I am sitting in the Peace Corps office right now, waiting to do my exit interview. Tomorrow I will leave Jamaica. While I know I'll come back, it will never be the same.

This past weekend, the people in Accompong threw a couple going away parties for me. Saturday night, Colonel Peddie and his sidekick, Currie, threw a party for me. It was an actual ceremony. They set up a bunch of chairs in the community center and had me sit at a table in front of everyone, along with a few other dignitaries. There was a procession of speakers who all praised me. Really, it was an exercise in hyperbole. A couple of my fellow volunteers were in the audience and I could see them laughing as the Maroons described a person that sounded poised to become the Prime Minister of Jamaica - or, at least, Colonel of Accompong.

The ceremony was great. I have never had so many people make such a big deal about me; it was humbling, really. They presented me with a gift, but in true Maroon fashion the gift hadn't arrived yet so they only told me a gift was on the way (I still haven't received it). A few people serenaded me (all men), they asked me to give an impromptu speech, and then they served dinner - mannish watta, curried goat and fried chicken. I shook about a hundred hands while I was eating - I felt like a politician.

After dinner, the selector fired up the music and a dance party ensued. But a fight broke out down the road (it involved my roommate Charlie who had taken his machete and slapped up some guy who had reportedly thrown a rock at his head the previos weekend...what can I say - that's life in Accompong) and the dance floor emptied so everyone could go witness the violence. Once everything settled down I encouraged everyone to go back into the party. I was mostly successful and we had a good time.

The following night, the people of hill top (a district of Accompong) threw me a party at Winsome's house (where I first lived when I came to the community). They felt compelled to throw me a party (1) because they don't get along with the Colonel and didn't want to have anything to do with his party, and (2) I helped them get running water and they are very thankful. The Sunday night party wasn't as official. But we had mannish watta, curried goat and lots of liquor. There was another procession of speakers but this time it was mainly my friends saying a few words. I was blown away - I kept wishing I could capture the way I felt at the moment and remember it. Again, we played music and danced until after midnight when it became my birthday, June 4th.

The next morning I was exhausted. I had been partying for four straight nights (Saturday and Sunday night in Accompong and Thursday and Friday night in Treasure Beach). I spent most of the day cleaning up my room and preparing to leave. When I did finally go out on the road, I couldn't take it. I went down to Marlene's house but I couldn't stay. My eyes kept getting all watery. Then I went up to Winsome's house. She gave me a present and her daugher gave me a letter. I couldn't even open them. I just went home, played some music and sat on my front porch alone until my birthday expired. I know that I've hated life up here at times. I know that I complained. Up until just a few days ago, I was dying of boredom. But I am going to miss this place something fierce. Sometimes I even wonder if I'm making a mistake in leaving Jamaica. I am very curious how my feeligns will change as time goes by; that will be the real test of my affections for this place.

If Accompong means as much to me as I think it does, then I will be back some day. The Maroons have promised me a piece of land on which to build my house and I plan on taking them up on that offer - once I stop being poor.

So that's it. I'm a little disappointed in this final story but I don't really know what to say. I'm not even sure what I think. I will be going back to Accompong in a couple hours. In the morning I will pack up and leave Jamaica.

If you're wondering what will become of Jim: I will live with my parents in Houston this summer and try to save up a little cash (apparently joining the Peace Corps is not a sound financial decision), then I will move to Chicago in September. I don't really like telling people what I'll be doing because I think it sounds boring and even unfitting but I will be going to the University of Chicago to pursue a joint MBA/JD degree (over the next four years).

The End.

Tony, originally uploaded by schleicher. Over the past couple years, I haven't written much about my friend Tony. Mainly because I know that he reads these stories sometimes and I'm a bit uncomfortable writing about other people when they will read it (a probelm that doesn't really apply to the Maroons). But, don't be misled, Tony has been a major figure (along with Briggy, Marlene, Marvin and "the Colonel") in my life here in Jamaica. His absence in these stories is a good illustration of how unrepresentative they are of my real life here. There's lots of stuff that doesn't get mentioned - because I don't think it's interesting, I don't think it's anyone's business or I just don't want to write about it.

But I owe Tony a tribute. He has been my biggest financial sponsor - besides my parents - since I've been a volunteer in Accompong. He's bought me countless beers and he's always willing to sponsor a bottle of rum or a few pounds of chicken when I have a work project underway. He's also allowed me rent-free use of his "condo shack" in Negril (the name is quite appropriate - the door is hanging off its hinges and there's a rat's skeleton hanging on the wall as decor). And he's driven me all over this bloody island - a priceless gift to someone without a car or the money to do the exploring he wants. Plus, he's a great friend.

Tony is an American expatriate of proud Midwestern origins (Chicago, Wisconsin, Iowa). He's a man of eclectic tastes: from fine food and dining to race car driving and late 60's acid rock (i.e. Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band). And, conveniently, he's building a guest house in Accompong named Baboo's Garden - that's how we became friends.

He is a real character. I like to think of life in terms of a great novel, and every great novel needs great characters. Well, Tony would make a classic. I frequently picture him in a play like Tennessee Williams' "The Night of the Iguana" as he tears through the mild Caribbean nights in his black truck, bouncing along the road with a cold Guiness in one hand and a sampling of the finest local high grade clutched in the other. He's a caricature of the traveler/adventurer that we all want to be. I have introduced him to a number of my friends, family and fellow volunteers - he has left an impression with all of them. I've told him before that the biggest attraction at Baboo's Garden isn't going to be Accompong, the Cockpit Country or its cool thatch-roof bungalows; it's going to be its owner Tony Kuhn, a man who appreciates funky for the sake of funkiness.

Tony is a man of expressions. When he tells a story, he uses his whole body. Several people have told me how much they enjoy his facial expressions as he goes into a story that he's passionate about. It's true; the energy and enthusiasm he puts into a story could entertain a deaf man. But he's not just a man of physical expressions; he has a way with words that is a constant source of amusement. I want to end today with a few classic Tony-isms that I will never forget:

Skinny Puppy Corner - when you're leaving Tony's place via the Cedar Spring road, you travel down a narrow road that winds along the side of the mountain. At one point last year, a dog living in one of the bends had puppies. I never saw the mother (my guess is that she died), but you couldn't miss the puppies. Every time we came around the bend, a crowd of the most diseased and starving puppies I've ever seen scurried off the road. It was sad. Actualy, it was gruesome. And every time I'd forget they were coming and then I'd hear Tony, "Oh no, it's skinny puppy corner!" I'd look up to see a few bony runts disappearing into the bushes. It sounds sadistic, but I always laughed when I heard the name Skinny Puppy Corner.

The House that Poon-Poon Built - one of the finest homes in Accompong. It's rumored that the house was built with proceeds from the world's oldest profession. Whether or not it's true is irrelevant; it's a great story. Shortly after Tony heard the rumor, he dubbed the place "The House that Poon-Poon Built" (I don't think I need to define the patois word poon-poon for anyone), which I think is ridiculously funny.

To top it off, when my parents came to visit me, I arranged for them to stay in that house - it's simply the most comfortable option in town. But I didn't tell them about the reputation of its owner until after they'd left. It was great. We were sitting around in the morning drinking tea with the owner and having a great time. Then, as we drove off, my mother told me how much she liked her hostess. "Well," I said, "I have a story about her for you..." She was surprised to say the least.

Baby Factory - someone was doing a census in Accompong recently (unfortunately, they never finished). I was looking over the list of households that they had so far, and one house caught my eye when I saw the number of people living in it: 21. I mean, I knew that there were a lot of people there but I had no idea it was so many. The man and woman of the house have a lot of children (and only one son). All of their daughters are of "breeding age" and they aren't wasting their time. Two more have buns in the oven as we speak. It's a well-known joke all over town, but Tony gave it the classic name "Baby Factory." Sometimes, when I'm telling him a story, I'll say, "I was down at the bottom of the hill." "Which hill," he might ask. "The one with all of the pickny." "Oh," he'll say matter-of-factly, "you mean baby factory."

There are more (Euro-Rasta, mind-brain, etc.) but I won't steal Tony's thunder; you'll have to make a trip to Baboo's Garden and discover the legend for yourself.

red light, originally uploaded by schleicher. My bathroom in Accompong has developed a reputation amongst my visitors. Several people have even taken pictures of it - as if it's some sort of place worth remembering. If that's so, I don't think the memories are good. For my part, I don't know what makes it so special - other than the fact that it's an indoor bathroom without running water so you have to fetch water to bathe and flush the toilet. I wouldn't say that it's particularly dirty, although I am living in what has been called a Jamaican frat house, so maybe my standards are slipping. I do know that one of the bathroom's most memorable qualities is its red light bulb. One of my friends calls it "the red light district," which is appropriate literally and metaphorically (the paint-stripped walls and lack of decor does create a somewhat seedy atmosphere). I don't know why I bought that red bulb - just an impulse, I suppose - but I've frequently thought about replacing it so I wouldn't have to hear so many comments about my bathroom.

Then, a few weeks ago, the Cubans came into town. You see, Fidel Castro bought a whole lot of those new energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs from someone in South Korea (I think) and he's distributing them all over Caribbean, for free. I'd heard about this on the radio earlier in the year, but I assumed that the Cubans had gone home - having never made it way up to Accompong. I was wrong. One day, there they were sitting in front of the main bar in town with a big rucksack full of light bulbs. There were two of them. They were both wearing tight jeans, baseball caps, and matching blue t-shirts that read "Trabajadores Sociales" on the front.

People brought their old incandescent bulbs and exchanged them for new fluorescent ones. No used incandescent, no new fluorescent. That's how it worked.

I sat down and talked to these guys for a while. Between their broken English and my broken Spanish, we were able to have a semblance of a conversation. We talked about Bush, of course. And I asked them if it's true that the cars in Cuba are really old and lots of people ride bicycles (they confirmed what I'd heard). It was an interesting cross-cultural exchange, in a place that was foreign to both parties.

That night, you could see a real difference in Accompong. The nighttime glow had changed from yellow to white as the yellow incandescent bulbs had been replaced by the white fluorescent ones. As I sat at a place appropriately called Hill Top, I looked out over the town. It really looked different, just because of a slight change in hue. Then I noticed a faint speck of red light in the direction of my house. I immediately called Briggy on the phone, "Hey, did you exchange our lights with the Cubans today?" "Yeah," he replied. "What about the bathroom light?" "I left it." "Why?" "I like it." (It had never occurred to me that my unilateral impulse to buy a red bulb had pleased Briggy, and I found it hilarious.) "Oh. Okay. Later."

And the red light district lives on.

Gypsum, originally uploaded by schleicher. My official job title is Community Environmental Health Advisor with a focus on Water and Sanitation. But in two years, I have done nothing that has anything to do with water, sanitation or health. Until now.

A couple months ago, some people in the community approached me to ask for help. They wanted to get PVC pipes so that they could run a main water line up the road to their section of the community. You see, after years without running water, the National Water Commission recently started sending water to Accompong. The problem is that less than half the community has access to the pipe infrastructure (the main line ends about two hundred yards before my house). Nobody really cared that they didn't have access to the pipes because there was no water in the pipes. But since January we've had water and the people at "Hill Top" and "Gypsum" (the two areas that aren't getting water) decided that they needed to take action.

So they asked Jim. And, I'll admit, at first I wasn't too motivated to help them. I didn't have much time left in Jamaica and I was currently frustrated with the lack of support the community had showed in finishing the basketball court. Plus, people ask me for help almost every day and most of the time they just expect me to do everything for them. I'm tired of that routine.

But this time was different. This group of motivated Maroons had already raised J$30,000 on their own - 30 households had donated J$1,000 each. There are 60 houses along the road and probably almost 400 people living there. Only half of the households had contributed, but we had a good start. Unfortunately, we would need roughly J$230,000 to purchase all of the pipes. Not to mention other expenses.

I contacted a friend of mine (a former Peace Corps volunteer) who works for Food for the Poor. I had heard that the organization recently started an initiative to fund water projects like ours. And it turned out that my friend was in charge of that new initiative. Nice.

We scheduled a meeting in Accompong between Food for the Poor and the "Special Council of Maroons" working on the "Accompong Water Project." Really, we weren't that organized. We had two main leaders (Jenn & Ernel) who had collected the money so far and approached me for help. Other than that, we just had an amorphous bunch of people that wanted water. But when Food for the Poor came to Accompong, a large group turned out for the meeting and we looked serious.

Food for the Poor was impressed. They asked us for several things to get the project started: pro forma invoices for the pipes, a project timeline, permission from the National Water Commission and a commitment from me to stick around until the project is completed. We got them those things and our project was approved. Just like that.

Several weeks later I had a check from Food for the Poor (the first of three installments - they won't give you all of the money at one time) to purchase 2 inch PVC pipes. We were in business. But I was getting nervous. I have worked on a few community projects since I've been in Accompong and none of them have gone (1) well, or (2) according to the plan. I was sure that once we started working, something bad would happen. And I was committed to staying in Jamaica until the job was finished, which put an extra degree of urgency on avoiding any problems. But I did have one powerful force on my side: incentive. Everyone had a good reason to come out and help install the pipes - they would get water at their yards. Every morning I watch people walk past my house with buckets full of water on their heads. Sometimes they make four trips - walking up to 2/3 of a mile each way. That could all end for just a few days of donated labor. It seems like a good deal to me.

So last weekend we started work. I printed fliers to let everyone know when we'd be working and we held a meeting a Hill Top several days before to plan the weekend of work, but when I showed up Saturday morning at 8 a.m. (as planned) I was alone. I felt nauseous. No, this is not happening again. We were committed. We'd spent Food for the Poor's money. We'd bought the pipes. There was no turning back.

