It's well into late afternoon, early evening, and the T, t, and S ain't back yet from dealing with fam--in Jamaica, multiply whatever time frame you're given by 3 - 5--so V and I decide to kayak past Monkey Island, out towards San San Beach. The clear blue is broken by dusty looking beds of seaweed, and we notice hundreds of sea urchins, mostly with white spines and chocolate-colored bodies. All I can think of is "uni."
We hear a coupla rolls of thunder, the sky darkens, and V and I figure it'd be advisable to get back to the house before we're caught in a storm, but by the time we reach our steps, the immediate threat passes, so V, Y, and I go for a quick dip in shallows, gossiping as the stars blink into view.
When we've had enough, the ladies head upstairs, and I drip into my room, hands still dotted with water, reach for the lamp, and promptly electrocute myself, my right arm shuddering and the sound of buzzing in my ears. When I let go of the lamp, I start giggling and excitedly come out to inform the ladies, although, really, I should say that it's fairly lucky I didn't do any more harm to myself, especially since I would have been lying on the floor of my room for some time if it'd been more severe.
When I make it back upstairs again, the other kids are back; they’ve brought home sugarcane, and I demolish a stick of it, spitting out the chewed-up pieces into a bowl, until all that’s left is a dry, fibrous mess. This is totally a first date kinda food.
And nibble on a Spiced Bun while waiting on folks to finish getting ready:
Then out for dinner at Soldier Camp, a joint owned by a white Jamaican, who's presiding over the bar.
We find seats on bamboo benches...
And I have a sort of spicy bouillabaisse with crawfish, Jamaican mollusc-y creature that everyone's calling "bu-su" (soft "b" sound), and some sweet-tasting, more dense potato (or potato-like root) in a Styrofoam cup, then grilled, Caribbean spiny lobster, which is just okay, and roti, with a “tropical drink,” made of “mango” and “carrot.”
We drive into town for another stroll, parking in front of the mall, where the following sign catches my notice:
Then, into the Errol Flynn Marina (he was one of the pioneers of tourism in Port Antonio--which, really, to this day, still hasn't picked up for the general populace, just the super-fabulous rich and famous who come here for its low profile--see, Denzel Washington, who frequents the area and reputedly stopped a beer truck and purchased its entire contents for the enjoyment of the downtown Port Antonio public; see, also Cameron Diaz, who has allegedly stayed in Lolivya, our villa). Inside the marina, I'm getting botany-photo-trigger-happy, and quickly lag behind the others while trying to "immortalize" pretty flowers with my janky, lil, five-year-old point-and-shoot.
S picks up a ripe, green, Stringy (name, not descriptor) mango from the ground and hands it to me, and later, while deciding what to do--go home, stay out, which? jerk chicken off the street or wait 'til the festival?--we purchase Blackie mangos, also green, but differ from the Stringy in that their skin is more matte, suede-like and less patent leathery. In the past two days, I've learned about four different mango types: the East Indian mango, the Julie mango, and now the Stringy and Blackie mangos...
It's sort of like how Eskimos have 1,000 words for snow; Jamaicans have 1,000 mango names.
Except that Eskimos don’t really, and the "more words for snow" thang is purely apocryphal. And plus, they're fucking Inuits, you fucker.
By now I'm feeling a little funny, my hands tight and puffy, so I start walking around with them up in the air like some member of a mendicant order.
S takes us up meandering past a KFC, up into a small shopping complex, and into a dark, air-conditioned room filled with whores.
No, just kidding. Slot machines.
The woman on duty gives S a fluttery, girlish welcome, and our crew gets down taking ridiculous photos of ourselves in a Jamaican mini-casino, until a couple of would-be gamblers arrive, and we leave to make space for them and to let S do whatever it is that he does.
The other girls decide to shoot some pool at the patio bar, and it's all giddy fun--between figuring out the whereabouts of the lost pool token, running from a giant cockroach, and playing spectacularly poorly--for everyone except me. I'm not playing because 1) I can't and 2) I'm fucking miserable, with my hands swoll like catcher's mitts. So I sit on a bench feeling simultaneously sorry for myself and smug about my pure grit, the unrelenting will that won't let me say, "wah, I don't feel good; let's go home."
Because masochism = strength. [grin]
Instead, I hang over the balcony and watch a kitten dumpster dive, miss my kitties at home, and just tough it out, 'til we get back to the villa, where we discuss the itinerary I've blocked out for the next couple of days, sort out money owed, which takes ‘til 2:15 a.m., and by this time I'm pissy as all fuck, but don't show it because I don't believe in making others miserable with my misery; it's more fun for me to be conceited about suffering in silence.
This is why I go to therapy.
Yay, Jamaica!
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