Birthday...

I would have thought that milestone birthdays were the most memorable: 20, 25, 30, 40, etc. I never would have thought 32 would turn out to be one of the most memorable, but then again I never really thought I’d be spending it here. Let’s just start with the fact that

I haven’t had a birthday this warm since 1983 when my family and I were living in California. In September of that year we made our way to New England where I lived until I left for college in 1993 and, unless I am forgetting any globally-warmed off year, it never really reached the 60’s. Once I was in Milwaukee and Chicago in the years to come it was pretty much guaranteed that the warmest it would get on my special day was in the 50’s and that the lowest temperature was always up for grabs. Fair enough. So the chance to trek around the coastal area of St. Elizabeth parish in 80 degree weather was firmly grasped.

For a few days now we have been entertaining the mother and cousin of one of the other volunteers here at St. Vincent Strambi. Judy and Carrie, Aaron’s mother and cousin respectively, are two very dynamic, vibrant and all around good people who are great to spend time with and so having a chance to show them around certain parts of the island we volunteers, myself, Aaron and Jason, piled into one of the pickup trucks and rattled down the less-than-smooth roads of the island and made our way to Treasure Beach. Upon arriving we indulged in a lunch at the well known restaurant, Jack Sprat, a seaside establishment which serves incredible seafood and, of all things, pizza. Pair your fare with a cold Red Stripe beer and you have found yourself a small slice (no pun) of heaven. Treasure Beach is an interesting locale on the island because it is known well enough by people to be populated and semi-flourishing but it’s not as touristy as Negril, Montego Bay or Ocho Rios. It is kind of that destination for the slightly more daring traveler but not so far off the beaten path that locals would stare at you like you fell out of the sky. The people of Treasure Beach are very welcoming, open and eager for you to relax the way they do. With the Caribbean Sea right there and a front row seat for every sunset, it’s kind of hard to be any other way.

With lunch firmly polished off we hopped back in the truck and made our way down the road to the town of Black River, a town centered on a river which allowed goods to be brought from the coast to the inner parts of the island before the advent of paved roads and delivery trucks. It was the first town in Jamaica to have a telephone and if memory serves, electricity. There is a huge street market which buzzes daily and jams the roads with pedestrians. On extra busy days it can take ten minutes to travel the quarter mile strip of the town center whereas on holidays it looks like a certifiable ghost town. Our interest, however, was not the street market but the children’s home there which is affiliated with the Mission Society of Mandeville. A handful of the students at the school live there and two of the priests of the society, along with a group of nuns, keep the place running. It is home to more than 30 kids, boy and girls, who have been abandoned for one reason or another and who are now the recipients of the love and care of those who run it.

Those of you who know me very well know that I could not let this part of my birthday pass without some piece of introspection which mainly revolved around the fortune of my life and the times where I have been so wrapped up in said fortune that I have let it stop me from taking certain risks. And while I was musing around in all of that I was brought back to the lightness of the day when one of the boys placed a large laundry basket over his head, began roaring and then started chasing some of the other kids around like a deranged monster. I laughed so hard I almost fell over and lamented that the price of growing up is the precious commodity found in children: living purely in the here and now and not being aware of, or worried about, life in the larger context. Once the moment of the laundry monster had passed I went back to my previous train of thought and found myself tying the two moments together. These kids, who are more in the present moment than most people could ever hope to be, have very little in the way of personal possessions and those things they do own have probably been donated in a charity drive from a far off place and maybe this is one of the factors which produces what I judge to be a less inhibited lifestyle here in Jamaica. To quote Mr. Dylan, “When you’ve got nothin’, you’ve got nothin’ to lose.”

Once our time with the kids was up we indulged in a truly tourist activity: a boat tour of Black River and its crocodile inhabitants. They are all over this thing and these tour boats bring you right up next to them to the point where the crew leans out the door and either drops fresh pieces of chicken in the water for them, pets them, or both. And while the captain’s offer to jump in and swim for a while was tempting on this hot day, there was something about these beasts and their open jaws that kept me in the boat.

We bid adieu to the crocodiles and the folks of Black River and made our way back to Treasure Beach by way of seldom-traveled roads. The condition of these thoroughfares was so bad that my back and butt begged me to revert to the tactic used in February when we descended from the Blue Mountains – stand in the bed of the truck, hold on the to the makeshift roll bar and duck whenever branches come along. This worked much better and provided a really great point of view for taking in the landscape. Extra thick rain clouds gathered over the mountaintops in the distance while directly above us and out towards the sea was the clearest sky around.

We arrived in Treasure Beach around 5:00pm which left us plenty of time to take in one more touristy thing which is been on my list of things to do since the moment I set foot on the island: Pelican Bar. The Pelican Bar is a fine establishment built on a sandbar 1 km out at sea. It is the most rickety structure I have ever seen; it is made of sticks and plywood and I would not be surprised if chewing gum were holding it together. I used to build forts more stable than this. For a moderate fee we hired Joseph Brown, captain of the One Love, to take us out there to drink overpriced beer. By way of comparison, a Red Strip at the bar up the road from where I live costs $90 Jamaican which is the equivalent of $1.50 in the States. However, at the Pelican Bar a Red Strip will cost you $200 Jamaican, which is the same as $4.00 US. I guess I wasn’t paying so much for the beer but more for the chance to sit at a bar in the open water with a completely unobstructed view of the sunset. We arrived at this watering hole an hour before the sun dipped below the horizon and watched in wonder as it peeked from behind scattered clouds and changed the color of its canvass from yellow to orange to a fiery pink. Check it out.

All that was left for the day was a boat trip back to shore, a breezy drive back to Bull Savannah and burgers and fries for dinner. My day’s companions surprised me with a birthday cake and we scarffed it all down with a vengeance. I love cake and more specifically, frosting! We may be limited to dial up access for the internet here but I can still get frosting so all is not lost.

For some reason 32 is hitting me with a certain weight; and I mean that figuratively of course. Those of you who know me intimately are aware of my inability to weight more than 160 pounds and yes, I hear you all groaning in disgust. I don’t feel physically older than I did yesterday, last month or last year but for some reason there is a sobering effect when I say the number “32.” Of course when it’s framed in the context my Uncle Jim used it doesn’t seem so bad. “I was at your christening party in Boston for chrissakes!” he wrote. “Stop it already!”

And it would appear I may not be the only one that will have a birthday around here. One of the dogs here, Petruscha, has gone into labor tonight. She’s been carrying puppies in her belly for a while and we have eagerly anticipated their delivery and there is still time for one to be born and share a birthday with me. The whole thing really makes me miss my own dogs, Mojo and Savannah, but it also reminds me of how many good things there are in my life and if you are reading this, you are counted among those many good things. Thank you.