Then I looked up and saw Ernel and Ninja coming my way. Ernel and Ninja are two of the skilled tradesmen in Accompong; they do everything from carpentry to masonry to plumbing. They are both hardworking, reliable men (more on them later). I had asked them to really take charge of this project, and they didn't let me down. We stood around and surveyed the scene for a few minutes, deciding on our best plan of action. Then we started hacking away with our pick axes. It seemed so tedious - just the three of us working, slowly digging a 12 inch deep trench for 2/3 of a mile. But within 30 minutes there were at least 30 people out there helping us. It was amazing.

People brought their own tools. They brought music. We were working together and moving fast. Later in the day, some guys went up to the shop and bought a couple cases of beer to donate to the cause. Another guy donated a half pound of ganja. Somebody walked over and slapped a cold Red Stripe in my hand. "Are you giving this to me?" I asked. What a difference. In the past, I've had to buy other people beer to motivate them to keep working. Now people were buying me beer.

I couldn't believe how much we got done. By the end of the weekend, we'd laid 1/3 of a mile of pipe - everything that we had. And it wasn't easy digging. The Cockpit Country is full of limestone and we were digging our trench is pure rock in most places, just chipping away piece-by-piece with a pick axe. Unfortunately, I miscalculated how many couplings we would need (as I said, I knew something would go wrong), so we had to leave the pipes in the trench until I could buy more couplings to join them together. Everyone assured me that they'd come out after work on Monday to help finish the work. I had my doubts.

The following day (Monday) I went down to Santa Cruz and found bought a bunch of 2 inch couplings. When I got back to Accompong it was raining hard. I was sure that no one would want to leave his or her house after the rain (as is Jamaican custom) especially to work. But I was wrong again. As soon as the rain stopped, we had a crowd of people out on the road. Most of them were just watching but we had enough help to do the job. Ninja, Ernel and I were fitting the couplings and then a group of young men came behind us and buried the pipes.

We ran into a problem at the intersection of Hill Top and Gypsum (pictured above). If you look at the picture, you can see the pipes in the trench along the side of the road. You can also see where we dug a trench across the road at the very bottom of the picture -the pipe has already been covered up though. Because the road is bending here and the intersection of the pipes is not at a right angle, it was a tricky junction. We decided that we needed to dig our trench wider so that the PVC pipe had more room to bend. I took up the pick axe and started hacking away at the side of the trench. After a few minutes, Ninja said, "boi, Jim, this looks weird. One white man working and so many black people watching." I looked up. It was true; there were about 20 Jamaicans watching me work. Then someone else chimed in, "yeah, this looks good. We've turned the table on the white man today." The whole group of people just exploded with laughter, myself included. It was funny, but it was more than that. I don't think there's any better way to get respect in rural Jamaica than to get down and dirty doing some hard work. Ninja was joking with me - "It's a good thing we have our CIA (that's what he calls me)," he said.

And I love working with Ninja. Honestly, putting in these pipes has been one of the most fun things I've done in Jamaica. It's challenging, physically and, at times, mentally. And it's what I thought I'd be doing when I agreed to do volunteer work in Jamaica for two years - helping poor people enhance their quality of life. But I was also working with people that I like. Ninja, especially, is a character. When we started working last weekend, Ninja said to me, "CIA, you know that I already have running water at my house, but I'm still going to help you with these pipes." I thanked him, but then I said, "Ninja, how do you have running water at your house, because you live next to me and I don't have running water, and the people on the other side of you don't have running water." He looked at me with a big grin and said, "Jim, I am Ninja." That was it.

Back to the project: Food for the Poor and the National Water Commission have reviewed our progress and approved the work we've done so far. So we've ordered our second shipment of PVC pipes. I had planned to go visit my old friends in St. Thomas, Jamaica this weekend (friends I made while I was in training) because I knew that we wouldn't have the pipes yet so I didn't think we'd be working this weekend. But the Maroons are anxious to get back to work, pipes or no pipes. So I'm in Accompong this weekend and we'll be back to work in the morning, digging trenches. And when the pipes come in next week we'll just drop them in place, connect them and bury them.

Everything is going so smoothly. It's a really nice way to end my time in Jamaica. I hope I didn't just jinx it.

Depending on how familiar you are with Jamaica, you may or may not know that it's one of the most violent countries in the world. The last time I checked, Jamaica had the third highest per capita murder rate in the world (behind Colombia and South Africa). And, while I don't feel endangered up here in Accompong, I am not completely sheltered from the culture of violence. I see it on the news, read about it in the paper and hear about it on the radio every day. Every once in a while, it hits a little closer to home. Remember Conroy from the story titled "Conroy's Girlfriend" back in March 2006? Well, he was shot and killed by the police last week. He was in Spanish Town, I think.

I've thought a lot about this culture of violence. For example, where does it come from? Some people blame crooked politicians like Edward Seaga who, I've heard, pumped guns into the garrisons of Kingston during the 1980's to gain political favor with the "dons." Others blame the drug trade between Jamaica, Colombia and Haiti - often the medium of exchange is guns for drugs. I'm no expert regarding the original cause of the problem, but I do have some observations about the current situation.

I've said before that Jamaica reminds me of the wild west - particularly the lawlessness. And many Jamaicans seem to take pride in the toughness of their motherland. I don't know how many times I've heard an angry Jamaican (either because I refused to give him money or buy something from him) say, "Hey white man, you think farrin' yuh deh? Mind I bomba clat shoot yuh!" Translation: Do you think you're in America? Watch out or I will shoot you. At first, that sounds like a serious threat. But, in Jamaica, you hear people talk like that all the time. It's a symptom of what I've starting thinking of as the Bad Man Culture.

For many Jamaicans, it's cool to be a bad man. Or, in other words, a gangster, a shotta, a thug, etc. Everybody wants to be somebody that nobody wants to mess with. Does that make sense? If you listen to dance hall music, you hear it all the time. I hear it from little kids (when I let my students draw during class, every single little boy - without exception - draws a gun). I hear it from my neighbors and friends: just this morning, I was walking down the street to buy some sugar. My good friend, Ninja, was standing in his yard with his 3-month-old son. He said to the baby, "you see that white man there? I want you to shoot him." Of course, he was just joking around, but to me that seems like a weird joke.

If you take this violent language at face value, it's disturbing. But it's rarely serious. Every day, the teenage boys in Accompong will joke around with me, "hey Jim, I'm gonna shoot you." Maybe because we were just playing around and I put one of them in a full nelson or maybe for no reason at all. The point is that mentality - guns, violence, gangsterism - is everywhere. But, what's more important to me, is that people think it's cool. And I think that is a very bad thing.

Let me stop here to say something. The Jamaica that I know is very different from Jamaica as Jamaicans know it. The other day I was in a hardware store in Santa Cruz. I started talking to a Jamaican guy who lives in America. He was telling me that he's building a house in Jamaica and he can't wait to move back permanently. He told me that he didn't like America (and I agreed that there were lots of reasons to prefer Jamaica to America - honestly, I agreed with him). Then he told me that America is more violent than Jamaica and more racist than Jamaica. I didn't want to argue with him, but my first reaction was total disagreement (though I kept it to myself) - I mean, the crime statistics don't like, right? I didn't take issue with the problem of racism in America, but this guy told me that there was absolutely no racism in Jamaica. Come on. I can't leave Accompong without being harassed about the color of my skin, and I've been exposed to some wealthy, light-skinned New Kingstonians that openly use racial slurs for their dark-skinned countrymen. But then I realized how my American (or maybe just non-Jamaican) perspective could taint my view of his country. And how his Jamaican (or maybe non-American) perspective could taint his view of my country. I thought, "maybe the violence wouldn't seem like such a problem to me if I was Jamaican and maybe the calls of 'hey white man' would seem harmless." Unfortunately, there's no way to know.

It may seem like I've been bad-mouthing Jamaica, but I love this country. I wish I could've seen Jamaica right after independence in the late 1960's and early 1970's. I bet it was incredible. It still is in many ways, but I think it's lost some of its luster - and it's losing more every year. I want Jamaica to get better, not worse. The problems are big and messy and inter-related. And I wouldn't want to get stuck with the job of fixing them, but I do know one thing for a fact: the Bad Man Culture has got to go.

Going East, originally uploaded by schleicher. Tony and I have been talking about "going east" for months now. By east, we mean Portland. For those of you that don't know, Portland is without a doubt the greatest parish in Jamaica. It's on the eastern shore and it gets a slow trickle of tourism because, in my opinion, there isn't a single decent road to get there. Other possibilities are: (a) its rough waves (due to its exposure to the eastern winds) and/or (b) it takes the brunt of any hurricane, which may discourage the construction of big, expensive hotels. Regardless, Portland is awesome. I've heard people say that it's what Negril used to be like when Negril was still cool. I don't know.

Portland has (1) beautiful beaches - Long Bay, Frenchman's Cove, etc. - (2) great food - Boston has unequivocally the best jerk pork and chicken on the island - and (3) a rainforest backing right up to the beach. So you can go play in the waves and then go swim in Reach Falls (pictured above) to wash off the saltwater before you go eat a fantastic dinner at the Boston Jerk Center. Truly amazing.

As much as I love Portland, I've only gotten to visit twice because it's so far away from me. The second time I went there, it took me twelve hours to get to Long Bay, Portland from Accompong (using public transportation). So Tony and I have been pining to "go east" for some time. But it's not an easy trip to make happen - time-wise and money-wise.

Tony has gone twice this year (escorting tourists), but both times I had obligations in Accompong that prevented me from going along. However, last Friday Tony and his friend Zippy (aka John) were going to Portland and I could not miss it. I figured it was my last chance before I left Jamaica.

We stopped Friday night in the Blue Mountains, where they grow that great Jamaican coffee, and stayed at a funky little place called Mount Edge. It's just a collection of little cabins and a big communal living room/kitchen perched on the side of the mountain. Very cool. We hung out on the back porch all evening, drinking rum, talking and trying not to kill this annoying French Rasta who seemed to be suffering some sort of an identity crisis. You see this all the time in Jamaica: young European Rastafarians. But this guy took it too far. He seemed to really believe that he was Jamaican - and we, of course, were not. He also kept dancing, laughing, and spinning around the living room whenever a Buju Banton song came on the radio. All in all, he was entertaining but a little over the top.

In the morning, we headed for Portland. It was a beautiful sunny day and we just bounced along the dusty Jamaican roads in Tony's rickety Mitsubishi diesel truck. We were listening to Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band as we wound our way through sugar cane valleys, up banana tree gullies and along rocky coastlines, stopping every twenty minutes for another cold beer. It was one of those days when I was able to completely appreciate how truly special it was - and I just basked in it.

When we got to Portalnd, we went straight for the beach. I probably walked down the coast for an hour and not one person hassled me (something that would never happen in Negril, MoBay or Ochi). We had our Boston jerk pork that night and took a swim at Reach Falls the next morning before heading home.

Having gone east, there aren't too many things left on my "Things To Do Before I Leave Jamaica" checklist...

bball court #2, originally uploaded by schleicher. It has been a real drama. I've been working on finishing the basketball court for several months now (the project was destroyed during Accompong's 6th of January celebration). I thought it was hopeless when I went to my boss in Kingston and told him what had happened - expecting to be chastised for my failure. Instead, he simply said, "well, we have to finish it. Write another proposal and we'll get you more money."

I went home and drew up a new plan. This time, I wouldn't rely on community members to volunteer the labor. I contracted the work out to a mason in town. He quoted me a price of US$650 and said that he would need 35 bags of cement and two truckloads of finely crushed limestone to finish the job. I wrote a budget and submitted it to my organization's "Small Project Assistance Committee" (of which I am a member) and it was approved. I couldn't believe it. I was actually going to finish the court.

But I dared not tell anyone. I didn't want to jinx it.

The check came in last week and I rushed down to Santa Cruz to order the materials so they would arrive before Easter. Then I could have the mason do the work over the Easter holiday (in Jamaica, spring break is centered around Easter). The crew started working on Monday, while I was out of town at a festival (doing some advertising for The Original Trails of the Maroons). Tuesday morning, I went to check on their progress. I was scared to do so - I just knew that something more was going to happen to prevent the completion of the project. Everything had been running so smoothly, too smoothly.

Sure enough, I arrived on the site and the mason told me that he had underpriced the job - he would need an additional J$10,000 to finish it. I just looked at him. I didn't have any more money to give him - the budget had been written and our funds had been dispersed. It was too late to make an adjustment. He also told me that he'd need more cement. "It's a lot bigger than I thought," he said. I just looked at him. I wasn't angry. I know this guy and he's an honest, hardworking person. He genuinely wanted to help me finish the court - he had seen me toiling away, alone, on the court many times as he came back from work in the afternoon. I know that he wanted to help me, but he's a working man and he's got mouths to feed.

I understood his situation. Everyone has underestimated the size of this court, including me. I just didn't have the means to pay him more or buy more cement, but, at the same time, we had to finish the court. I thought that if I avoided the conversation, he would finish the court and I would've successfully deferred the argument over money.

That didn't work. He had a crew of ten men and if we didn't give him the extra money then he wouldn't have any money left for himself. You see, the court was taking longer than expected, partially due to bad weather, and his labor costs were growing with each additional day. I told him to finish the court and I guaranteed him that I would get his money. "What about the cement?" he said. "Borrow it from someone," I told him. "I'll replace it. Just finish the court."

The next day (yesterday), I was up there working alongside his crew. I also roped another unwitting volunteer into spending his day doing hard manual labor with me and the Maroons, and I had the laptop bandit up there working off his debt. We were racing against time - and the weather - and our dwindling pile of cement (when it was all said and done I had to borrow an additional 21 bags of cement to finish the job). We worked well into the night. I even had to buy cigarettes and a case of Guinness to keep these guys working (they did over 12 hours of back-breaking labor for J$1,000...pretty amazing). And I had to give another Maroon 10 bucks to drive his car onto the field and give us some light. At times, I just stood and stared. There were so many variables to consider and, ultimately, I had little control over what would happen. The wheels were set in motion and the uncontrollables (i.e. the weather) were just that. Still, I couldn't help but stop and stare and think if there was anything more I could do to make sure we wouldn't fail again.

