Worship Is An Attitude...

It’s not uncommon to look down on stereotypes; they put people or things in nice little mental containers which inform our judgments and don’t always leave room for assumptions to be properly dismissed. But let’s be honest, stereotypes exist for a reason and I am reminded of this fact every time my mom’s side of the family gets together. For those of you in the cheap seats who may not know, my mom’s family is Italian and I can already hear my cousin Lauren interjecting, “It’s the half that saves us!” And it’s the stereotype of the physically demonstrative Italian that probably causes people to say to me, “No wonder you’re so good at sign language. You’re used to talking with your hands.” So when I found myself at a Pentecostal function named “Glory In The House,” I was not surprised at all to see the experience live up to a barrage of stereotypes.

“Glory In The House” is an annual fundraiser for the church that my friend, Miss Anne, belongs to and it’s a night-long event wherein different choirs or individual singers get on stage and, with an accompanying band, perform a variety of religious songs. People literally came from all over the island for this and as more and more people arrived it was clear that this was going to last as long as necessary in order for the Lord to be properly praised. When I first arrived and walked in the door people just sort of fixed their gazes on me in a “Well I’ll be damned” kind of way and I could not tell if it was because of the color of my skin or because I was not wearing a suit but the more I reflect on it, I seriously think it was the latter reason. Seriously, whether the participants were local or came from the other side of Jamaica, they were dressed to the nines and those who were in choirs were in outfits, and I mean outfits, Jack! With hats to match, no less! It was very impressive.

Our emcee for the night was a member of the community who, though younger than me, carries the official title of “Elder.” I’m not sure of the semantics in all of it but as Miss Anne tried to explain to me, it’s a title which reflects not so much age as it does the person’s leadership within the community. This would also explain the youth of the pastor who has recently taken over in the wake of the death of their former one. These two men were highly energetic, very passionate and really able to work this crowd into a frenzy. The emcee was especially good at this in between acts.

As he explained at the beginning of the night, each group or person was limited to two pieces, a stipulation which I originally thought might keep the night rather short. However, once he made his way through the list of rules (one of which was to not hold ourselves back in the praising of the Lord) the performances started and I quickly learned why each group was limited to only two songs. These songs went on for what seemed like a lifetime. Versus were sung 3 or 4 times over and in one instance, I counted a refrain sung 27 times.

The energy was so high at times that I could not help but start dancing too. Those of you familiar with ska music know what it sounds like and are familiar with the style of dance which accompanies it. Since I am a huge fan of ska I felt obligated to start “skankin’” right there in the aisle. It was truly infectious, if not a little repetitive. (See the “sung 27 times” reference above.) And as I wrote earlier, in between each act the emcee would keep the energy up and here is where the stereotypes kicked in.

He would very often continue the recently completed (or so I thought) song, thereby taking our refrain count from 27 up into the 30’s, and would then steer the band into a familiar sounding gospel set. Now, I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the movie “The Blues Brothers” but towards the beginning, Jake and Elwood are instructed to head to a church on the South side of Chicago and visit Reverend Cleophis (I think that’s the name), a character played by the late James Brown. In this gospel number the parishioners start dancing, singing and jumping around in a way which played right into the well known gospel stereotype. Then, in a most divine manner, a holy light comes shining through a stained-glass window and bathe Jake and Elwood in its glory causing them to start dancing up and down the aisle in this possessed way which makes them look like they are running in place. Jake (played by the late John Belushi) even starts doing back flips all over the joint. For those of you familiar with the scene, I’ll give you a minute to compose yourselves.

I now found myself in that very scene and came about an inch away from running in place a-la Jake and Elwood. But I refrained.

The meeting of stereotypes continued when the music ended and the elder began asking for a barrage of “Alleluias,” “Amens,” and “Praise the Lord!” This was especially comedic for me, not in a sense of ridicule, but more because in the course of the night we, as a group, were asked for an “Alleluia” about 300 times and I could not respond. For those of you wondering why, Catholics refrain from saying “Alleluia” during Lent which, among other reasons, helps underscore the joyous season of Easter for us. As soon as Easter rolls around, “Alleluia” is said like it’s going out of style but on this night I had to refrain. However, every time I was asked to shout something else, I responded most enthusiastically. I even drew a few strange looks and all I could do was shrug my shoulders as if to say, “Hey, he told us not to hold back.”

