little brother's visit

my brother's week-long visit gave me the occasion to explore new places and familiarize myself more with routes already traveled. perhaps unsurprisingly, the highlights for nick, a freshman at boston college, were the spots of great natural beauty: lime cay, kush's place outside ochi, the waterfall just beyond gordon town. food would surely be another highlight. becca and i introduced nick to some of our favorite local fruits and meals: from star apples and naseberries to patties, potato puddings, and ackee and saltfish. he even got into bun&cheese: a surprisingly good combination of a spiced-bun (sweet and cinammon in taste) and a block of cheddar cheese. bun&cheese is a staple of many jamaicans' diets and can be purchased at nearly every cart on the side of the road. apparently, 'tis the season for bun&cheese as much as for star apples. several people have informed me in the last week that lent is bun&cheese season and that we should expect to see increasingly fancy and large buns on sale at the supermarket. good friday is the biggest bun&cheese day of them all: one finally breaks fast in the evening with a big bun&cheese. amen.

in addition to the spots of natural grandeur (which i will discuss in more detail shortly), i think nick also got a decent chance to see kingston--uptown, downtown, and in-between. for one thing, there is no way to get outside of kingston without going through it (at least for such bus- and taxi-taking folk as we). after a chill sunday, which included a trip to devon house for ice-cream and a walk up hope road in the other direction in search of a restaurant (we found a good chinese restaurant on a sunday evening where nothing else was open), we spent monday morning linking up with damie d, of multicast fame, and checking out his neighborhood outside of half-way tree. returning to our hope road apt., we spent the rest of the day freestyling, listening to beats, and discussing jamaican hip-hop outside of jamaica (see next blog) and concluded with a tasty meal at heather's in new kingston (i believe nick enjoyed some escovietch fish--a tasty pepper-and-vinegar-spiced dish).

on tuesday, becca, nick, and i traveled downtown to catch the ferry to port royal. i enjoyed taking the ferry again--this time with the light of day to show us kingston from the harbor. we arrived in port royal and chartered a smaller boat to take us out to lime cay (pronounced "key"), a popular spot for kingston-based beachgoers. the small motorboat slowly traced the shoreline on our way out of port royal. we turned the corner of the harbor and met the sea. compared to the tranquility of kingston's natural harbor (one of eight in the world, i have been told with pride), the wavy expanse we immediately encountered seemed rather stormy. but the boat was well-made for cutting through waves. we had a bumpy but speedy ride, sometimes crashing down hard onto the surface after a wave pointed our bow to the sky. sitting one rung higher in the boat, nick said his journey from peak to trough was several feet longer than ours, and the crash several times harder. but he took it in stride. the view of the mountains, the sea, and the small islands dotting the horizon were only intensified by the spray, the sun, the movement. in just a few minutes we reached lime cay to find it more or less deserted. aside from a couple beachgoers and some sleeping fisherman (not to be confused with "sleeping policemen," which is what they call speed-bumps here), we had the place all to ourselves.

it was idyllic. lime cay is a tiny little island, which a boat can circle in just a few minutes. supposedly, it fills up on the weekend (as promised by a large, red-stripe-themed bar area). on tuesday at around eleven o'clock, it was practically empty. we asked our boatman to return for us at two and set off down the coastline in search of a good spot. passing the main beach area, we found a little nook of sand and trees where the water appeared relatively rock-free. the sun was high, and the sky overhead was deep blue. it grew pale as one eye's approached the horizon, merging at an almost imaginary line with the sea. the water itself was a breathtaking mix of blues, from greenish to navy, and somehow completely clear at the same time. we spent the next few hours swimming and enjoying the feeling of the sun and breeze on our still-too-winterized skin. i read a bit more from walden, nick from a biography on buddha (he found its attempt to recreate gotama's historical moment a bit far-fetched), and becca selected her favorite poems from a small volume of e.e. cummings (73 poems) that i bring with me just about anywhere i go to live. her favorite (#3) seemed to speak to, and play with, thoreau and buddha rather nicely:

seeker of truth

follow no path
all paths lead where

truth is here

as is usual for cummings, the poem has the ability to hinge on various words (and silently, suggestively--with space--punctuate them), multiplying the meanings one reads in them. i tend to prefer the ones that i find even more suggestive, poems that play jokes on us, that make us aware of the jumpy way that we come to understand things, that play with space and language and thought in the way that only a poem can. poems like #7:

it's

so damn sweet when Anybody--
yes;no

matter who,some

total(preferably
blonde
of course)

or on the other

well
your oldest
pal
for instance(or

;why

even
i
suppose
one
's wife)

--does doesn't unsays looks smiles

or simply Is
what makes
you feel you
aren't

6 or 6
teen or sixty
000,000
anybodyelses--

but for once

(imag
-ine)

You

word. talk about truth. "it's so damn sweet" is right. to come back to paths of truth described in #3, it certainly felt as if we were in the presence of truth at lime's cay. but, to be clear, only in the sense that--as wordsworth and his romantic fellows like to harp about--the sublime effect, produced in the encounter with awesome and fear-inspiring majesty, strikes a chord deep in one's being. that kind of truth. tr-true-truth. not the whodunit kind of truth, though that was lurking on lime cay, too.

as more people arrived, and i got a sense of the who of them, my mind flittered in and out of analytic mode. why were all the beachgoers white at this fairly accessible spot just outside of kingston? they did not seem to be tourists in many cases (their substantial tans indicated a much longer period of laying in the sun, for one thing). they were uptown kingstonians, i gathered. i watched a light-skinned woman in her early twenties stand waist deep in water and run through her memory of good poses to strike with the red-stripe light she was drinking. i finally had to laugh when she began to pour it on herself. as the day went on, it was clear that a good number probably were tourists, as they were carted back and forth by the same hotel-based boat. i must admit that i am quite curious about the kind of tourists that come to kingston and port royal. the slice of jamaica that you get here, as opposed to, say, the jamaica grande, is quite different and often much less comfortable.

by the time we caught the boat back to port royal, i was much less comfortable, having sunburned the tops of my feet. i thought that i applied sunscreen to them (i am usually vigilant about protecting my feet, having endured a rather painful sunburn on them one childhood summer on cape cod), but i may have postponed due to my eagerness to get into the water and then forgot. (at any rate, i was walking normally again by thursday.) we went to gloria's--a famous seafood spot in port royal--and had fried snapper and bammies (cassava root, which can be completely out-of-this-world when fried just right). we spent the evening cooling out at home, recovering from a long day in the sun.

wednesday we hiked back up to the waterfall in the hills above gordon town. it was nice to experience the cool of the mountains after such a hot day. on our way back home, we picked up some onions and more star apples at the papine market. that night we prepared ackee and saltfish for a second time (we made it for nick's first meal here on sunday morning). we were hoping to link with makonnen and some of the multicast guys, but it just never happened. i was hoping to expose nick to more of the local music scene here. aside from our full day with dami d, however, we did not have many opportunities to hang out with many of the djs and producers i have met. not wanting to spend all our time waiting to opportunity to knock, and wanting to show nick kush's place and bring him to world of fish, we headed for ocho rios on thursday morning, grabbing a bus at the main terminal downtown. (meanwhile, becca headed much farther north, flying back for a couple days to check out brown university, where she may attend graduate school. once back in boston, the snow caused the highway to be closed, keeping her from reaching providence on her first night back.)

downtown kingston is an amazing place. it is both the home of the starkest and most degrading poverty in jamaica and the city's and country's commercial center. several large goverment buildings and the headquarters of many of jamaica's largest companies poke up into the downtown sky. the market sprawls in every direction, with vendors selling just about anything you would want to buy. the hustle and bustle is unlike any other place i have seen in jamaica. each time i pass through, the place is teeming with activity and the streets are full.