After 8 p.m., we finally finished. I still can't believe it. This court has been both my greatest accomplishment and my biggest failure in Jamaica. And it's almost over.

Why almost? Because although the court itself has been completed, there are still some debts to settle. Between the borrowed cement and the money I owe to the mason, I need US$375 to put this basketball court to rest.

seabald, originally uploaded by schleicher. Way back in November, the Original Trails of the Maroons was in the middle of training. We had First Aid/CPR certification from the Red Cross. We had a professor of Geology come and lecture on the importance and uniqueness of the Cockpit Country. We did a 5-day training workshop on working as a Tour Guide in the tourism industry in Jamaica. And we did a 3-day workshop of speleo techniques and safety, with the Jamaican Caves Organization.

The speleo workshop was by far our favorite. The instructors were fun and my guides were doing stuff in their own backyard that they'd never done before. They were all nervous about going into the caves - especially because most of the caves have water in them and none of my guides know how to swim (although the water is rarely deep enough to drown in). But the greatest thrill was on the last day, when three of the guys worked on their vertical techniques by descending into a nearby sinkhole that the Maroons call Seabald (one of our guides, Kenneel, is descending into Seabald in the picture above).

The pit is supposed to be around 350 feet deep (I think) but at 100 feet the repellers hit what they thought was the bottom. But, when they shined their light on the floor, they found that they were standing on a mound of dirty diapers. It apears that the pit has been clogged with trash - mainly diapers - that the Maroons have thrown in over the years. They all think of Seabald as a bottomless pit so they don't give much thought to throwing undesirable matter in there - I know that more than one dead dog found his or her final resting place in Seabald - and I don't blame them, except for the fact that sinkholes, like Seabald, feed the undergound water supply that filters down into the Black River and most of the South Coast's water supply. Gross, I know.

charlie and J, originally uploaded by schleicher. I have forgotten to mention that over the past few months, Briggy and I have been sharing our quaint cement house with two other yardies, Charlie and J.

Charlie came first, sometime in January. One day, he was just there - sleeping on the spare bed outside of my room - when I woke up in the morning. I introduced myself and went about my morning routine, but, after a week, I decided to ask Briggy what was going on. He explained how Charlie is "related" to him. Although they aren't family, Charlie is a good friend of Marlene's baby-father (and, hell, any friend of Marlene's baby-father is a friend of mine) and he's a cousin to another Maroon, who is also a good friend of mine. Briggy, true to form, continued to give me all the gossip on our new housemate.

Charlie, like Briggy, is an ex-con and - according to Briggy (and any information coming from a Maroon should be taken with a shaker of salt) - he took the blame for a crime he didn't commit, getting one of his friends (to remain nameless) off the hook. At first, I heard it was a murder charge (but I wondered what he was doing out of prison if that was true) then I heard that it was ganja-smuggling. And, in Accompong, who hasn't been in prison for ganja-smuggling? Seriously. By now, I've come to find out that almost all of my Jamaican friends have spent some time in prison, whether it be in Jamaica, England or the USA.

Briggy also told me that Charlie had been living in Salt Spring, a neighborhood in MoBay that has seen a lot of violence lately, and he wanted to get out of there while he was still free of bullet holes. Accompong is a good choice - the only time you'll hear gunshots up here is at a nine-night.

Charlie won me over pretty quickly. You see, our yard was very dirty. From what I can tell, before I moved in Briggy had a habit of just throwing garbage out the window and letting it fall where it may. So we had piles of trash all around the house. It bothered me, but I wasn't going to clean it up. Charlie cleaned the entire house and yard within his first week. My only complaint about Briggy had been that he's messy at times. Now we had Charlie to clean up after him.

Then, a month or so later, J showed up. It was around 11 pm and I was watching a movie when, all of a sudden, five guys came into the house. They were all carrying bags. They set them down and went back outside for more bags. Other than Charlie, I didn't recognize any of the guys. Finally, after they'd unloaded all of the bags, Charlie introduced me to his brother J. He didn't go into detail about what J was doing there and why he'd brought so much luggage, and I didn't ask.

The next day, Briggy asked me what was going on. "I don't know," I told him, "this is your house. Shouldn't you know?" He had no clue, but he speculated that J was not really Charlie's brother and was in some kind of trouble, running from either (a) the police, or (b) gun men. The thought hadn't occurred to me, although it should have - since I've lived here, I've noticed that people who get into trouble in the city come hide out in the country until their problems are forgotten or taken care of - and those rumors added a degree of mystery to this new kid J.

But it didn't take me long to realize that J was in no kind of trouble; he's just a harmless teenager. He's from the same neighborhood in MoBay (Salt Spring), where all the bodies are piling up, and he just needs a safe place to stay until he gets his Visa and joins the rest of his family in America - that's my version of the story based on conversations with J and my own observations. He's a nice kid. He brought a PlayStation 2 and he spends most of his time playing video games, sleeping and talking to the Maroon girls. I like him, except that he has a tendency to monopolize the TV (all day and all night). And, while I like to think that I'm good at sharing, I control the remote after 8 pm, damn it. To be fair to myself, I am the only one in the house that pays rent - everyone else is living free - and I don't think it's too much to ask that they defer to me for a couple hours every evening (although I do wonder if I'm being selfish). That one detail, along with J's tendency to drink my box milk, is the only downside to my newest housemate.

And the house is crowded. I have heard it referred to as a Jamaican frat house and sometimes it feels that way. Particularly during the 6th of January celebration, when I found three different Jamaican couples hooking up in my house: two on the couch, two in Briggy's bed, and two in my bed! On several occasions, I have hosted another volunteer from my organization and I take great pleasure in the looks on their faces when they walk into my house and find ten Jamaicans crowded into one room watching Passa Passa (the quasi-porn party videos). "Yes, the house is a bit crowded. But I like it that way."

Last summer, shortly after I returned from a trip to the USA, I was invited to attend one of the Maroon Council meetings - a regular occurrence during my first year in Accompong. I don't remember why the Colonel asked me to attend, but I do remember one thing about the meeting: a young man (a friend of mine) had approached the Colonel and requested one of the new computers in the community library, which has three computers that have been donated by various organizations. In exchange, he promised to replace the computer with one that he already had. He claimed the computer in the library wasn't working, so he was replacing a broken computer with a fixed one. I saw right through his scheme. The "broken" computer was fully functional except that no one had activated Microsoft Office so all Office programs were operating in "reduced functionality" mode. I had a new copy of Office XP that could fix that problem. In addition, the computer he proposed to put in place of the supposedly-broken one was a dinosaur (32 MB RAM). Clearly, not a fair trade. I also knew what he was up to. This young man had asked me to help him install a DVD burner on his computer a couple months earlier. When I saw his computer, I informed him that it couldn't handle a DVD burner. So he was trying to upgrade to a newer computer so he could install the DVD burner and start a bootleg-DVD business.

I spoke up. I told the council that (1) it wasn't a fair trade, and (2) I could fix the supposedly-broken computer. At that point, the young man went on a tirade. He asked me how in the world I could say it wasn't a fair trade, so I rattled off the specs of the two computers (256MB RAM v. 32MB RAM, 80GB Hard Drive v. less-than-1GB hard drive, etc.), knowing that no one in the room knew what I was talking about, but what else was I going to say? He wanted proof. Well, in retrospect, it wasn't a smart move. The young man proceeded to accuse me of "belikkling" him as a "farmer with his head down and his fork in the ground who doesn't know anything." I was visibly upset by the nasty turn the discussion had taken - I was just trying to present the facts. And I saw no reason why this young man should take a perfectly good computer into his home and out of the public library. It was the property of the community. The council voted to leave the computer in the library and the meeting was adjourned.

After the meeting, I sought out that young man and told him that I had nothing against him personally; I was just speaking the truth. I wanted to make amends, so I told him that a friend of mine was donating a laptop to the community and once I got it in the mail, he could be the first person to borrow it for personal use. The gesture seemed to pacify him.

Every week, he would ask me if I'd gotten the laptop. Unfortunately, it took longer than I expected and the young guy was getting frustrated with me - thinking I was just fooling around with him. But, finally, the laptop came and around mid-November I told him that he could borrow it for two weeks.

After two weeks, he didn't bring it back. That's just how things go in Accompong and people do not like to be pressured to return borrowed goods, so I didn't immediately pressure him about it. But, after four weeks, I mentioned to him that I'd promised someone else he could use the laptop and I would need it back soon. A couple more weeks passed. Still nothing.

I had to be careful. I needed to be forceful enough to let this guy know he needed to get me the laptop back but patient enough not to offend him. Weeks went by. Every time I saw him, I would make a gentle reminder that I still needed the laptop and he could respond by saying, "yeah man, you'll soon get it." But after a couple months, I decided that he wasn't taking me seriously and I needed to press him harder.

The next time I saw him, I made the same gentle reminder as I passed and he, as usual, just politely agreed. Then I stopped and told him that I was serious. I wanted it back now. That's when he told me that he no longer had it. He informed me that he had taken it to someone who said they could install his DVD burner (made for a PC, not a laptop) on it. Unfortunately, the laptop did not have sufficient memory to handle the burner (a fact I could've told him) and so he now owed the guy J$6,000 for a memory upgrade. The young man assured me that as soon as he got the money, he would get the laptop back.

I walked away in shock. How could he have done that? I didn't immediately let him know how I felt about what he'd done - I was caught off guard and still trying not to offend him. But the more I thought about it, the more it irritated me that he would take such liberties with something that wasn't his. The next day, I sought him out and told him that he needed to get the laptop back immediately - no waiting to save up the money - it wasn't his and he had no right to do what he did. I gave him two weeks.

Three weeks later, I approached him again. I asked if he'd gotten the laptop and he confessed that he'd made no progress. I decided it was time to stop being so nice. I told him that I considered him a friend and did not want to jeopardize that, but he was not taking me seriously. I told him that I wanted to settle this matter as friends, and I did not want it to get "nasty" or the police to get involved. He didn't say much.

Later that night, he showed up at my gate. When I came outside to greet him, he told me that he'd been pondering what I said earlier, "that I was going to call the police and I was a nasty man that he shouldn't mess with." I couldn't believe my ears. He had totally twisted my words. My overall message to him earlier had been "as a friend, let's settle this matter peaceably and not let it get nasty." I tried to reason with him but it was impossible. I had pressed him and, as a result, insulted him. Now I had to deal with the fury of his injured pride. As I turned to go inside, he yelled at my back, "for the record, you and I were never friends, because I would never be friends with a white man."

I decided that I had to talk to Colonel Peddie. I didn't want to go to the police but I was not going to let this young guy take advantage of me - I'd had enough of that since I moved to Accompong (see The Cement Bandits). The next morning, I went over to the Colonel's house and told him my side of the story; he agreed to talk to the young man. Later that day, he told me that the young man admitted that he was wrong but accused me of "stomping on his pride." The Colonel said that he just kept diverting their conversation back to the matter of his tarnished pride.

Still later that same day, I saw the young man again. I took a conciliatory tone with him, "look, I don't want any problems. I just want to get the laptop back. Why don't you give me the phone number of the guy who has it? I'll go settle your debt and give it back." He told me that he'd handle it and "You'll get it when you get it." That pissed me off. "No," I told him, "you don't tell me when I'll get it. It's not up to you." A crowd had gathered to hear our argument - this is exactly what I didn't want - so I gave up and walked away. Again, later that night, I found the young man waiting for me by my house. He walked over to me and whispered in my ear, "do you really think you can win me on my turf?" It was official, things had gotten nasty.

I was torn about what to do. The laptop wasn't really mine. It was for the community. But, on principle, I wanted to get it back from this young man. He's related to Colonel Peddie and he seems to think that, as a result, community property is his property. Stories of other missing community property (a donated digital camera and two sets of computer speakers) drifted in as more and more people found out about my problem. Every time I saw the young man, I couldn't stop myself from pressing him about the laptop. He seemed to enjoy the fact that I was powerless to get it back. And he was right. There was no way I was going to call the police: (1) they wouldn't do anything, and (2) causing such a stir could possibly jeopardize my ability to live in the community (maybe my agency would get nervous and make me move - I just didn't know, but I didn't want to take the chance).

The Colonel wasn't doing anything, so I decided to let people in the community know what was going on. They could pressure this young man to cooperate with me (at this point, I just wanted to know where it was, so I could go get it myself). The plan seemed to be working, except everyone in town wanted me to bypass the Colonel and go straight to the police (something I did not want to do, but I couldn't really explain that to them). Also, I continued to pressure the young man every time I saw him. However, he was on the defensive now - everyone in town was asking him why he wouldn't return the laptop - and he refused to talk to me, telling me to "go talk to Colonel Peddie, since you decided to bring him into this." But when I approached the Colonel, he had nothing to say on the matter. I was getting frustrated and, one day, I lost my cool. When I asked the young man if he'd gotten me the contact information of the person in possession of the laptop, he told me not to talk to him but to go find the Colonel. I stepped a little bit closer to him and said, "look here, motherf****r. You're going to talk to me." Not a smart move, I know. He got in my face and starting shouting (he was trembling with anger), he asked me if I thought he was afraid of me and he rambled on about how my being white was the root of the problem. Then he told me that I would be forced to leave Accompong before my time is up. I asked him how and he refused to tell me, then he asked me if I'd like to bet on it. I laughed him off (although I was concerned by the threat) and walked off.