By about 11:00pm, I must confess, I had had my fill of glory and was ready to call it a night but because my car was blocked in by five others, I was in it for the long haul. A haul which became longer once the singing ended and someone took the microphone and encouraged anyone in the crowd who was in need of the Holy Spirit to come towards the stage for an intervention. It was past midnight at this point and now I was starting to get salty but fortunately the drivers of the cars which blocked me in were ready to call it a night too. Alleluia!

This was by far one of the most colorful experiences I have had since coming here. I have never been to anything like that back in the States and it was vastly different than anything I have seen in a Catholic Mass; which is both a good and bad thing in my judgment. But that is for another time.

Can I get an “Amen?”

Open Letter to 3rd Form W...

Dear 3^rd Form W,

Today I presided over your end-of-term English and Music exams, an experience which was probably as much work for me as it was for you as I constantly scanned the room to discourage you from cheating at any given moment – and believe me, some of you were deliberately trying to cheat! The experience was truly an eternal one for as you probably felt the minutes fly by and dwindle down, they seemed to grow longer and longer as I just stood there staring at you.

For more than two hours I watched you toil over such simple tasks as remembering and comprehending a paragraph you had just read, or creating from your imagination a simple scenario given nothing but a location and time of day, and of course picking out simple pieces of grammar such as nouns and verbs. As for your Music exam, I am not saying that I could successfully explain the differences in musical developments of the 21^st century as opposed to the 16^th without having studied, but I like to think I could have made a decent show of it. On the other hand, I have not studied music since I was younger than you and I recognize a full rest from a quarter rest when I see it and to know that for many of you the difference between success and failure in this realm is simply the application of yourselves in an intentioned, focused and disciplined way is staggering to me.

Apparently, though, all was not lost this day because I stumbled across an important realization and an insightful piece of learning that I otherwise might not have had.

Standing there watching you fret over the Greek origin of the word “music,” I began to see you in a way that you probably cannot see yourselves. I saw glimpses of your capacity, that of which you are capable. I saw icebergs of potential whose very tops, which appear obvious on the surface, pale in comparison to the gargantuan collection underneath the water.

The ability to look at someone and see them in this way is one which comes with time, experience, and God willing, a bit of maturity and I know all of this because as it flashes through my consciousness it has a familiar ring to it. Not the familiarity that it is something I have said before but rather something I have heard. It is exactly what was told to me when I was your age and something I similarly refused to let permeate me. And one of the sad ironies of life is that such insight and observation is often passed on to those who need to hear it and it is completely lost on them.

It is what I have come to realize many adults were right in telling me for you see, I was once very much like you. I did what I was assigned but only did enough to get by and hardly anything more. Sometimes I did even less. And as I slowly paced in between the desks of the classroom today, periodically peering over your should to see if you could figure out how to spell “Pythagoras,” I saw in my mind’s eye moments in my childhood and adolescence where I sold myself short when it came to pushing myself to achieve the potential others saw in me. I was reminded of the rule my father put in place when I was 12; for every hour of television I wanted to watch, I had to read for an hour first. And I remembered how I abandoned both activities in favor of playing basketball or riding my bicycle. Today I was acutely reminded of the not-so-subtle urgings of my mother to study for the regional spelling bee of which I was going to take part when I was ten years old. And I remember being knocked out after my third word: various. Since that day I have never forgotten how to spell that word, nor have I forgotten the sting of disappointment which may have been staved off a little more that day had I simply picked up my study guide instead of a video game controller.

But I am not telling you anything you have not heard already, am I? You can accomplish anything you want to. You know this. You know it in your marrow. But you know equally as well that no one is going to do it for you and I think you are scared. You are scared to try and fail. You are scared of how you will look if that happens. Moreover, you are scared to succeed and of what that will look like. For if you succeed while the masses do not, you will be ostracized. You will be different. You will not fit and you will be ridiculed.

And that sucks.

