You Look Mahvelous...

For Jamaicans, Sunday is a special day of the week. They fully embrace the practice of putting on their Sunday best and ride the wave of a beautiful appearance as long as they can into the day. Yesterday being the Lord’s Day and all, many of the locals came to 9:00 am Mass and the first thing that struck me was how community oriented their experience is. Everybody knows each other because they see each other on a very regular basis. They live around each other, know everything about each other’s lives, have helped raise each other’s kids – they have many of the traits that have quickly diminished in the individualized, have-it-your-way iPod life of the North. It was strange for me to see all of these people arrive early just to socialize some more before Mass began.

The next element that took me by surprise was their participation in Mass. It is almost safe for me to say that I have not seen that much energy in a Catholic Mass in my life. And to boot, there was yet another power outage just before Mass began so the keyboard they typically use for music was useless. The problem was promptly solved as one of the priests, Fr. Samuel, took out his viola and began to play. Combine that with someone playing a conga drum, someone else on a tambourine and an involved congregation, and the music portion of the morning was soaring. I was impressed.

And finally there was little to do. Since school is out for the Christmas holiday, there was no planning for the week and the morning proceedings were over. All we were left with was a sunny Jamaican day. Where else to head but the beach? As I’ve mentioned before, I am in close proximity to the South coast of the island and a short drive down a steep and winding mountain road will land you at a small man made beach; a byproduct of a bauxite mining company’s installation of a shipping facility to help with their exports.

A quick note about bauxite mining: Bauxite is one of the main ores that comprise aluminum. There is a large deposit of it here on the island so the mining industry is quite prevalent and from what I can tell, the ecological impact of the industry is a hot topic of debate. Back to the beach.

Me and some of the folks I’ve been staying with headed down to this man made playground and it occurred to me that if anyone had told me at the beginning of this year that I would be spending a portion of the Christmas season body surfing in the Caribbean Sea, I would not have totally dismissed the idea but I would have thought it highly unlikely. Yet I found myself in just such a scenario on this beautiful Sunday of December and as I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m somewhat of a sun worshiper so this opportunity to bring some much needed UV rays to my otherwise pale skin was most welcome.

I spent a good chunk of today (Monday) correcting English exams and since it was yet another cloudless day here, what better way to tackle such a task than in the sun? Something that has surprised me about locals is their surprise when it comes to my desire to bask in the presence of the fiery center of the universe. I get the obvious concern about someone like me getting sunburn and I’m careful to put on some sunscreen (SPF 2) and not stay out too long, but the fact that I desire to be in the sun and enjoy it seems to catch them off guard. I assume it’s because they live here year round and experience some extremely caustic heat which leaves them with a reflex of seeking cooler, more shaded environs. I tried to explain to them the high value Caucasians place on a well-earned tan but they looked at me with the same confused stare I get whenever I drop the word “wicked,” as any self respecting New Englander would.

Correcting these English exams has helped to pull into sharper focus just how much of a task teachers have here. Without getting into too many specifics for fear of any breech in confidentiality, one student answered a question by quoting a song from the 1980’s which was older than she is. Shortly thereafter, however, I came across an exam which was written with such a firm grasp of the English language and the material, I almost did not want to continue on because I knew that was to be the high water mark of them all. I wish I could have saved it for last and ended on such a great note but as things stood, the most mileage I could get out of it was to use it as a sort of answer key for the rest of them. As I said to the priest whom I was helping, “It’s like you have Good Will Hunting here. This child is a genius.”

In the time I have been here I have come to understand the almost impossible odds children face in becoming educated and the similarly daunting odds this small but determined society of priests faces in keeping this ship afloat. Through the goodness of God and the benevolence of others, they manage to take in a decent number of scholarships which they award to local students who otherwise cannot afford to attend this high school; sometimes bartering can be involved and some students are sponsored by folks in far off lands. And as though money weren’t a big enough obstacle, some of these students face the equally difficult hurdle of distance.

Most students walk to the school while others are fortunate to have rides that drop them off and pick them up. Others, however, are at a real loss to get here and so it is not uncommon for the priests to step in and make arrangements with people in the community to house someone else’s child in the hopes of giving said child a shot at something better. Being so steeped in poverty, folks in this part of the world understand the importance of educating their children and also pin a great deal of hope on the idea that one of these kids may be one who rises through the ranks, finds success and comes back to help improve the local community, if not help turn the entire country around.

“There is a common idea in Jamaica,” Monsignor Mike told me. “No child goes without a home here.” If a random child were found in a community, it would not be strange for an elder to take that child in and raise it as his or her own. In a small way it’s a throwback to the whole “It takes a village to raise a child” mantra; which I am told was exactly how life used to be before outside influences started to really take hold of the culture. It still exists but it’s more of a watered down version.