I was mad at myself for losing my cool. I felt that I was in the right, but I wasn't proud of the way I acted. It bothered me so much that I decided to make an apology. That same night, I sought out this young man in the shop where he always hangs out (I once wrote about Rastafarian crackheads. Well, this young man is a regular in one of these crackshops. I've heard rumors that he's on drugs. I'm not sure that I believe it, but I do know that his Rasta mentor has filled his head with lots of racist conspiracies). I walked into the shop, which has never been an inviting place (actually, I'd never been in there) and walked up to the young man. I apologized to him for my indecent language and put my hand on his shoulder as a conciliatory gesture. He brushed off my hand, told me not to touch him and said that he did not accept my apology. I told him that was fine, I just needed to make the apology - he could take it or leave it. Then I addressed his threat. I told him that he had vaguely threatened me and I would have to take him seriously. Then he said that I had forced him to threaten me by insulting him and his plan to evict me was political - he planned to have the Maroon Council vote to kick me out of town. "Fine," I said, "if the Maroon Council wants me to leave, I will leave. In fact, if you can get a petition of 10 people in Accompong who want me to leave, I will leave." He told me that he was setting up a council meeting and we would discuss the matter there.

I should stop here to say that I have not told the full story. There are just too many details, but the important points are all here.

I immediately sought out the Colonel and told him to make sure this meeting took place. The following Saturday, it did. The meeting proceeded in typical Maroon fashion. There was an opening argument over who was actually on the council - who should and shouldn't be in attendance. Then the young man gave his testimony. He started off by saying that he never borrowed my laptop. I spoke up immediately. I wasn't going to allow him an outright lie. Everyone hushed me and he continued. It turns out that he was getting into an argument of semantics. He insisted that I "lent" him the laptop, he never "borrowed" it. He also insisted that I did so over a guilty conscience because I was wrong to prevent him from getting the computer in the library. He ultimately admitted that he was wrong to have work done on the laptop without my permission, but that the man he'd given the laptop to had disappeared with the laptop and his DVD burner. He then proceed to the matter of me calling him a "motherf****r." He told the council that I had "essentially told him that he has sex with his sick and dying mother." And, to top it all off, my ancestors were the ones that raped his ancestors' mothers, sisters and wives. I was totally stunned by this misdirected racial hatred. Luckily, the entire council jumped to my defence and told the young man that he is "essentially" an idiot.

Then came my turn. I didn't argue with his story very much, except to let the council know that he had not been as cooperative as he claimed. But, before I could finish, a group of Maroons came barreling into the meeting. They were incensed and demanded that the young man return my laptop immediately. We tried to tell them that he didn't have it, but they wouldn't listen. They started to make a move toward the young man. I stood up and barred the way. I had my hands on one of their chests and I could feel his heart pounding. I had to push him back toward the door and beg him to leave. Then their anger turned on the Colonel. They kept pointing at him, calling him a "loggerhead" for doing nothing to handle this matter before it got out of hand. The Colonel did not answer them.

Eventually, the meeting calmed down. Everyone agreed that the young man was at fault. Then they asked me how much the laptop was worth. I gave them a low-ball estimate of US$250. The young man said that he didn't have any money, plus he had a sick mother at home and several nieces and nephews that he looks after (all true). Everyone looked to me, "Jim, what do you propose?" I hadn't thought about a punishment (I had been nervous that the laptop bandit had some secret plan he was going to spring on me in the meeting; I never anticipated that we would get to the resolution stage). Then it came to me, "community service." I told the council that I had several projects underway and I could use help. If the young man would give me five days of labour on those projects then we would call it even. Everyone agreed and the meeting was adjourned.

I was so relieved to have the dispute behind me. I was also encouraged to see so many Maroons come to my defence - and so passionately - even though I disagreed with their methods. I still felt like this laptop bandit got off easy, and I wouldn't be surprised if he somehow ends up with the laptop. To be honest with you, I don't care. This whole conflict stopped being about the laptop a long time ago.

at the entrance, originally uploaded by schleicher. The Original Trails of the Maroons has been going strong the past few weeks. I think it's starting to create a little bit of buzz in the community. We've got brochures and t-shirts now - they look great - and we've taken some outsiders on trips into the bush, mostly friends of mine or random tourists that Tony brings home to Accompong.

So I wasn't surprised when some of the lcoal children told me they wanted to go into a cave. You might think that children in the Cockpit Country play in caves all the time - I mean, they are everywhere (both caves and children). But they don't. The Maroons, in general, seem to be afraid of the caves. Part of it stems from their fear of duppies and part of it from their fear of drowning (almost all of the caves have water in them), or that's my take on it.

I was excited to have some kids express interest in the caves. I personally think spelunking (despite the inherent dangers) is a great activity for kids. They love exploring, right? Well, this is the ultimate exploring. Plus they're small, which makes it easier for them. And it's a great learning opportunity. - I can teach them about geology, conservation and teamwork at the same time. Also, I've been planning on selling The Original Trails of the Maroons to youth-oriented groups (such as Scouts, which is like Boy Scouts in the USA). Taking some children out to a cave would be a good trial run.

When I committed to do the trip, all kinds of kids said they wanted to come along. I only have ten helmets, so the maximum I can handle is nine people in addition to myself. But I was concerned about managing even 9 kids safely. Luckily, when the time came, only four kids showed up - two of Marlene's kids (Adrine, far right, and Asmael, center-front), one of her nieces (Akelia, center-back), and one of their friends (Bethany, far left).

The trip was a total success (there are more pictures posted on my flickr.com site, the link is to the right). The kids had a lot of fun and did something totally new. I think they learned a little bit, too. They were scared at times, especially when the water got deep (and by deep, I mean waist-high), but it was great to see them conquer their fears.The entrance to the cave was down in the bottom of a gully right by the roadside . Once we descended - through a nice footpath that weaved through an orchard of banana trees - we waded through a thick meadow (full of grazing goats) before we reached the cave entrance, which took me a while to find because it was so bushed up. As we were leaving, the kids kept stopping to pick ticks off their bodies (I should have remembered: goats = ticks). I encouraged them to hurry up and get to the road, where we could pick off all the ticks at one time. I reached first and looked at my leg. I couldn't believe it. At first glance, I spotted well over 20 ticks in one spot. I wasn't wearing pants (big mistake) and my hairy legs make nice tick magnets. As I looked closer, I saw hundreds of tiny ones ("grass lice"). The kids soon followed and they squealed with laughter when they saw my infestation. I stood in the middle of the road and the four kids sat around my legs picking off ticks for half an hour like a pack of monkeys. We did a pretty good job, but I'm still itchy from some rogue grass lice that escaped our search.

My only complaint was that they dawdle, but I guess that's just what kids do. They had to stop and pick up every shiny rock and inspect every piece of fallen fruit on the way to and from the cave. It took an extra long time for us to make the journey. Eventually, I resorted to cutting a switch from a bush on the side of the road. Then I walked behind them like a shepherd, using the switch to keep them moving. I never actually hit them . The threat of the switch was enough to keep them moving. It was fun. They made a game out of it - running up ahead, dawdling until I got within a switch-length of them and then screaming/laughing/running up ahead again. We played all the way home.

the bigger heads, originally uploaded by schleicher. That's the term used for older people in the community. As people get older, then tend to get bigger. So old people are "big" people. Get it? For example, many Jamaicans think I'm over 30-years old just because I'm a large individual.

Anyways, one of the bigger heads in Accompong, Mr. Currie, approached me a few weeks ago and told me that he was interested in my trails project. He said that he heard about the trails we are using and he thinks we are doing it wrong. He offered to show me a trail from "Saucey" (currently the end of our best trail) to "Aberdeen" (a nearby community). My guides told me that no one knows that trail anymore and that it was destroyed by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a look. Although I was concerned about Mr. Currie. He's got to be at least 80-years old (he's one of the Colonel's best friends and confidants) and I wasn't sure he could manage the long journey.

Nevertheless, yesterday Mr. Currie and I met at my house at 8:30 am and headed for Saucey. Along the way, my friend Roadie joined us. Next Spicy and Bunny joined us - they are brothers and good friends of mine. The five of us (Currie, Roadie, Bunny, Spicy and Jim) stopped and bought some food and drinks for lunch. Then we hit the trail.

We were making great time; maybe Mr. Currie could handle it. The guys were telling me about the times when Ronald Reagan and Edward Seaga (Jamaican PM) were in power. The Maroons used to plant ganja way out in the bush and these bigger heads were regaling me with stories about running from helicopters while tear gas cans rained down on them from the sky. Sounded like some crazy times in Accompong. I was totally engrossed and thinking that the day was already a success, just for these stories. Then, WHAM! I walked right into a low-handing boulder. I knocked the top of my head pretty good, but didn't fall down. I reached up to feel the bump forming on my head-top (as Jamaicans call it), and when I pulled my hand away it was covered with blood. Then I felt some liquid running down my face. Awesome. The day just got better. Not only did I get to hear great stories, but now I had a minor wound to show for my troubles.

Shortly after I head-butted the boulder, we reached Saucey. I have been working out there with my guides, building benches and a lunch area, and we sat down to rest at the new lunch spot. We had picked up one more Maroon while hiking - all of a sudden a man named Ken had popped out of nowhere: "Hey, I hear you guys are going to Saucey. I have to come." It was funny to me. They were like a pack of boys (they'd all probably been friends since childhood) going to play in the woods.

As we sat around at Saucey, the guys started discussing which way to go from there (this is the point when the trail gets hard to follow). Mr. Currie wanted to go one way. Everyone else wanted to go another way. I felt torn. Mr. Currie is the one who offered to take me out, but he was badly outnumbered. Who to trust? I went over to Currie to try to quietly persuade him, so he could save face. He told me that the only reason the other guys wanted to go their way is so they could dig wild yam along the way. It certainly seemed plausible. I agreed to follow Currie.

But some of the guys wouldn't be persuaded. They were going to go their way, with us or without us. Then Avril showed up. Every time I go to Saucey I see Avril. He's always looking for wild goats. Apparently, there are goats roaming around the Cockpit Country. Avril tracks them, traps them and takes them home. I've never actually seen him with a goat, but he swears that he catches them. I asked Avril if Currie's trail was passable. He said yes and he is the authority on that area of the wilderness, so I felt comfortable as we left out of Saucey.

Not for long. We were traveling through thick bush. I was walking in the back because I was the only one without a machete so I let the others blaze the way. Plus, I felt a little jumpy walking between two men with machetes flailing. It was an accident waiting to happen. But there was no trail and the machetes were necessary. As we headed through an area called Long Pass in search of another place called Thatch Bottom, the terrain got increasingly difficult. We were climbing around on these big limestone rocks that were so sharp you could grab onto them in places. At times, we were skirting the edges of big sinkholes so deep that we couldn't see the bottom. It wasn't hard, but it was treacherous. I was getting worried about Currie. But I was the only one. The others were pissed that they'd agreed to follow him and they weren't interested in waiting for him. I didn't want to leave him, but I didn't want to get left either. It added another degree of stress to an already stressful situation.

As we moved on, it became increasingly obvious that Currie didn't know the way. None of the other guys knew where they were; they kept saying, "me no even know which part me deh. Bomba, raas claat Currie. Dirty, stinkin', thieving, bad-mind, frozey Currie! Currie f**k up the system!" I was both concerned and amused at the same time.

Then we decided to climb up the side of the gully so we could figure out where we were. It was almost straight up but there were plenty of handholds and we made our ascent with ease (except for Currie - by the way, he wouldn't let anyone assist him, so don't think poorly of me for not helping him). When we got to the top, we found a big clearing. In the distance, we could see a little smoke, as if from a smoldering fire. Roadie was sure that Bunny and Avril had set it (they had taken the other road). He wanted to head in that direction but I insisted that we wait on Currie. As we waited, the guys walked around digging up wild yam (Currie was right). And they continued to cuss the old man.

Finally, Currie reached. And he was in bad shape. I gave him some of my water, but there were only a few swallows left - it wasn't even noon yet and we were out of water! Then we walked in the direction of the smoke. Sure enough, we found a burnt field. Bunny and Avril had set an entire field on fire so that we might see the smoke. Were they really using smoke signals? Yes, they were. And it worked. As we stood in the charred pasture, Spicy shouted "Yo!" and Bunny, his brother, shouted back from somewhere. Minutes later, Bunny and Avril emerged from the woods. The group was back together again. And we had Avril, the goat-man, the bush-master. Yes.

He showed us where we needed to go as he pointed to the top of another hill. In between us and our destination was a deep gully. "How are we going to get over there?" I asked. "Go down and come back up," he said. Shit. It looked steep and far, but it was the only option. I stayed toward the front this time, with Roadie, Bunny and Spicy, while Avril and Ken stayed back with Currie. We made good time in the front. When we hit the top of the hill, we entered a field of ferns. But these weren’t' cute, soft ferns. They were big, tall, dry, tough ferns. They were much taller than us and too thick to just walk through. We had to hack our way through with machetes. It was some of the thickest stuff I've ever seen. I felt like a termite boring his way through a piece of wood.

Roadie, Bunny and Spicy were not going to stop and wait for Currie. They said that they knew where they were now and they were ready to get home. Currie shouted at them and told them they were going the wrong way, but they had no intentions of taking directions from Currie again. We just kept walking.

After about an hour, we came into a clearing. There were a few planks of lumber and a small camp set up underneath a rock outcropping. It was a lumber camp. As we walked around, we found hundreds of boards stacked up to dry. Good wood, too: cedar, sweetwood, breadfruit, etc. The guys got excited. "This is our wood," they proclaimed. "This is Maroon land. No one can come and cut down our trees. This is our wood." They started to pick up 10-foot planks of wood to carry home. One of them found a five-gallon jug of gas and picked it up. Were they really going to carry this stuff out? I was feeling tired and no one knew how far we were from home. I was impressed that these guys felt strong enough to add to their load. But then I started to think. What happens if the guys who cut these boards find us taking them away? I asked and was told, “they can't say anything to us. This is our land." While that may be true, I wasn't sure that the lumberjacks would be so easily persuaded. They had obviously put a lot of work into cutting those boards and I don't think they would be happy to see them walk away. I started to picture what would happen if they caught us. I assumed they would be carrying machetes just like us. If we stumbled onto the lumberjacks, it would like be a Kung Fu movie gone terribly wrong - Jamaican men fighting with machetes in the middle of the jungle. And some stupid white guy caught up in the middle of it.