we reached the bus terminal and were immediately greeted by a man who wanted to know where we were going, asked several times whether it was our first time, and wanting very much to help us out. in these situations, i rarely know whether i am being taken advantage of or whether i am indeed receiving helpful service. as it is usually somewhere in the middle, i act in a non-committal fashion--lest someone bill me for services rendered--and try to convey as quickly and effectively as possible that i am not a tourist (i really need to get that yard accent going). the man led us through a group of other men who were approaching us with the same questions and finally led us to a bus that would take us to ocho rios. first, we visited a food-stall and ordered some stew-chicken with rice and peas for a late pre-ride breakfast. our helper found some orange juice for us (and kept the change). he then brought us to the bus and demanded a better tip. he said he wanted to get a meal for himself, which seemed reasonable enough. i gave him JA$100 ($US2), and he wanted more. i had no more change, but, having gotten myself into the situation and feeling like it wouldn't be too bad to get this guy a meal, i gave him another $100, which, in all, is more than i should have been paying for the entire 2-hour bus-ride. of course, i did not pay the JA$125 that the other passengers paid. nick and i were told, quite plainly, that our fare would be double the regular fair ($250 each). though it feels unfair, i know that, in some sense, it is quite fair in this context to act in such a discriminatory manner. and, all things being relative, i really can't scoff at a ride to ocho rios costing only US$5, which is less than the cab fare from my apartment to the bus terminal.

all the buses and minibuses in jamaica have names printed on the top of their windshield. we were riding in reality. i liked that. i liked that reality had air-conditioning and a nice soundsystem and room to breathe. of course, we hadn't left yet. reality changed quite a bit by the time we left: the a/c was turned off and the bus was jammed as full as possible with people (e.g., sitting five or six where three should fit comfortably). fortunately, the music continued to play nice and loud. the size of the bus was apparently no hindrance to jamaican-style mountain-driving, either. the driver weaved in and out of lines of cars, took turns screeching with the horn-beeping, and was as brazen as any taximan could hope to be. we arrived in ochi safe and sound, but a bit cramped and sweaty. i took nick for a quick walking tour around the center of town, including a stop at the jamaica grande--strange simulation and spectacle that it is. after cathcing a glimpse (all that is needed) of jamaican-disneyworld, we caught a route taxi out to kush's place in exchange.

kush recieved us warmly and offered us fresh coconuts as a welcome. he skillfully cut the tops with a machete, opening a whole so that we could drink the cool, tasty water. after we drained the coconuts of their refreshing nectar, kush cut them in half, and chipped a scraper/spoon from the side, with which we could scoop out the "jelly" inside. it was delicious, as were the naseberries--still in season and dropping from the trees. we hung out through the evening, walking the grounds, conversing with kush, and playing some music. having heard some of my rhythms last time, kush proposed a project between the two of us: my rhythms and recording techniques applied to some songs he has been writing for himself and acoustic guitar. always looking for new collaborations, i told him i would be happy to see what we could do. that evening, and the next morning, we recorded some songs into my minidisc and my laptop, and experimented with laying rhythms on top and underneath. having been inspired recently by a pair of beanpods, i expressed an interest in sampling sounds from kush's grounds and building rhythms from them. kush also has a nice drumset in his living room, so i sampled some individual drum sounds as well as some beats that kush pounded out. i am looking forward to working with the sounds we got on tape. i think they have potential. and i hope to have some samples for you soon. kush seemed as interested in recording with me as he was interested in picking up some strumming patterns from nick, whose guitar-playing kush seemed to admire. the two of them jammed on several bob dylan songs together over the course of a day and a night.

