Saturday
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 03/Oct/2010 12:19, 34 days ago
Saturday was an interesting day. I woke up in tears, depressed from being shut in by all the heavy rain for a solid week and restricted by my healing broken shoulder plus we had to stay in Kingston for the weekend because we wanted to go to a funeral for the mum one of the CUSO-VSO employees. It was easy to set me off in tears that day and what better place for tears than at a funeral but I didn't realize the cause of my tears until much later, I thought it was something else and so now regret some of my words over the course of the yesterday. As a result of my actions, I should really be more depressed today but in fact I feel much better. The sun actually shone today.The funeral was interesting. I didn't take any photograhs because I wasn't in the mood, but they had designated photographers and even a professional videotaping the entire service so no one would have been offended had I done so. The church was huge and beautiful inside. They handed out a 12 page service booklet in colour with a full page colour photo of the deceased on the front cover and a full colour page of family photographs on the centrefold. Everyone was given a plasticized bookmark and close family members were issued 3" pins or buttons. It was simply beautiful. The clothes of the attendees of course fascinated me as well, especially the men's fashions. A young man sitting close to us was wearing white pants and a white shirt with black trendy print. Then he had his thin black tie draped around his neck hanging loose like a silk scarf. So cool.Afterwards all but two of the volunteers went over to the National Heroes Park which is just across the street from the church. Jacquie had to leave because she was house sitting and had animals to look after so she took Abdi home. We've all been quite worried about Abdi after he was attacked on Wednesday night and robbed by two youths. Everyone is being much more cautious about walking about by themselves, especially in dark areas after night fall. Those of us who have been around longer provided our newer colleagues with our favourite taxi drivers' phone numbers.National Heroes Park has about 10 unique modern memorial structures dedicated to each national hero. Above is the memorial for Paul Bogle and George Williams Gordon.When we passed the two ceremonial guards of honour in front of the War Memorial. I asked the guard on the right if he minded if we took his picture and he shook his head ever so slightly to indicate no, go right ahead. We wondered how long they had to stand there in this heat. We never did find out the answer but we did happen to be there just as they performed their changing of the guard ritual. So that was fun and worth the few moments to watch the performance.Below is the only childrens playground I have seen in Jamaica, it just so happens to be right next to National Heroes Park.But one of the conversations while entering the church at the fneral was catching up with each other and finding out who had been flooded or had no power over the course of the week's heavy rains. Some were without electricity but none of us had water from time to time and of course the roads were flooded. We laughed as we thought about the situation in Jamaica. The basic services are poor, but we have had 4G mobile phone service at a reasonable price for 2 months now. We hear it isn't available in Canada yet. Yes, George is right, he calls Jamaica "third world light".