But, as we started to leave camp, we realized that we didn't know where we were. There was a trail, but we were sure that it didn't lead toward Aberdeen, where we wanted to go. Most likely, it lead to Quick Step, which is far, way too far, from Accompong. The guys started to cut through the bush in the direction that they suspected Aberdeen to be. After several minutes of walking, I realized that no one really knew where they were going. Finally, I spoke up, "hold on, guys. It's after three and we're far from home. You don't know where you're going and we don't have flashlights. Why don't we take the trail because we're fairly certain where it leads and then we can call someone in Accompong to come pick us up." "Okay," they agreed. That was easy.

As we passed back through the lumber camp, they all set down their stolen treasures. I guess they decided that they were more tired than they thought. Then we headed for Quick Step.

It was far. Farther than I imagined it would be. We were walking fast. The trail was wide and well-kept. At times, we were almost jogging. But it still took two hours to get to Quick Step. I was terribly thirsty, but trying not to complain. Roadie and I found a lemon tree and sucked the juice out of a couple lemons to wet our throats. I'm not sure if it helped or hurt.

The trail was beautiful and it's definitely worth taking tourists on - if we can find a straight path from Accompong. We passed by cliff-side overlooks and through beautiful pastures. Finally, after 5 pm we hit Quick Step. At the first house, Roadie called to a young boy in the yard, "get us some water." The boy told us there was a standpipe down the road. "No," Roadie said, "I want ice water. Go get it now." The boy complied. But when I tried to drink my water, I was startled. My tongue felt swollen, and my throat felt like it was closing up. When I swallowed I felt an acute pain at the back of my throat. To be honest, I felt a bit panicked by the sensation. It was unusual and it didn't seem good. I tried to drink more water, hoping it would go away. It didn't. But, as I sat and waited for Currie, Avril and Ken, my throat slowly shrank back to normal. I am pretty sure that's the thirstiest I've ever been in my life.

I was lying under a banana tree, looking up at the blue sky. What a day! I had called my friend Tony and he was coming to get us. Soon, we'd be on the road and I'd be eating dinner at Marlene's (all I'd had to eat that day was a few slices of bread - I passed on the tinned beef the other guys ate for lunch). I started to feel anxiety about having to leave Jamaica one day. Do I really want to leave this? I love my life here. In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t' ask for more.

I told Tony how I was feeling on the way home. "I know what you mean," he said. “The last few weeks have been paradise.” Then one of the guys chimed up from the back, "So, Jim, when are you going to pay us?"

The eco-tourism proejct (The Original Trails of the Maroons) that I've been working on with some guys in Accompong now has an official website. Check it out at www.accompongtown.com/otm.

Also, Accompong has been in the news lately. Below are links to a couple articles in the foreign press.

The Guardian

LA Times

***Also, I've been taking a lot of pictures lately. Have a look by clicking on the "Pictures" link to the right.

A couple months ago, I was talking with someone about why I love Jamaica. But I couldn't find the words - I kept saying "raw" or "gritty" - then my friend said, "you know, sometimes it just feels like the Wild West." He was right on. Growing up, I always thought I was born two centuries too late, and I've always dreamed about what it would've been like to grow up in the age of explorers and pioneers.

Now, I'm not saying that living in Jamaica is equivalent to living in the Old West, but it's certainly more similar than anything I've experienced. And I love that about it. It's free. It's lawless. It's a little bit dangerous, but it's exciting. The main characters in my life are convicted felons, drug dealers, gangsters and small-scale farmers. It's not exactly what I was expecting when I signed up for this assigment (except for the farmers - though I didn't expect they'd be growing ganja). But I've come to love it.

And, in Accompong, I feel totally safe. In fact, I don't think I've ever felt any safer in my life. Every once in a while, it crosses my mind that one of our local crackheads or schizophrenics could sneak into my house late at night and beat me over the head with a stalk of sugar cane, but I don't think it's very likely. We have our share of gun-toting gangsters but they aren't threatening, they're my friends and neighbors. If you told me as a senior in high school what I'd be doing eight years later, I wouldn't have believed you. But here I am with Briggy and Marvin and company, having the time of my life. And, I have to admit, it feels pretty cool. Like living a dream.

But, every now and then, I get reminded that I am still a white boy from a safe and secure middle-class American family. And the Wild West is too much for me.

Several months ago, I was travelling home from Montego Bay. I was walking through downtown with my friend Nate. We were on the sidewalk of a main street - there were lots of pedestrians

and lots of cars. Typical downtown MoBay. As we crossed one of the side streets, a small sedan began to turn off of the main street onto the street I was crossing. I saw him coming and he saw me crossing the street. I was already more than halfway across the street and I did what any Jamaican would've done - I kept walking (at the same pace). Most Americans would've run to get out of the way, but people just don't do that in Jamaica. So I kept walking. And the car kept coming, slower and slower. But it never stopped. It kept coming until it was right on top of me. Then I stopped and turned toward the car just as it rolled into my legs.

I fell foward on the hood and broke the umbrella I was carrying (it was raining). I pushed myself up and looked into the window. It was so darkly tinted that all I could see was the glint of two Heineken bottles - one for the driver and one for the passenger - I knew that was a bad sign. I walked around to the side of the car and said something like "watch where you're going!" The car was motionless and I couldn't see anything through the windows.

I wasn't injured, so after I felt that I'd sufficiently chastised the driver, I turned and went on my way. Nate was still on the other side of the street (he hadn't begun to cross when I was hit by the car). Then, as I walked away, I heard the door open. Two "thuggy-thugs" (as they call them in Jamaica) emerged. They had corn-rowed hair, big Jackie-O-style sunglasses and Heinekens in hand. They looked angry and threw some cuss words my way. I just looked at them. I was not interested in escalating the situation, but I wasn't going to apologize either. Then the driver reached back into the car and grabbed something. I couldn't see what it was but Nate's body language told me that it was bad news. I walked around to get a glimpse of what he had in his hand, hoping to God that it wasn't a gun.

It wasn't. But it was a machete. He held it up in the air (ready to chop) and started walking toward me. Nate jumped in front of him and calmed him down (their ire was directed solely at me - luckiliy for Nate). The driver realized that he was in the middle of a crowded place and it probably wasn't too smart to chop a foreigner with a machete. He turned back and put down his weapon. Then he walked over to me, got in my face and asked me why I scratched his car. What?! Honestly, I don't remember what I said to him. It was neither apologetic nor antagonizing. I just wanted to get out of the situtation. I wasn't hurt. Yet. And I wanted to keep it that way - who knows how crazy these guys really were.

I just turned and walked away. Nate followed. And the two thuggy-thugs stood and watched us. I kept looking back over my shoulder until we were out of eyeshot. Then we got to our taxi stand, got into a car and got the hell out of dodge. As we rode off through the hills above MoBay, I thought about how much I love being near the wild, raw, grittiness of Jamaica. But I also realized that I only like the illusion of it. I like to pretend that I'm a part of it. But as soon as I get too close to the danger, I want to run home to safety. The Wild West is fun, but it's exhausting. You always have to watch your back; you can't trust people; you have to be prepared to defend yourself at all times. There's nothing like a little incident with a machete-wielding thug from MoBay to make you appreciate law and order.

I have spent a lot of time in the "back bush" the past few weeks. I am working with two groups: The Original Trails of the Maroons and The Accompong Craft Group. The former was my conception and was funded by the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica. The latter is a USAID project and I have just helped out whenever necessary. These two projects are the best things going on in Accompong right now.

A couple weeks ago, I went out in the bush with a couple of the guys from the craft group. We planned to leave at 5 a.m. and I was up and ready, waiting on my front porch, at that time. They didn't show up until 6:30, which was annoying. We hiked out into the woods for about 45 minutes before we reached the place where the good trees grow.

We had come to cut sticks (pronounced 'ticks), to build the workshop in which their crafts will be assembled, but when they say sticks, they mean small trees - 6-8 inches in diameter. What were they using to cut them? Machetes. I didn't have my own machete, because mine had been stolen several months ago (and I didn't mind - I am a little intimdiated using a machete in front of a Jamaican from the country, because they use them so skillfully; I'm convinced that if they had to perform surgery, a machete would be their surgical tool of choice). So Rocky and Edgie, my two friends, cut the sticks and I helped carry them out. We carried three sticks each. As I said, they were 6-8 inches in diameter (at the thickest) and about 15-20 feet long. Then Tryone and Edgie bundled the sticks together - 3 at a time - with vines they found nearby. I thought that was pretty cool.

Rocky found some tall grass and wrapped it into circular bundles that we used to pad the top of our heads. Then we picked up one end of our sticks and walked underneath them until our heads were roughly in the middle. Then we balanced the sticks on our heads. At first it wasn't bad. I mean, the sticks were heavy (I'm guessing about 80 lbs. per bundle) but the grass provided a good cushion.

Then we started the long walk home. Rocky and Edgie were joking around with me; they didn't think I could handle such hard work. I assured them that although I am white, I am not weak. But, after 20 minutes, I was completely soaking wet in my own saltwater and neither of them had broken a sweat. I felt like my neck was going to break. The more tired I got, the harder it was to keep the sticks balanced and when they would sway to one side I could hear my neck popping and cracking. I had to start rotating the bundle from the top of my head to my shoulder. I was determined not to stop and admit that I couldn't hang with Rocky and Edgie but it was getting increasingly difficult. Then we hit the road (prior to that, we'd been on trails). I told them that I could get my friend Tony to carry the sticks into town for us if we left them on the side of the road. They thought that sounded great, which was sweet relief to me. We walked home load-free.

Then, last week, I went out to work with the guides of The Original Trails of the Maroons. We are preparing several trails in the area so we can lead guided tours of the Cockpit Country. But, before we can take tourists out there, we need proper rest stops and lunch stops. So we've been clearing some land and building benches and tables out of sticks that we cut in the bush. Next, we going to cut down some big trees and cut planks for the seats of our benches. But last week, we were just building the frames at our lunch stop in a place called Saucey Bottom.

This time I had a machete and, although I knew no matter what I did the guys would tell me that I wasn't using it right, I had to try because the guys were just sitting around and someone needed to start working. So I went over and started whacking away at a small tree. To my surprise, it wasn't hard. After a few strokes, the tree fell down. I hauled it back to our site, only to be told that it wasn't the right kind of wood.

But the guys all started pitching in and before I knew it, we were done. We started a small fire and boiled yam and dasheen over it. We got fresh water from a nearby spring and sat in the shade as we ate our food and drank the cool water. It felt great. Working in the bush with the Maroons, cutting down trees with a machete, eating yam and dasheen, drinking spring water. Then we harvested some Strong Back, a local herb used widely in Jamaica, and packed it in a big burlap sack – that day, we had the idea to boil Strong Back tea for tourists after they eat lunch. We fashioned shoulder straps out of vines and our Rasta guide, Marshall, threw the sack on his back as we headed out of camp (I have a great picture and I will get it up as soon as possible). I think they sold the Strong Back to somebody when we got into town.

As we headed home, I thought about how much I enjoy this bush work. Of all the things I’ve done since I’ve come to Accompong, I don’t love anything like I love going out in the bush. And I wonder why I don’t do it more often.

A few weeks ago, I was riding up the hill to Accompong when my taxi came up on a big crowd of people. They stopped Jim, my taxi driver, and told him that someone had fallen out of a breadfruit tree and needed to go to the hospital. Guessing that I was the only person in the area with any sort of emergency medical training, I asked where he was. They pointed down a dirt trail and I took off.

But before I made it very far a cluster of people came running up the trail carrying the limp body of an old man. His head was bouncing up and down as they ran with him - one person had his right leg, another his left leg, another his right arm, and another his left arm, but no one was holding his head. I was mortified. If he had fallen out of a tree, he probably had a spinal injury and they needed to stabilize his back and neck. But these folks didn't know any better; they were just trying to help.

I rushed over and immediately stablized his head while we loaded him into the taxi. He was not conscious and I could not find a pulse, but I've never been good at finding a pulse so I was not ready to believe that he was dead. I pinched a big piece of flesh on his chest and twisted it hard to see if he'd respond. He barely moved. I saw his mouth grimace and his Adam's apple moved up and down as if he'd swallowed. I instructed his wife to keep his head and back immobilized, I shut the door and the car left.

Later that day, I heard that he died before he reached the hospital. To be honest, he may have been dead before he left. It was strange. I've never had such a close encounter with death and it felt surreal. I wasn't upset by it, but I kept trying to grasp the magnitude of the event. A life had ended, abruptly and unexpectedly. I thought about it for days but I couldn't form any sort of emotional response - the whole sequence of events seemed so far away and out of reach, as if I was watching them on TV or something. Very weird.

And this sort of death (falling from fruit trees) is very common in Jamaica. Since I've been here, I've heard of at least five people dying while climbing trees to pick fruit. Two guys died falling out of ackee trees, another out of a mango tree, one out of a june plum tree and then this old man fell out of a breadfruit tree. Then, just this past Monday my neighbor, Ninja, fell off the roof of a house he was working on (20 feet!) and almost broke his back. Miraculously, he's alright. But he'll be in bed for quite a while. And I think he's a little embarrassed about injuring his back - in Jamaica, it's widely known that a man cannot perform in the bedroom unless he has a strong back.

I find it interesting that so many people are falling from high places around here. I can only think of one similar incident in my 25 years (my uncle took a fall one time). Yet, I've heard of it happening at least five times in less than two years here. In a way, I feel like life in Jamaica is lived closer to the earth. In America, we have such a great buffer - be it technology, safety, or whatever - between us and our surroundings, such accidents are rare. Although everything in Jamaica seems to be a little more dangerous, it also seems to be a lot more natural. And I like that.

