso and Reggae style music, jokes galore. It was great! Our cousins have definitely been treating us well!
The village people are descended from pirates - and whereas in most places in Jamaica light skin is a sign of affluence, here - it is a reminder of a bucaneering past! Many of the people around the town were around Clinton and my shade and almost every elderly person we saw was very fair skinned, a couple to the point of me thinking they didn't even look like they had any black in them. The town is really run down, and it's a shame. Although I'm not a fan of commercialism, the government could be making a killing off of this place and creating lots of jobs if they spiced it up some, especially with the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
After waiting 45 minutes for the second most famed fish on the Island we were told they still hadn't even started to cook it and so we had to leave without it in order to try to make our next event. The wait was kinda nice though, sitting on the second floor (patio style) of the restaurant with the ocean, palm trees, mountains in the background and a strong breeze coming off of the water. We ended up being about 20-25 minutes late for the concert but it was all right. It was a University choir concert that we were told was going to be very cultural. The first half was rather dry - beautiful, but dry. The second half though, that's where the culture and fun came in. Folk songs and tales, some Calypso and Reggae style music, jokes galore. It was great! Our cousins have definitely been treating us well!
posted by Charles at 2:13 PM
1 Comments:
Sounds interesting. I have a picture taken in front of a wall where you are supposed to see a person who was buried within the wall. It does look like it....kinda eerie!
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