You see, you are at that age when children are severely courted by the trappings of appearances, popularity, and belonging. And it is around this time when the talons of said beasts grab you and make those first and deepest of cuts, and the cost of letting them do so is mediocrity; to play beneath your intelligence so people will like you more – or at least pretend to. In the fourth and fifth formers I see this trade off of potential for acceptance many times over, and I see many of you poised to follow in their footsteps. I also see many of you simply standing at the edge of that path, reading its signs and giving consideration to traveling along it. But I also so you aware of the path which sits beside it, a path whose boundaries are hard work and sacrifice but whose destination is character. It is a path less chosen for obvious reasons.

Why do I tell you this? As I have already written, these are things you inherently know. Well, I am not writing this for you. I am writing it for me. For a time I thought that the window within which I could expand myself, live up to and possibly exceed my potential and achieve the most grand and glorious dreams for myself had past. I was lulled to sleep by the same aforementioned mediocrity. And standing here today, watching you struggle with something which is monumental today but in the future will be like a drop in the ocean of your life, I came to realize that I still have within me so much I can do with my life and it is all too often and easily that I forget that.

I am 31 years old. Next week, I’ll be 32. Some of you look at me and say, “Sir, ya old,” and in some respects, you are right. And then I am reminded of Jake, a man I met last summer in Chicago while taking my dogs to a dog park. Jake was there with his dog, a poodle which had taken a liking to my dogs, Mojo and Savannah. As is typically the custom at the dog park, he and I began talking and I quickly learned much about this man, now in his 70’s. He had many careers in his life and had just finished a book about Chicago firefighters; a project born out of an instinct to photograph a burning mattress. He gave me his card and promised to keep me informed about the release of the book and in a reply to my first e-mail to him he wrote,

“I remember when an old [guy] like me said I was a bright and talented young man, and of course, I didn’t believe him. Twenty years later I did. Don’t wait that long.”

Jake is at least 30 to 40 years my senior and given his time, experience and maturity, he is able to see in me a capacity that I sometimes cannot even fathom. But if I draw a parallel between the potential my elders see in me and the potential I see in you, I can’t help but believe it is one of those universally applicable truths to any phase of life. And armed with that knowledge, I can move forward confident that there is nothing I cannot do.

From a sarcastic and cynical lens, I might thank you for underachieving, not living up to your potential and for playing beneath your intelligence, but I won’t. However, I do thank you for being my teacher today. You have given me a tremendous gift and have reminded me of a most important lesson that I need to keep in mind and practice.

Sincerely,

Mr. Konold

Teaching...

As I wrote just before I came back to the U.S., I spent a respectable window of time teaching English classes throughout the day and if it taught me anything, it taught me that I have no desire to be a teacher with a classroom, grade book, lesson plan, papers to grade, etc. To those of you out there who fit that mold, I say again: I do not know how you do it and can only assume it is out of an absolute love of the job.

Seeing as how I am not trained in any official capacity as an English teacher I often found myself at my desk at night reading up on what I was going to teach the next day. As many of you know I studied engineering in college, have always had a natural aptitude for math and science and that my interest in the written word has only come about in the last five to seven years. Had the fathers asked me to take over the math classes, I would not have been worried at all because I have seen the math they are teaching and its very easy for me: tangents to circles forming right angles with radii and all of the angles involved, polynomial expressions, matrices – God I love that stuff!

English, however, is a horse of a different color. Yes, I sit down and crank out these posts and for the most part they are coherent, structured, and make some sense but let’s be honest, if I were to be officially graded or edited within the confines of proper grammar, I tend to think my writing would be an abomination to whoever invented said rules. Let’s call a spade a spade here – I love commas too much, I don’t know when it is appropriate to use a semicolon or a comma, I’m jumping between past and present tense in the is post like it’s my job, and up until the other day, I had no idea that there are only four types of sentences.

Was that a run on sentence? Probably. Who cares?

I am sure Ms. Cote tried to drill all of the above into my head in 8^th grade but it, along with a lot of other information which might leave readers with the impression that I actually have a grasp on that which is my native language, has long since gone the way of the 8-track for me. Needless to say, this realization was a stark one and so I did my best to brush up on that which I was trusted to impart to the youth of Jamaica.