As I've thought about that old man's death, I decided that it wasn't such a sad thing, and maybe that's why I wasn't upset. He was old - he'd lived a long life. And he died a good, quick death, lying at the foot a breadfruit tree. I'd take that over months in a hospital bed any day.

Every year, Accompong hosts a big festival on this date. Over 10,000 people flood our sleepy little village for two days and leave in a wake of rubbish and partially-disassembled higglers huts. If you want to know more about the festival in general, read last year's entry, "The Accompong Festival." For now, I'm going to focus on three significant events related to the celebration.

1) On the morning of the 6th, everyone gathers under Kindah Tree. The Maroons kill a hog and cook it their own secret/special way (i.e. boiled pork, no salt or seasoning). Then, the elders in the community carry some pork and overproof rum down to the ancient burial grounds and perform some ritual while everyone else stays under the tree drumming, singing and dancing. It's by far the most interesting and culturally-infused event of the day. My highlight, for sure.

This year, there was a nice mix: Maroons, Jamaican visitors, foreign tourists and then your pan-African spiritualists dressed up in African garb and performing their own strange (to my Western eyes) spiritual rites. Everyone was enjoying the singing and getting along fine.

Then some pan-African guy started spinning around violently. He knocked a couple people over and just kept spinning until he finally ran into someone bigger than him and came to an abrupt stop. Then he started jumping up and down and ran up to the first white person he saw. He got in that guy's face and started screaming (I couldn't hear what he said). Then he ran over to another white guy (now it became obvious that he was targeting white people...it was no coincidence) and started screaming at him and pointing at the exit until the young man sheepishly left. Then a couple of this crazed man's friends came over and restrained him. They drug him away from the action and pinned him on the ground while they spit over-proof rum in his face and chanted something.

It was strange and irritating. That guy was not a Maroon. He was disrespectful and took everyone's attention away from the Maroon rituals, which everyone came to see, and put it on himself. That scene left a bitter taste in my mouth for hours.

2) Every year, there is a stage show on the night of the 6th. A couple of Maroons who currently live in Hartford, Connecticut and Toronto, Canada fund the show and make a little money off the ticket sales. Nobody minds because they all enjoy the show; I think, understandably, it gives the Maroons a sense of pride to have a big, fancy show in their own back yard. The last few years the star performer has been Beenie Man - a big hit.

Why is this relevant? Well, they always keep the show on the site of my unfinished basketball court, which was going to cause some serious logistical problems for them this year. When the two foreign-based Maroons arrived in Accompong over the holidays, they assured me that they would help me finish the court before the 6th so they could have their dance on it. I get the court finished, they get their dance - we all win. All the Maroons assured me that these guys mean business and if they say it will be done, it will be done. But after several failed attempts at community work days, the show's promoters told me that we'd have to put off finishing the court until after the 6th. I was not surprised.

Then, a couple days before the 6th they approached me and told me that they were going to spread my two truckloads of gravel and one truckload of sand (used to mix cement and worth a combined total of US$1,200) over the field to cover up the muddy ground, which had gotten muddier due to our construction efforts. I told them, "don't do that. Those materials are expensive and I don't have money to replace them. Why don't you buy marl for a fraction of the cost and spread it over the field?" They told me that they had no choice and they didn't have money for marl. Again, I begged them not to go forward with their plans. Then I called Colonel Peddie, told him what was happening and begged him to intervene. He did nothing. The next day, our building materials were scattered everywhere.

Yeah. I don't know what to say about this. I still don't know what I'm going to do, but the situation has gotten bad. Very bad. I'm just going to move on because thinking about it makes me angry.

3) The Colonel got beat up. That's right. After the 6th of January, everyone wanted to know how much money the town made. They were charging $500/person at the entrance to the community and thousands of people were there. The rumor is that they made $1.2 million, although that still sounds low to me. Anyways, everyone wanted the Colonel to call a meeting and let the town know what was going on.

He was dragging his feet, as usual. Fiscal transparency has been a problem with the Maroon Council for as long as I've been in the community. So one young man that was born in Accompong came into town and went to the Colonel's house. He demanded to see the "books." The Colonel refused to oblige him - I'm guessing this boiled down to a test of authority and the Colonel (although he probably would not argue that the people don't have a right to see the books) did not want to bow down to this young man. So the guy started to beat him up - hitting him repeatedly in the head, I'm told. The Colonel's wife heard a commotion and came running with an old machete. The story is that she chopped her husband's assailant three times in the neck, but it was so dull that she didn't break the skin. Apparently, she went back inside for her file (to sharpen the machete and return for blood), but by the time she came back, the young man was gone.

I did not believe this story, so I asked the Colonel. He verified it and told me that he'd reported it to the police, which is ironic as hell because the Maroons are supposed to live in a sovereign state but their own chief has been sent running to the cops in Maggotty for help. Wow.

Regarding matters #2 and #3, nothing has been resolved yet. I have some ideas about finishing the basketball court but nothing has come to fruition yet. Essentially, we (my boss in Kingston and I) have decided to try and finish the court DESPITE the community, rather than WITH the community. And I sense something of a stand-off approaching between Colonel Peddie and the discontented people in town. At times, they try to drag me into the middle of it but so far I have been able to remain neutral by always saying, "I don't mix up in Maroon business," which, of course, is a lie. That's all I do.

Traveling in Jamaica is an experience. At first, it's fun and exciting - maybe scary. But, after a while, it gets old: you're no longer scared by the crazy drivers, and the novelty of being squeezed between two fat ladies with a sharp object poking you in the back wears off. I think the St. Elizabeth-to-Kingston bus has to be one of the worst rides on the island (St. Elizabeth is my parish), only rivaled by Savanna-la-Mar-to-Kingston or MoBay-to-Kingston, neither of which have I experienced.

Lately, I've been traveling back and forth between Kingston a lot, so I've been reacquainted with the dreaded town bus (I had been holding up with the Maroons in Accompong for so long that I'd started to forget about the inconveniences of traveling via public transit in Jamaica). And the rides have been full of excitement

Episode 1: just last week, I got on the bus and unfortunately the only seats left were "jump seats," foldable chairs that are attached to the side of the permanent seats, they can be flipped up so people can pass by and then flipped down to sit on. In most cases, they are broken because the bus conductors (or "'ductors") always put two people in these flimsy chairs in order to make more money - their slogan is "five a row," even though the buses are only made to hold four a row. Anyways, I was sitting in one of those broken jump seats and I was already uncomfortable when the 'ductor brought a big 300-lb Jamaican woman to share the seat with me. I said, "I don't think so. I'll take a taxi to Mandeville and take a bus from there. Later." But, as I was leaving, a woman from Accompong grabbed my arm. She was sitting there with her 3-month-old baby and two sons (2 and 3 yrs. old). "You can sit here if you don't mind holding one of my sons in your lap," she said. "No problem."

I sat down, the bus quickly loaded and we were on the road (brief aside: there are pros and cons to sitting in those jump seats - pro: if you're in the jump seat, then the bus is almost loaded and you won't have to wait long until you leave; con: you are guaranteed to have an uncomfortable ride in the jump seat, whereas if you get on a bus that is NOT nearly full you can get a regular seat and ride in relative comfort, though you might have to wait 1-2 hours before you leave). About 2/3 of the way through the trip, the 'ductors collect the fare (I guess it's because people don't like to pay until they're pretty sure they will reach their destination and, yet, the 'ductors can't trust people to pay once they get off the bus). When the 'ductor came to me and my friend, we encountered a problem: he had agreed on a fare with her before I joined the mix (J$500 for her and her kids). Now that I was there, he wanted to charge her the same fare and charge me the standard J$320 for my seat. I told him that he should just charge us both J$320 because we were only taking up two seats. He wouldn't budge. I wanted to make a stand because he seemed to be taking advantage of a poor mother with three children, but I just complained for a minute and then handed over the money.

But my complaining echoed throughout the bus. Before you knew it, everyone was complaining about how uncomfortable their ride was and some were refusing to pay their full fare, paying J$300/each instead (remember that on a previous bus ride there was a machete fight because two guys wouldn't pay that last J$20). The bus was getting raucus and I was just laughing to myself about what I'd started - this 'ductor was a jerk and he deserved all the trouble he was getting.

All of a sudden, everyone got quiet, except for two voices. Two women in the back of the bus were arguing. Everyone turned around to watch (Jamaicans love to watch a good conflict). They were arguing over whether or not the window should be opened or closed. One woman was sitting next to the window and wanted it closed so that it wouldn't bother her hair. The other didn't have access to the window, but wanted it opened because she was hot. The next thing you know, they were fighting, pulling hair and screaming. I don't know how it was resolved but eventually they stopped and everybody went back to riding in relative silence, besides the blaring/crackling music playing out of broken speakers. I wondered to myself if that fight would've taken place if I hadn't started the complaining domino-train. Then I started to think about all of the violence in Jamaica and whether or not it's somehow related to all of the frustrations people put up with. Let me explain: you get off a hot, crowded bus and go to use the ATM, it doesn't work. You're walking to another ATM when you accidentally step in a puddle of water that looks like it's infected with dysentery. Then some jerk bumps into you a little too hard. That's it! You turn around and pick a fight. There's your violence.

Episode 2: yesterday I was on my way to Kingston, when the police stopped us outside of Spanish Town. They made everyone get off the bus so they could search us for "drugs and guns," as they said. Of course, no one was happy about this. And the police weren't exactly helping anyone's attitude - they were rude and unapologetic.

As I got off the bus, I walked away from the door and stood by the rear to make room for other people exiting. The police stopped me, "hey, tourist! Come back here." "Okay," I said, "I was just making room." "Give me your bag." "Okay." I wasn't happy about this. I'm not sure what the law is in Jamaica but I find it strange that the police can search you without probable cause - it's an invasion of privacy, in my very-American opinion. But I had nothing to hide so I just let him go through my things. Then, the head officer called me over. "I've already been searched," I told him. "I said, 'Come here!" he said. I walked over and stood in front of him. At this point, I realized that (1) he was trying to intimidate me - and I didn't want to give him that satisfaction, and (2) he wanted to find something wrong with me so he could extort money from me. But I was confidant that I'd done nothing wrong. This is how it went down:

Policeman (P): Where are you from?

Me: St. Elizabeth (obviously I'm not from there but I wanted to make a point that I'm not a tourist, as he called me.

P: You were born in Jamaica?

Me: No, but I've lived here long enough for you.

P: I'm not asking you as a friend, I'm asking you as a police officer. How many years have you lived here?

Me: Two.

P: Let me see some ID.

I handed over my government-issued ID, which has been damaged by water; my picture is very smudged.

P: I can't tell if this is you. [shows the ID to someone else] Can you tell if this is him? I need a proper ID.

Me: That's all I've got. I don't carry my passport everywhere.

P: Well, I need a proper ID.

Me: Well, that's all I've got. If you want to drive me home, I'll show you my passport.

P: I can drive you to my office in town and leave you there.

Me: Well, I am headed to Kingston. That's fine with me.

P: I need proper ID.

Me: Officer, is there a problem? What did I do?

P: Nothing, but as long as you're not the Ambassador I can ask you whatever I want.

Me: Well, then, go ahead.

He didn't say anything more, he just handed my ID back to me, and I walked away.

Now, the point of that little dialogue was to explain the distraction that I was unwittingly providing for some criminals on the bus. You see, the police found 4 lbs. of marijuana on the bus when they were searching it. Of course, no one would own up to it and no one was going to rat anyone else out - in Jamaica, they say "informer fi dead." You just don't rat people out. So the police tried to pin it on one Rasta man, which was hilarious. He got very upset and claimed that they were just accusing him because he's a Rasta (in fact, it wasn't his ganja). It was a funny scene.

The police took the bag of ganja and put it in the side of their motorcycle. Then the unfriendly conversation between me and the police began. And, while I was talking, the true owner of the ganja snuck over to the motorcycle and took the ganja out. Then he kicked the bag under the bus, walked around to the other side of the bus, picked up the bag and stuffed it under the driver's seat. No one noticed (at least, no police noticed). Eventually, the police finished hassling people and let us get back on the bus. These two young guys who had been riding in the back, stayed in the front, which I thought was strange (at this point, I didn't know what was going on). Then, after we'd been driving for a few minutes, one of the young guys said, "Driver, look under your seat." When the driver found the ganja he started cussing, "you bastards are going to get me locked up." He threw the bag back at the young guys, who threw it out the window underneath a mango tree on the side of the road. Five minutes later, we reached Spanish Town and they guys got off the bus, bragging about how they'd go back for their weed later that night.

Everyone was sure the police would come chasing after us once they found out the ganja was missing, but they never did. We rolled on into town without incident, and I had the lady next to me explain what had taken place (I had been distracted by the police while everything was going down). We all had a good laugh at Babylon's expense. And I lodged another crazy Jamaican story under my belt.

Last weekend I went to Rebel Salute, an annual Reggae music festival on the South Coast, near Treasure Beach. It's widely regarded as the best music festival in Jamaica, and the promoter, Tony Rebel, tries to stick to his Rasta roots - there isn't supposed to be any alcohol or meat (Rastas don't drink alcohol and they don't eat meat...or salt). In reality, you can find Guinness and Red Bull - which, I'm pretty sure, isn't Rasta kosher - and you can even find fish, the most politically correct of all meats.

Going into the show, I was nervous. It starts at 8 pm and doesn't end until 11 am the next morning. I wasn't sure if I had the energy to make it through a show like that. I've gotten used to living in Accompong, where there's no night life, and rarely staying up past midnight. Plus, I knew it would be crowded and that I would stick out like a big, fat, stupid, white guy in a sea of Jamaicans - a prime target for a pickpocket. But I had to see one of these "Stage Shows" (as they're called) before I left Jamaica, so I conned some of my friends into taking me with them. It wasn't easy - "money nah run," was their reply. So I offered to treat them (tickets, gas money, drinks, food, etc.) and they quickly acquiesced. I guess I didn't really talk them into taking me with them because they weren't going to go until I convinced them (that is an important distinction that I didn't realize until later).

