Messages
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 14/Nov/2010 09:38, 34 days ago
Every once in awhile we all have bad days. Yesterday was one of them for us. My old camera lens had broken and couldn't be repaired in Jamaica but I was told where to buy a new one so on the spur of the moment we rented a car for the day and headed out to MoBay to replace my lens.As we drove towards Spanish Town we noticed some graffiti on the wall which we knew was directed at Toronto - there is no Jane and Finch here. We found the message quite interesting.Then after we purchased the new lens I was testing it out in the shopping plaza parking lot. Our car was facing a Jamaican souvenir shop and I noticed this t-shirt which made me laugh. That is so true. Not too long ago we were sitting in a restaurant on the beach in Negril and I was quite conscious of the fact we were wearing bathing suits and had bare feet sitting at a fancy dinner table with white table cloths and napkins. No shoes, no shirt ... no problem here.But that was my last laugh for the day. With my new lens on my camera we headed home and decided to stop by a beach for a quick swim and I wanted to give my lens a further test drive. We noticed a beach and turned off onto the side road but soon found the beach was ungroomed and therefore too dirty for swimming with all the debris washed ashore.But we kept driving along the side road to see what was there. We noticed some interesting rastas, one in particular stood out - he was dressed all in white linen from head to toe - so pure. He had a beautiful white linen hat over his locks, a matching shirt which came down almost to his knees and to finish it off he wore white linen loose fitting pants. He looked stunning so we circled around wondering if it was possible to get a photo. In the end we chickened out and decided to stop at the restaurant where they were standing next to their car and get a drink of Pepsi. There were 4 of them, two dressed all in white, the other two with the traditional red, green, black and yellow knitted hats over their locks. We parked in front of them. While we were getting ready to leave (we only drank half our Pepsis) the rastas got in their car, and the two in the front seat wearing the Ethiopian colours laughed and said something to me which I couldn't understand while George was off paying our bill, then they drove off.Oh how I wish I had a smaller camera so that I could have discretely taken their photo while they stood next to their car, exposing their licence plate. When we got to our car we discovered they had broken into our rental car and stolen everything inside. But don't worry too much, the worst damage was to the rental car - they broke the back window and they did chose the smallest one. At the end of the day we only lost $1,200 Jamaican, George's hat, my sun glasses and the broken camera lens which we had put in the new box after inserting the replacement lens on my camera. They neatly abandoned all the stuff they didn't want down the road so we were able to retrieve our clothes and my handbag with my wallet, credit card and ID before heading home.So, it was a sad day. I spent good money on a lens which is not much better than the one I have. Something I didn't fully understand until I got it outside and started shooting, plus we were robbed. Even though we weren't hurt and what they got was insignificant, it is still unsettling, especially given the fact they were rastas. They lesssened my faith in rastafari, but only slightly - they were just one - rastas are normally so peaceful and kind.But it wasn't all disappointing. We asked the police officer who took our report to recommend a restaurant where we could eat and keep an eye on our car at the same time. She recommended The Ruins in Ocho Rios. What an amazing find that was. While we were ordering our take-out we discovered their main restaurant next door which was set in front of the most amazing waterfall I've ever seen. It was too big for my lens at night so I asked a waiter if they had a postcard so he gave me their brochure. The waterfall is obviously too big for professional cameras as well. They couldn't do it justice either but we'll be back to try photographing it again in daylight on another day.