although kush's place is outside of town and into the hills, its serenity is only a relative peace. there are still two or three soundsystems jockeying for airspace at any one time (sometimes directly across the street). occasionally a mobile soundsystem will drive past the property, announcing with thumping bass a dance in town that night. it is a striking testament to the great soundclash that the entire country of jamaica sometimes seems to be. everywhere one goes, there is a stack of speakers filling the air with palpable sound (i must underscore the degree to which one feels the music emitting from such speakers). we finally found a truly quiet place--at least so far as man-made sound goes--on friday morning, when kush walked us up the mountain and down again, to a secluded river running through the forest outside of exchange. the place was amazing: through the canopy of leaves, large swaths of sunlight warmed the shimmering pools that collected under each little waterfall, as the water cascaded down the mountain. apparently some years ago, someone developed a stretch of the river, building small staircases and bridges into the naturally-terraced rock. they carved out quite a nice spot. we jumped in and spent an hour swimming around, challenging the waterfalls to repell us back into the cool pools, and admiring the fern-laced walls lining the river. cliche as it may sound, i felt like i had stepped into a primordial place--so innocent it felt, so devoid of pollution. it is the kind of place that jamaica would do well to show its tourists, never mind develop as a resource for its own people. like lime cay, there are places of great beauty here that seem underappreciated, and certainly underused, by locals. reflective as i try to be about my position as someone with the resources to seek out such spots, i am not really sure that so many resources are necessary to enjoy these natural treasures. strange as it may seem, the average jamaican would probably elect to spend a weekend at the jamaica grande before deciding to trek up to the gordon town falls or to this little slice of paradise that kush showed us. at any rate, i was glad to show nick.

we ended up back in reality for the ride home, and the man in charge of collecting money and herding people in once again offered us the "special rate"--as if we should be so glad to pay only double. we spent a sleepy, scrunched-up couple of hours winding our way back to kingston. once home, we showered, cooled out a bit, and then made another attempt to hook up with mak. nick got a chance to meet mak and take him out to some parties when he visited cambridge last summer. i was hoping mak could show nick a similar side of kingston. unfortunately, mak was out of town for a few days at the beginning of nick's stay and then complained of being too busy to link up tuesday and wednesday. on nick's last night, we finally connected over at mak's apartment complex and hung out for a while with mak, scrum dilly, raw-raw, and some of the neighbors. raw-raw spit some impressive verses. he's got a machine-gun-style dj delivery with a slippery sense of rhythm and a talent for composing melodic/rhythmic structures as compelling, repetitive vehicles for wicked rhymes. i was delighted to hear him spit a couple of the trickier passages from "america" at me (he's been talking about doing a remix). after a bit of rapping and chilling at a nearby park, however, it was clear that nothing much was going on. nick and i took our leave of the multicast crew and headed over to the terra nova hotel, where we had dinner with becca's parents, fern and charlie (who just arrived in town), and with trevor rhone. the food was unremarkable, but the conversation was interesting. trevor can certainly wax poetic and nostalgic and philosophical when he gets going. i like to egg him on and to challenge him a bit. he's got quite an interesting perspective on jamaica and the world, and i always enjoy our conversations. trevor has done me the favor of getting me on the program of a poetry reading tomorrow night. i am excited to get a chance to perform for a jamaican audience very different from the multicast guys, who are almost unbelievably receptive to my rapping.

this morning i put nick on a taxi just after 6:30 am. he will probably pass becca in the air, who returns today from a grad-school-scouting project in boston/providence. (actually, he will probably pass her on the ground, or vice versa; i am sure they will both have long days in airports.) i think he had a rather full stay here. i had a rather full week myself (thus a lag on the blog). at the least, i hope his spring break stacks up well next to his peers'. i suspect that nick's jamaican vacation was far better than any of his classmates who spent their days drunk in negril or mo' bay, though surely nick would have had fun there too. (it's about balance, my brother. quality, too.) being a burgeoning writer, i hope that nick will share some impressions of jamaica on the blog page at some point soon, but, hell, he's also a college student. don't hold your breath. i mean, soon come.