We left Santa Cruz around 8 pm and didn't reach the show until 11 pm. My friends were complaining as we sat in traffic, but I didn't mind. Every minute I was sitting in the car was one more minute I wasn't standing up at the show. And the best acts don't come on until late anyway. Plus, the car ride was fun. My friends bought Rasta flags with pictures of artists superimposed over the Rasta colors (red, green and gold), and they were waiving them out the window, yelling "Lava Ground" (a famous song by I-Wayne) at every street vendor selling flags, drinks, or Roots Tonic (a typically homemade concoction that has all sorts of roots, barks and leaves from supposedly medicinal Jamaican plants). It was a riot.

After five minutes at the show, we knew we had made a good decision in making the journey. I turned around and saw the father (in my group there was a father, mother, daughter and family friend) with a big smile on his face. "We've got to come back next year, too," he said. That's when I realized what a treat this was for them. They'd never been before and they may never go back again (just like me). It was a special night.

I got to see most of my favorite Jamaican musicians - I-Wayne, Buju Banton, Fanton Mojo, Turbulence (for a minute), Richie Spice and Gregory Isaacs. The great thing about these Jamaican stage shows is that you get to sample so many different artists. There were over forty performers for the night and each one of them only gets a few minutes; the BIGGEST names might get a half hour. So they don't even play complete songs. They just jump from one song to the next, playing all of your favorite parts. It's sort of an ADD music experience, but it's exciting and completely different from the way American artists perform.

I was towards the front and when a big-name artist came on stage, the energy was intense. Everybody starting waving their Rasta flags and blowing on these plastic horns (like something you'd get on New Year's Eve in New York City) and jumping up and down. At first, it was hard for me to get into it (I'm not prone to jumping up and down with my cigarette lighter raised in the air). But I drank a Magnum, which is a tonic wine (supposedly enriched with vitamins that enhance your libido). It's the drink-of-choice for many Jamaican men - Briggy introduced me to it. It's super-sweet so you can't drink it too fast, which saves money, and it's strong so it gives you a buzz.

So I would drink a Magnum and jump up and down and pretend like I didn't look like an idiot until my buzz wore off. Then I'd start looking for another guy selling Magnum. I guess these guys snuck the booze into the venue somehow and they were sort of hard to find. Anyways, at one point I was scanning the crowd for a Magnum vendor when Buju Banton came on. He's one of the biggest artists in Jamaica right now and the crowd went nuts. Then he started to go on a rampage against homosexuals and the crowd got even crazier (that's always a crowd pleaser in Jamaica). The daughter in my group starting jumping up and down yelling "burn out deh backside to raas!" Which, loosely translated, means "curses on the behinds of those homosexuals!" And then I looked to the father, who looked at his daughter, gave her the thumbs up and said, "yes, my girl, I agree with you completely. Burn them." I know that this doesn't sound funny - the subject matter is certainly not humorous - but he said it in such a nice yet nerdy, old-man voice. And he was condoning hate crimes. It was too bizarre. I had to laugh.

The hours flew by, the sun came up and I was not the one that said, "I'm ready to go home," - that was one of my main objectives for the night: don't be the first one to "pop down" as the Jamaicans say. Then, when we got to the car, the father said, "well, Jim, are you ready to drive?" "Uh, well, you see, yeah, uh, I don't have my license." "It's ok." Shit. What was I going to do? I hadn't slept all night. I haven't driven a car in 18 months. I've never driven in Jamaica - never driven a right-hand drive vehicle, never driven on the left side of the road. But I couldn't say no. "Well, alright, if you're tired I'd be happy to drive home." I hopped in the driver's seat and we rolled out. Then we sat in traffic for an hour. No problem, I can handle this. As we slowly inched up toward the main road, I was feeling comfortable.

Then we pulled onto the main. And, when I say main, I mean a narrow two lane road that's full of pot holes, although that doesn't deter people from driving very fast. And we started going faster. And faster. And, if you've never driven a right-hand drive car, you have a tendency to drift to the left because your body naturally wants to ride on the left side of your lane (not the right). And, as I did that, I nailed a huge pot hole. Wham! "Shit!" Everybody screamed. "Sorry," I said, "I didn't see it." Then the father started yelling again, "Jim, Jim, Jim, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Then I saw it: another pot hole. But it was too late. Wham! "Jim pull over and let me drive." "ok."

The girls in the back said, "Jim, I thought you said you could drive?" "I did say I can drive. And I can drive. It's just, well, nevermind." I was so pissed off at myself (1) for looking like an idiot, and (2) for putting myself in a situation where, odds are, I would end up looking like an idiot. Looking back, it's pretty funny. A great ending to a very memorable night.

I promised my mother that I would not write about this story (it's certainly a return to the potty humor I've renounced), but I think it's important to tell the world about the term bullfrogging lest it never makes it into the dictionary, as it should. Bullfrogging was explained to me by my good friend Jon Ofner of Boone, North Carolina. It effectively describes the actions of a person suffering from severe gastro-intestinal problems: someone simultaneously vomiting and diarrhea-ing. It's nasty business. That's why it needs such a humorous term - when faced with something really discouraging, use humor to defuse the situation.

Why is this relevant? Well, I spent the night before Christmas Eve bullfrogging. In Jamaica, the big thing around Christmas time is Grand Market, the night before Christmas all the shops stay open late and vendors (or higglers) come and set up stands selling clothes, appliances, liquor, food, juice, ganja, everything. It's quite the event. And I missed it last year, so I was determined to see Grand Market this year, probably my last Christmas in Jamaica.

I made plans with Marvin and a group of our friends to charter a taxi to Grand Market in Maggotty, the nearest town of any consequence to Accompong. That night, I wasn't feeling well. As I waited for the taxi to arrive - and it was after 10 pm - I started feeling worse and worse so I went home and got in bed. I didn't want to be a pansy, so I told myself that if they came to get me then I would go with them. Otherwise, I would stay in bed for the night. Well, I had told Marvin that I had a case of Heineken to bring to the party, so he definitely did not forget me. And, around 12:30 am, I heard the taxi pull up in front of my house. We piled in - nine guys and one girl - and headed to Maggotty.

Now, I'm not prone to vomit. I don't think I've done it more than ten times in my life. But I know the pre-vomit feeling very well, and about half-way to Maggotty I felt it. I was in the middle of the backseat with people sitting on both sides of me. I didn't want to stop the car and make everyone wait while I tried (unsuccessfully) to throw up. But I didn't want to throw up in anyone's lap either. So I paid close attention to my body and waited until I thought regurgitation was inevitable, then I asked the driver to stop, I calmly exited the vehicle and then I puked violently. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand (gross, I know) and got back in the car. Everyone assumed I was drunk. I assured them that I wasn't but I don't think they believed me.

When we got to Maggotty, I made one loop around the party with Marvin and then went to find a sink to wash the vomit out of my nostrils (gross again, I know - this story is just gross in general, okay?). I went back to the taxi to sit down and rest (although I was feeling much better), but after a few minutes I started getting the shakes, even though I was sweating and running a fever. Sure enough, five minutes later I was puking out the side of the car. All of the Jamaican bystanders were making fun of me, "hey, whitey, you can't handle the Jamaican rum, man." Whatever. I didn't care; I felt like shit.

And that's how it went until 3:30 in the morning. I puked, I felt better, I felt shaky and feverish, I puked again, I felt better again...But, at 3:30, I felt something else. I felt my stomach start to grumble. And I would be damned if I was going to let myself get caught in Maggotty - a town without a clean restroom and definitely no toilet paper - with a bad case of diarrhea. So I called our driver and told him I'd give him whatever he needed to take me home NOW.

I just barely made it home - one of those photo finishes, you know. And then I went in search of something to refill my stomach. You see, I was pretty sure my drinking water had made me sick so I didn't want to drink it. But I had a headache from dehydration (my diagnosis) and I needed some fluids - maybe even some crackers or something. Of course, every shop was closed. I did try this one Rasta's shop (one of the crackheads) because he's usually up all night, but I couldn't raise him from his bed even though I was beating on his door with my fist. So I gave up and went home. I decided to check the fridge, just in case (I was sure it was empty). But I was wrong. I found a jug of Sorrel, a Jamaican drink that is like nothing in I've ever had. It's red in color, sweetened with sugar, and usually cured with ginger (or rum). There were only a couple of swallows in the bottom of the jug, but I was desperate. I hoisted it up and gulped down the sweet, red sorrel. Then I remembered two things: (1) this sorrel had not been sweetened yet (so it was very bitter), and (2) the ginger that had cured this entire gallon of sorrel was still in the bottom of the jug, (over)curing the last remaining gulps. The sorrel was so strong that it burned all the way down to my stomach and sent me running upstairs and back into the bathroom for another round of bullfrogging. When I was done, I had a good laugh. What an idiot.

Then I picked myself up and left the bathroom. As I was walking back into my bedroom to go to bed, I could see the sun coming up outside. What a terrible night! Then, I still can't believe this happened, I felt something running down my leg. No! I had just shit my pants. I probably shouldn't admit to it, but I don't care. I was sick. I had lost control of my bodily functions. And, as much as it sucked, I broke down laughing, soiled as I was, in the middle of my bedroom.

I cleaned myself up and went back to bed (leaving the laundry for later). The next day, Briggy noticed that something was wrong with me. He brought my soup in bed and cooked some dasheen and beans for me that night. I was very grateful. It's not nice being that sick, but it's appreciably worse when you're sick and alone. Briggy is a good man. Although I don't know if he would've been so inclined to help me if he knew I'd befouled myself like an infant the night before.

If you're going to lose your mind, I recommend doing it near to home. You're more familiar with the terrain and you have friends and family who can help you search for it. Relocating your brain takes a bit longer when you're in a strange land, as I’ve found out. Now, I didn't really lose my mind here in Accompong, er, I don't think I did. But I was as unhappy as I've ever been. I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning, and I definitely didn't want to leave my house to go face the world outside, with all of its troubles (for people who don't know me, this is very unusual behavior for me - I've never had a problem being happy). It was bad and I was starting to wonder if I could snap out of it - had something fundamentally changed inside my brain? Was I powerless to reverse it? I know this sounds dramatic, but I was damn confused.

I kept asking myself, "How is this happening to me?" I used to take such comfort in my mental and emotional health (that's one thing I’ve never had to worry about - I'm sane...enough). I kept repeating the words of The Sopranos' Christopher Moltisanti (when Tony Soprano asks him if he's ever considered seeing a "shrink"), "Hell, no. I'm no mental midget." I kept telling myself that, but I couldn't snap out of it. I was acting downright crazy. I don't really know how to convey this situation to people - I'm not sure that I want to - but when I look back over the past couple months, I feel like I'm watching someone else. And I wish it were a joke. But it's not.

As I tell this story, my mother is probably freaking out. There's nothing to worry about. Everything is cool again. Maybe my "I'm not a mental midget" mantra worked, I don't know. Probably not. Regardless, this story is in the past tense. I am only telling it now because it may explain why over the past months I've seemed indifferent, cynical, crude or worse. What was wrong with me? Well, to be honest, it wasn't any one thing. As I think about it now, though, there were three strands that made up the tangled web I found myself in.

Strand #1 has to do with a stressful situation that I got myself into. The details are personal and certainly not fodder for my blog - as you can imagine, lots of things never make it onto my blog. Arguably, the most interesting stories are left off. But I do require a certain degree of privacy. I mean, this is the internet! Anything I write here becomes immortal (see the Chris Foley scandal), so I have to use discretion. Anyway, the gist of my situation is that I got in the middle of a conflict between two people and I was very worried about it. I was never in danger of any kind,. but I hate conflict, especially nasty ones, and this one got ugly. Bottom line: I had a lot on my mind.

Strand #2 has to do with my overall approach to living in Jamaica. I remember going to visit my friend Nate in Treasure Beach just after I moved to Accompong. We were swimming in the ocean one afternoon and I started telling Nate about an idea I had. As we bobbed up and down in the waves, I told him that I wanted to have a Jamaican girlfriend and I wanted her to be completely different from me. I didn't want to meet an Uptown girl in Kingston, who was fully exposed to my culture and a natural friend. I wanted to meet someone with different values, education, upbringing, everything (someone with whom I had nothing in common). You've seen those Hollywood movies where two people fall in love even though they don't speak the same language - I suppose it's something fundamental to their humanity that binds them. That's what I was looking for.

Nate wasn't buying it. "Whatever, man. Good luck."

I haven't had good luck in my quest for border-shattering, culture-neutral love. But I have taken that attitude and applied it to my way of life in Jamaica. And that endeavor has been very interesting. You see, when I got here I met lots of interesting Americans and I could've easily formed a great network of friends across the island. We have lots in common. We could talk about fly-fishing, DH Lawrence and college football until dawn. But I had those friends at home. I wanted to experience a different life. As a middle-class white kid from America, I guess I have a chip on my shoulder about being privileged (I think it's mostly sub-conscious , but it's a powerful sentiment and I know I'm not the only one who has experienced it) and I wanted to transcend my roots - I could go on and on about this topic because I think it's fascinating but it would be a bit tangential to my story today.

I created a new identity, Jim, and I set him loose in Accompong. I left my life in America and I didn't try very hard to remember my American roots (I don't think that's going to make sense to anyone besides myself). Really, I was trying to live like a Maroon. I didn't want to have an extended vacation. I didn't want this to be a chapter of my life. I wanted to experience a completely new life. But there were some unexpected side effects. I was so hell-bent on experiencing a new life and expanding my mind that I started to forget how I used to be. What I used to like. What I used to talk about. And home started to feel very far away. In fact, when I tried to picture my life in America, I couldn't (really, I still can't). And, at the same time, I had to face the reality that Jim will never be a Maroon, a Jamaican, or a black man. I know that sounds silly - and I never consciously wished it - but I suppose that I was metaphorically longing to change skins. That left me feeling rootless in this world. What I have experienced in Accompong has been profound and I hate the idea of leaving, but I have to. At the same time, I don't know where I would be headed. I know this is whiny, existential bullshit and I usually don't have much tolerance for it, but I have been a bit confused about my place in the world lately.

