It’s been
years since I last stepped foot in this country; a fact that’s being exposed by
my body as I began to overheat. Sweat pours from my body only to evaporate seconds
later. I look back towards the massive
crystalline glass building I had just exited, wondering considering whether I
could go back in for a bottle of water. It’s an airport of course I couldn't.
Instead I
continue on my trek, breathing the hot air in and out, my mouth becomes as dry
as desert sand. The handle of my black and white polka dotted bags seems to dig
painfully into my palms as I struggled to keep my footing on the rough gravel
flooring beneath me.
After walking for what felt like miles, I finally
saw the civilisation I had left behind as a child; the cramped streets filled
with stands upon stands of stalls as boisterous sales men and women shouted out
to the busy people bustling around as to gain their attention. Bright colours
of clothes/ food and hand-made jewellery distracting me from my thirst, as the
rich scent of food that hung in the dry air caused my stomach to growl in
excitement. These people were speaking in a language I had not heard for so
long. I was being re-educated in my lost culture in that very moment and it was
truly overwhelming.
It was Christmas
time and yet nothing signified the time of year except the carelessly thrown up
green, yellow and red posters detailing the traditional Christmas fair ‘Grand
Market’. I was home at last. I was home but I felt like a stranger, like a
foreigner just looking in. What was I supposed to do now that I was here? So
much was the same but so much had changed as well. I couldn't find my own way
home.
I was looking around myself with the confusing
feelings of happiness and fear twisting at my gut when my eyes met with a
woman’s. She was stood behind one of the smaller food stalls across from me and
as our eyes met she started to move towards me.
She looked about middle aged, her frame was big and her hair knotted in
messy dreads that hung past her shoulders, she wore a dirty sky blue apron over
what I assumed was a flower patterned frock.
As she
stopped in front where I stood in the middle of the busy street, she gave me a
massive toothy grin before shouting my name. This confused me and I assume I
must have looked it too because she clapped me on the shoulder and laughed. ‘Weh
yu a look pan mi suh fa?’ she asked in heavy patois. I didn't know whether to
speak it back to her or to just speak in English. I chose English. ‘I don’t
think I know you’ I said as loud as my dry throat would let me but she just
laughed again ‘Mi know yu and yu mum, mi kan tek yu home lata’ was all she said
as she pulled on my arm towards her stall where she shoved a bottle of a
Jamaican homemade ginger beer into my hand. I didn't question her and just
drank it.
I handed the
empty can to her where she chucked it towards a pile of tin cluttered mess in a
corner by her stall. A customer came by and I watched as she served them what I
remembered to be rice and peas with curried goat on thick polystyrene plates
while speaking in patois about the customer’s new hairstyle; a Jamaican style
called rope twist that fell to her shoulders like open curtains. That’s how the
rest of the day went before I was taken further into the country where I knew
my house to be, where I grew up.It wasn’t until the stall keeper who I found
out was a family friend named Janet took me to my family home later that day
did I find out that a bunch of the people I had seen in town when I had just
arrived were our neighbors.
I spent the
rest of my time visiting town and all its market stalls and hanging around on
different beaches all around the country like Dunns River Falls where it was a
river of water falls and the sandy dunes of Negril beach. I even got the chance
to go to a field of mango trees hidden within a subtropical dry forest
Limestone Hills of the Hellshire Hills in St. Catherine and Portland ridge Clarendon
in southern Jamaica. It was so green and eerily quiet with all its sneaky
wildlife and hidden shrubs of exotic plants like Rubiaceae and Bignoniaceae
with its green tendrils wrapped around everything that comes into contact with
it.
It was
fantastic.
