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Cuba, the Caribbean Islands,
and Central America in 2001

Jamaica

Bec
2004-09-17 16:25:21

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many islands like the 1865 Morant Bay uprising in Jamaica. They were all brutally repressed by the white minority.

In this picture, a preacher is extolling the virtues of being black according to the tenets of the "Twelve Tribes of Israel" branch of the Rastafarian Religion. I tried in vain to engage a sincere conversation with various members of this group. It just did not click. After a while, I realised that communication was difficult because I was perceived as just one more of the several hundred thousand curious tourists that come to Jamaica every year. That was a perfectly normal behaviour. I have found that in places where foreigners are few and far between, the local people are generally as curious about their visitors as they are about them but that familiarity breeds contempt when there are too many tourists.

There is a wide variety of Rastafarians ranging from the fundamentalist believers in the divinity of "Ras Tafari" (the Emperor Haile Selasie of Ethiopia) and of black superiority, to the drug dealers for whom dreadlocks are only an outward sign of nonconformism. The one on the left below, tolerated that I take his picture but carefully evaded my questions about the meaning of Rastafarianism. More info on Rastafarianism

Personally, I think that my failure to connect is due to the excessive number of tourists around Montego Bay. I did not get very far either in trying to communicate with this family that I found living in an improvised shelter made from an abandoned car. I got friendly smiles from the three children and from the young mother, who had a fourth one on the way, but no encouragement from the father. This was just the beginning of the frustration I experienced on this trip. I should have expected it for I knew that people get more and more remote and secretive as they get exposed to large numbers of tourists.

As far as I could tell, this appeared to be the image of success for the average Jamaican; a nice, well kept wooden house and a flashy car. I found that Jamaicans are very macho about their cars and I suspect them of punching holes in the mufflers of new cars just to get that "vroom vroom vroom" sound!

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