The lowest form I met with was third form, which is equivalent to high school freshman, and given the fact that there is a lack in educational consistency here, some of the students in this class are as young as 13 and some as old as 15 or 16 which makes things more interesting. This form focuses solely on basic tenants of English such as grammar and composition and it is not until fourth or fifth form that they start to hone their focus on prose, drama and poetry. The entire time I was with third form we focused on the art of writing persuasive arguments and the theory of having a topic sentence around which the entire piece will be built, an introduction, a body and a conclusion. Let me reiterate how much of what I was teaching them was almost like new information to me. It all made sense and with some reflection I could think of times where I had applied these principles myself, I just had not thought of them in these concrete terms and theories, I just did them. On the flip side of these proud moments however, were sobering realizations of just how mercilessly I can slaughter English and have practically zero grasp of the past perfect participle tense.

As we moved through the unit in the lesson book it was clear that absolutely nothing was holding their attention so I decided to try a different tactic and switched gears in the hopes that learning by doing might help. Given that there are two white boards in the room I decided that we would structure a persuasive argument on each board, arguments which were opposing view points. I split the class down the middle and the group on my left was assigned the task of arguing why homework should be abolished while the other side constructed an argument as to why it should not. I got only a little mileage out of this trick; as soon as we got past a topic sentence the wheels fell off and neither side could give reasons beyond “because it’s boring,” and “because it helps you learn,” respectively.

Muscling my way through the remainder of that class, as well as the rest of the times I met with the third form to ponder the mysteries of the universe, was not always easy and I found myself relying on what I have learned from my parents and former teachers when it came to restoring order to student behavior run amuck.

Fourth and Fifth form were beasts of a different nature because they were of the mind that since I was not Fr. Anthony the typical rules did not apply and they could therefore get away with murder. On one occasion while meeting with a smaller group of Fifth form students to study MacBeth, one student who is not particularly fond of me walked in, saw that Fr. Anthony was gone and then walked out and skipped class. This typically results in a student being suspended but I went a different route and he now owes me a 500 word essay on responsibility, making choices and the consequences that come about as a result.

What kills me about this kid is that he is by far one of the smartest in the school but given his small and scrawny stature and the fact that he has been transplanted from Canada, he knows he would be utterly ostracized and so he plays dumb enough to fit in but not so dumb that his grades will suffer too much. There are quite a few students of this ilk in the upper forms and it is painful to realize that some of them can wrap their minds around standard deviation but cannot spell the word “because.” Conversely, other students are able to point out dramatic irony in MacBeth but only complete one side of a two-sided math test – and she did not even start at the beginning. She completed the side numbered 26 to 43, not 1 to 25.

It’s an uphill battle, to be sure and there are days where it seems surrender would be easier. Of course none of this is really news to me having witnessed my mother’s life as a teacher but it takes on a new dimension now that I am the one turning off lights, standing in silence at the front of the room and keeping an entire class in silence in a room for an extended period of time at the end of the school day. Hell, this is probably God’s sadistic way of paying me back for just how much of a terror I probably was when my mother was my 3^rd grade teacher.

You read that correctly, friends. Mrs. Konold was my 3^rd grade teacher and I have no doubt that Our Lady of Cosmic Justice is exacting her pound of flesh from me in this experience as a teacher.

Mail Bag...

My mind is sort of taxed for ideas lately mainly because I have been put through the wringer in the last week. Fr. Anthony took off for the States to do some mission preaching and as a result, all of his English classes have become my responsibility and I have found myself jumping between grammar, prose, drama, and poetry not to mention students ranging from 13 years old to 20. Fortunately this writer is headed home to the U.S. for a brief stay. I have some business to take care of back home, ‘things and stuff’ you might say, not the least of which is to visit see how my mother is doing after her second cochlear implant surgery. Besides, I am kind of eager to set foot in my mother country.

And so I’m going to borrow an idea from a writer at ESPN.com, Bill Simmons (aka The Sports Guy). He has a legion of readers who e-mail him religiously and every now and then he composes an article which is nothing more than answers to their questions. So, while I am off on my side trip, I leave you with the answers to questions many of you have asked in your individual e-mails. Since many of you seem to be asking the same question, this will save me a little time. The number you find next to the question is the number of times it has come my way.