Just as I was pondering such weighty matters, Strand #1 broke and unleashed a shit storm.

Strand #3 has to do with my work situation. I live in a very dysfunctional community. Unfortunately, it's my job to work with that same community. Due to the matters discussed above, I started to shut down - i.e. I was not getting much work done - and, when that happened, I got to see how things run when I'm not pushing, cajoling and begging them along. The answer: they don't run. And I was faced with the realization that when I leave, that's how things will go. I began to feel indifferent: if no one else cares, why should I? Blah, blah, blah. Basically, my personal life wasn't in order, so I wasn't able to handle problems at work. I'm sure that sounds familiar to some people out there. The problem is that when you're in the middle of a situation like that, it's hard to identify the root of your problem. And I tended to blame the people around me, such as the cement bandits, rather than myself, the overly-sensitive white boy who can't cope with life in rural Jamaica. Hence, my threat to leave the community. Luckily, Jamaicans are forgiving of such behavior. And I'm coping much better now. But I still stand by my advice: If you're going to lose your mind, try to do it close to home.

Come to think of it, maybe I won't stop writing. That'll make the second time in the past week that I've been the boy who cried wolf. My pride would have me stand by what I said, but sometimes it's best to admit that you're an idiot and keep on making mistakes like a champion. You see, a couple months ago I quite literally lost my mind and I've been operating on auto-pilot ever since. The person people have seen walking around Accompong and Kingston has not been Jim Schleicher. It hasn't even been Ryan Schleicher. I'm not sure who I've been, but I haven't been myself. But it appears that Santa Claus brought me my mind for Christmas. And I'm back.

But wait. I said I've cried wolf twice in the past week. When was the other time? Well, last week I had a really bad day, coming on the tail of two really bad months, and I lost it. Let me give you a recap:

There's a kid in town who is bad news - a few months ago he stabbed someone and ran off into the bush never to be seen again, or so I hoped. He returned a few weeks ago. Since he's been back, he has stolen from several houses in the community and there are rumors that he sexually assaulted a girl in town. No one had done anything about it, and it was making me worried because there's bad blood between this young man and I. Although I knew he wouldn't dare harm me physically, I was worried that he'd steal from me. And he was getting cocky. Every time I saw him he would flash his knife and 'skin his teeth' at me, showing me his nasty, rotting mouth. I started to put my neighbors on the alert: "watch this kid when he's around my house." And I told my roommates, "I just got some cash to purchase cement for the basketball court and I'm worried that this kid might break in and steal it. Watch him." That was a big mistake.

Several minutes after informing my roommates about the cash, I went down the road to buy something at the shop. When I came home, the house was empty and J$2,000 was missing. I was most unhappy but I had to accept some of the blame - I left the money unprotected and I told people it was there. I was pretty sure that the young criminal did not take it - he would've taken all my money, not just a portion of it. Regardless, I went to bed in a bad mood. What could I do? I had no proof, only suspicions.

The next day I woke up and made a fuss about the money with anyone unfortunate enough to run into me. This is the second time I've noticed money disappearing - both times it was just a couple bills, as if the thief thought it would go unnoticed. But, all in all, I've lived in Briggy's home without ever having to worry about the safety of my things. But that money was for the basketball court and it pissed me off (I did replace it out of my own funds). First, I let the Colonel know but I think he dozed off while I was telling him (I rarely see him these days. I have to hunt him down if I want to talk to him). And I told the Deputy Colonel, the Colonel's nemesis, but we was too busy picking tangerines to pay me any mind. The lack of regard for my situation was starting to bother me, so I decided to get on with my day to take my mind off it.

Next on the agenda: get back 10 bags of cement for the basketball court, which were borrowed (without asking) by Briggy's friends over three months ago. I have been patient in waiting for the return of my cement, but over the last month my inquiries have been more and more aggressive. As in "Stop telling me 'you'll get your cement, don't worry' and give me my god-damned cement right now! It's been three [bad word] months, and I want my [bad word] cement, right [bad word] now!" I said that last week and the response was, "you'll get your cement tomorrow." Did I? No.

So, as I was working alone on the basketball court that day, I stopped to call the man who is supposed to be responsible for my cement (even though he's not he one who used it - confusing, I know). "Hello," he said. "Where's my cement?" I answered. "I'm not the one who used it," he said and hung up. I called back. Another voice answered, "Why do you keep bothering this man about your cement? You better mind yourself, white man, or you might just get run out of Maroon-Town." That person hung up. I'm pretty sure my face was red, as it tends to get when I'm angry.

I walked down to the house where I could find the owners of the two voices that just hung up on me (a pet peeve of mine). As I walked down, I decided to approach them calmly. I told them that I don't care who used my cement or who has my cement - then I stopped to clarify that it's not even MY cement, it's the community's cement - I just want it returned. If they're not responsible for it, then they should tell me who I need to talk to. "Talk to [so-and-so]," they said. "What's his number?" "Go get it yourself." I did. When I called him, he said that he had already given someone the money to replace my cement (though he wouldn't say who) and then he said that the cement was no longer his problem. I went back to my friends with no phone etiquette and told them what I'd found out. There were three of them - Briggy being one of them - and they all pointed their finger at another, passing the buck in a perpetual circle. At that point, I gave up and walked away.

I felt like I was losing my mind. I'd been robbed the night before. Now, some Maroons had hijacked my cement (excuse me, the community's cement) and seemed to be enjoying the fact that I am powerless to get it back from them. And, to top it off, the Colonel (my boss, my partner, my supervisor) does not care at all. Really, no one seems to care. That's when I decided that I needed to leave. That's it. I was going to leave Accompong, permanently. At that moment, it seemed like I had no other choice. Leave town or be completely destroyed by the heartless, greedy, back-stabbing people around me.

That night, I had a meeting with the guides from The Original Trails of the Maroons. We took care of the meeting agenda and then I told them that I was leaving. They begged me to stay (these guys, I must say, are one of the only bright spots of the work I've done in Accompong). But I told them that I had made up my mind. I told them the whole story, as I've told it here today. They insisted that I wasn't going anywhere, which did mean a lot to me. Then, one of them saw that young criminal pass on the road. He dragged the young man into the meeting, stood him up in the center of the room and told him that if he ever even stopped in front of Jim's house again he was in for an ass-whippin'. The kid tried to defend himself, but the guys wouldn't let him talk. He tried to leave, but two guys, who had taken up 2x4's, barred his exit. It was intense and I think the young man got the message (the next day he stopped me on the road and apologized for anything he'd ever done to offend me, ever since he's been overly friendly to me).

I woke up in the morning and wished that I'd never said I was leaving. Although I also knew that Jamaicans are used to hyperbole and while some people might trouble me about crying wolf (and there is one young guy who won't stop asking me why I haven't left yet), most of them probably wouldn't even take notice. Just last night, the cement bandits approached me and promised to get me some cement this week...we'll see. No matter what, something cathartic happened that day - it was actually the same day I decided to stop writing on this blog - I broke down, I guess, and when I woke up, everything was back in order again.

I had intended to explain what really lead to the breakdown (the events of that day were just the "last straws"), but I got a little too involved in telling a different story.

Next time.

dusklight...

I have noticed a trend on this blog lately. It had been bothering me - I had even spoken about it with a friend of mine here in Jamaica. And then my mother mentioned that she noticed it too. That's when I knew it was time to "vámonos."

You see, the tone of the blog has taken on the sultry and carnal vibes of Jamaica. I'm not sure if it's a Caribbean thing or a Jamaica thing, but this place is raunchy. I think it has something to do with the weather. Honestly, I enjoyed it at first - it was so freeing. I never realized the depth of my Puritan roots (as an American...I was raised Catholic, not Puritan); we Americans are a very repressed people. But, over time, I have gotten tired of the same old subject matter. I've even worried out-loud to my friends here in Jamaica that when I go home I won't know how to talk to people that actually have interesting things to say.

Initially, this blog started out as a place for me to tell stories. I never really thought of it as a depiction of my life in Jamaica - there's lots of stuff I've left out, some of it boring, some of it too hot for TV. Regardless, I've always dreamed of being some sort of classic storyteller, in the tradition of Studs Terkel and his ilk. I've never thought of myself as a writer. And this blog was the perfect creative outlet for me.

And the stories have flowed. Or, did flow. Then, around September/October the stories stopped. My life here started to feel ordinary and I couldn't think of much that seemed worth saying. So what do people do when they're looking for a cheap laugh and they don't know where to turn. They go to the bathroom. That's right, potty humor. Or, in my case, sex humor. It's cheap, it's easy, and it's all around me. But it could paint a very inaccurate picture of me - especially for those who don't know me. The bottom line is that I've run out of material. I ran out a couple months ago and ever since this blog has been more of a pain-in-the-butt for me than an enjoyable weekly ritual (what it used to be).

So I'm going to lay it to rest and ride off into the friscalating dusklight.

Before I even begin, let me make some disclaimers: (1) although the details of this story may not seem believable, they are, in fact, completely true. I am telling this story in its entirety. (2) I am aware that I may unleash a barrage of crude and defaming comments from my wonderful, tasteful friends.

So, about a month ago I was over at a female friend's house. She lives across the road from Marlene and I'd developed a habit of carrying my dinner across the street and watching TV/Jamaica's nightly Quiz Show at her house. After the show was over, this friend of mine looked at me and said, "let me give you a hickey." "No." "Oh, come on. Please. Just let me give you a hickey. Don't be a coward." Now, I fully realized what was going on - it was clear that this woman liked me and wanted to put a mark on me to, in essence, claim me so that every other woman would know I was taken, which I wasn't. She was blatantly manipulating me.

I don't know if any other men have ever experienced something like this before, but I'm guessing they have. A woman may try to manipulate a man and, although the man fully realizes what she is doing, he may let her do it anyway. In this case, she made the act of giving me a hickey a question of my manhood. And, while I did not want to let her give me hickey on principle (I do not like to be manipulated), it really dug at me that she was labeling me a coward over such an inconsequential thing. Finally, I acquiesced. "Fine, do it."

Big mistake. She came over and put her mouth on my neck for a couple seconds and it was over. We didn't kiss or anything - it was completely unromantic. I promptly left. At first, it didn't look too bad and I was relieved. But when I woke up in the morning, the mark was unmistakable. "Damn it!" Everyone is going to know what this is - my kids at school, Ms. Nicey (the little old lady next door), any prospective females who I might actually be interested in, etc. I called the woman who gave me a hickey and let her know that I did not appreciate her mark on my neck. She told me to calm down and said that a hickey could be "brushed out." She asked me if I wanted her to dot it, but I didn't want to be associated with her any more - not with this purple blemish hovering over my collar bone.

I had never heard of brushing out a hickey, but I haven't had very many hickies in my lifetime - personally, I think they are weird and gross. I thought about it and decided that it was worth a try. So I took up my 'hard brush' that I use when I wash my clothes - it has very stiff bristles - and I started brushing my neck. Nothing. I took a deep breath and proceeded to brush my neck like I was trying to scrub paint off a wall for, I would guess, thirty seconds. It hurt.

When I pulled the brush away, my neck was bright red up-and-down. But you couldn't see the hickey. As I walked down the road, everyone commented on the redness of one side of my neck, but no one noticed the hickey. The lesser of two evils, I supposed.

The next morning I woke up and was horrified by what I saw in the mirror. The redness had disappeared but the hickey had turned into an enormous scab. It was unmistakably a hickey - the location is a dead giveaway. But who has ever seen a hickey that bleeds? Not me. As I walked down the street, everyone commented on my hickey ("Who bit you on your neck, Jim?") but I was able to play it off. I already had so many cuts on my body from exploring the surrounding jungle and nearby caves with the guides from The Original Trails of the Maroons that I just dismissed it as another cut from the bush. People seemed to buy it - I mean, who was ever seen a hickey that bad? But it is still a source of stress (it has yet to heal). And I feel like quite an idiot for believing that a hickey can be brushed out.

I swear, every December God flips a switch in Jamaica and the weather becomes perfect. I mean, it's so good that I just wake up, put on some reggae music (lately I've been listening to Glen Washington) and stare out across the forest of coconut, breadfruit and almond trees in the valley in front of my house as I drink my coffee and let the morning sun warm me as the "Christmas breeze" blows. It's hard to imagine leaving Jamaica at times like this - it doesn't matter how bad things are, you just feel good being alive. Now, isn't that a positive vibe?

I do have one minor health concern: about five weeks ago, a friend came to visit and we went exploring in a nearby cave. It was pretty rugged (we decided it was too rugged for The Original Trails of the Maroons to use as a tourist destination) but we had fun. I did, however, come back with lots of cuts and scrapes on my body - one on my leg, two on my foot, one on my ass and one on my neck. Now, five weeks later, they haven't healed. In fact, some of them have gotten worse. I'm not doctor, but who long is it supposed to take a cut to heal? This is cutting at my masculine pride - don't most men want to heal like the great alpha male Wolverine in just a matter of minutes, maybe even before the blood has dried. A couple weeks ago I bought some hydrogen peroxide and I've been making an effort to keep my wounds clean, but it's hard. Now I know why all of my Jamaican friends are scarred up (besides the occasional domestic, uh, confrontation involving a kitchen knife). It's hard to keep your wounds clean when you live in the country.

I think some people have been having some problems accessing my blog lately. There are rumors that "the man" is after me (whoever that person is...I don't know). If these problems persist, we will change cyber venues. Email me at ryan_schleicher@hotmail.com (and identify yourself - just in case the man thinks he can outsmart me) and I will email you the new web address - that is, only if these problems continue.