Nature, It's All Around Me...

That title is the opening to a song by The Samples. If you don’t know it, do yourself a favor and find a copy. You’ll thank me.

In one of my posts from my first trip I mentioned how the priests here have a set of prayers they do in the morning followed by Mass. It’s really quite beautiful and serene sitting in a church just before the sun comes up right over a point where the Santa Cruz Mountains meet the Caribbean Sea. Palm trees rustle outside the church as breezes find their way through the windows and brush away stress and fatigue only to replace them with a deep calm.

And I get to start every day like that!

On the weekend, things get pushed back an hour in favor of a little more sleep and I saw this as a great opportunity to fully catch and photograph a sunrise before prayers and Mass on Saturday morning. Those of you who know me well know that I can wake up early when I have to. 5:30am was not foreign territory in my days at LandAmerica but left to my own devices, 8:00am would be rise and shine time for everyone. My alarm kicked in and I grumbled out of bed wondering, “Is a sunrise really worth it? There will be another one tomorrow, right? Besides, I’m here for a few months. I’ll catch it later.”

During the night one of the German Shepherds that guard this compound had conveniently placed himself outside my window and at the moment I was getting ready to fall back into bed, he saw a bird roaming the grounds and launched into a barking fit and chased after it like a Greyhound at the track. This startled me out of my grogginess so I proceed to slap on a pair of pants and my sandals, gathered my camera and set off for a field I have recently discovered which gives me an incredible view of the sea and the mountains. The road leading to said field is partly paved, partly gravel and partly dirt but worst of all, it is very hilly; something I (and my leg muscles) have grown unaccustomed to in Chicago. My destination finally reached, I started snapping.

Aside from some of the views, I took note of how quickly the temperature changed during this outing. When I walked out of my trailer (yes, you read that correctly: trailer) it could not have been more than 68 degrees. By the time the sun was peeking through some clouds and shining over the top of the mountain, things had easily gone up ten degrees and by the time I started to head back to the compound, it was near 80 – and it wasn’t even 8:00am yet. Ultimately it reached 93 degrees that day; kind of odd for this time of year.

On the complete opposite side of the coin is the beauty of a night sky in these parts. Lights are confined to those in houses and street lights are rare so gazing up at a plethora of constellations usually results in me laughing in disbelief that something this beautiful exists. Over the weekend I had an opportunity to travel to Mandeville, the nearest big city, to watch the Super Bowl. Hell, if troops can watch the game at 2:00am in Baghdad I should be able to catch the game here, right? Thank goodness for CBS Caribbean.

As soon as the Colts had secured victory (my condolences to Chicago fans) we decided to start the trek back. The overall distance is a mere 25 miles but to travel it takes 45 minutes if not a little more. The roads are not wide, they’re in terrible condition and a good portion of the trip consists of switchbacks on the western side of the mountains. In short, it’s not really a quick drive. But this time was probably the most exciting it has ever been because I had the opportunity to experience it while riding in the back of a pick up truck. Typically something like this is sort of commonplace. Who among us hasn’t ridden in the back of a truck even if just down the street? What made this trip so memorable was being able to take in the night sky I just described for 45 minutes. To boot, the full moon was only a day old so it was up there shining like a spotlight and bathing the Jamaican mountains and countryside in a cool shade of blue.

For all the poverty and somewhat harsh conditions in the undeveloped areas of the island, Jamaica really is a beautiful place and it makes sense why their pledge and national song talk about the island’s beauty and their promise to increase it. Locals refer to remote areas of the island as “de bush” and even more remote areas like Bull Savannah are called “backabush.” I have been fortunate to see areas like Montego Bay, Negril, Ocho Rios and Kingston as well as “backabush” and the latter is leagues more beautiful than the former because it remains untouched. A lack of modern facilities, especially hospitals, makes it nearly impossible for a resort to open down here and it’s sort of a catch 22 for locals. They want modern resources for themselves but realize the moment those resources arrive, it’s open season on their untouched countryside which would bring on a downward spiral of crime, poverty and spoiled environment similar to that found in the fore mentioned cities. But without those resources, it remains difficult to break the cycles of what plagues them: poverty and a wide spread lack of good education.

Mother Nature also popped up this weekend in a way I never would have expected. We had an earthquake. Its epicenter was about 75 miles to the Northwest of the island and had registered 6.2 on the Richter scale. It shook us pretty good; one of my fellow volunteers was napping and when the rumbling woke him up he was at first convinced somebody was under the bed shaking it and having a laugh at his expense. A few items fell from shelves and other items were moved from their usual resting spots. No major damage took place which is a blessing. More than 90 percent of the buildings in Jamaica are made of concrete, mainly because it is what stands up best to hurricanes. I have no idea how they hold up in an earthquake or what kind of havoc would come about if they came crumbling down and I’d rather find the answer via Google than firsthand.

And that’s your nature report for this week, folks. No massive insights, no learning, no new perspectives. Just sheer enjoyment of backabush Jamaica. Now if you’ll excuse me, there are some thick rain clouds coming over the mountains which will envelope our clear blue sky in roughly 20 minutes and I know a place where I can watch the whole thing unfold.