Enjoy…

-Are you sleeping any better than when you left? (7)

Yes, but it has more to do with being so tired at the end of the day that I have no choice but to sleep the night through. Recently my alarm has been going off at 5:00am, by the time I actually put my feet on the floor it’s 5:30 and then things just start coming at me. However, I don’t think my body has fully acclimated to things here. I sleep but it’s not a truly deep sleep. I toss and turn a lot and need to wear ear plugs because the guard dogs tend to bark at just about anything and everything at night.

-Are you getting really tan? (9)

It depends on whether or not I have had time to be in the sun. Most days find me inside a classroom so it’s not like I have a ton of time to work on it. Thank goodness for weekends and random breaks of the school year which provide ample opportunity to head to the beach. Since I wear my sandals every day, I have some cool tan lines on my feet.

-How’s the ganja there? (11)

Coming down here, I knew there would be one or two of you who would inquire about the chronic but I did not expect to receive this many inquiries. It’s pervasive here. In fact, the day I first arrived in December and was being driven along the coast, I kept picking up the scent of it in the air. Turns out the locals will collect tall grass, weeds, brush and the like, gather it all into a pile and light it so it creates a huge field of smoke which serves to fend off mosquitoes, a practice I fully condone. The thing is, all of it smells like marijuana that you would come across in the states which caught me off guard the first few times.

Now, the stuff which is grown and smoked by locals is much stronger and every once in a while I come across a local with a spliff the size of a Louisville Slugger hanging out of his mouth. Those are special moments.

-Do the kids call you Mark or Mr. Konold? (5)

The students try to call me Mr. Konold but they slaughter it. Many of the students in the upper grades call me Mr. O’Conner but that has more to do with the play, “The Glass Menagerie” than anything else. One of the characters in the play, Jim O’Conner, is one that I was once assigned in an acting class. Once they learned this and they equated “Konold” with “O’Conner” and when I explain the correction, it suddenly becomes Mr. O’Konold. Once this becomes too difficult to comprehend, they simply go the route many of the lower level grades have and call me Mr. Chicago.

-What’s it like living in a trailer? (15)

It’s definitely a learning experience when you consider that a year ago I was occupying a modest but well-outfitted condo. Everything I have taken with me for the journey fits in a suitcase and a duffle bag and fits in a 10’ x 10’ room. The bathroom I use is narrow and rectangular in shape and without fully extending my arms fully at my side, I can touch both of the walls which contribute to the narrow shape. At night as I’m falling asleep it’s not uncommon to hear something scurrying in the ceiling and I haven’t quite figured out if I’m hearing mice, cockroaches, lizards or all three. At night, with the window open, it gets very cool and comfortable but it can turn into an oven on a hot day. Thankfully the school schedule keeps me out of my room for the majority of the day so I don’t have to contend with it too often.

-What kind of food do they eat there? (3)

Chicken and pork are often the staple around which a meal is built and of course, there are a million things you can do with both. There isn’t much in the way of steak but they definitely fancy goat, especially curried goat. Rice and peas usually accompanies every meal here and sometimes instead of peas, the rice is decorated with peanuts and that’s always a nice treat.

Ackee is a natural fruit which is grown here but once it’s cooked it looks and feels a lot like scrambled eggs. It is not uncommon to pair it with breadfruit (a local product which grows on trees and can be the size of a small bowling ball) and salt fish.

Jerk shacks can be found just about everywhere. For those of you who don’t know, jerk is a type of spicy seasoned marinade. Done correctly, it’s absolutely heavenly. Done marginally, it’s still damn good. Done poorly? Just wash it all down with Red Stripe and ya cris, boss.

-When are you going to share some pictures? (12)

I’ve started posting some of them via Google’s photo sharing program, Picasa. Simply head to http://picasaweb.google.com/markckonold and you can see the galleries I have there. I don’t have a whole lot posted because the only access I have is dial up and to upload at that speed is painful.

Are they trying to get you to stay longer? (4)

I think they would like me to stay as long as I possibly can. They put me to good use in any way they can and since the situation here is always in flux, having extra bodies around is a good thing. My original plan was to stay here until the end of March but the Monsignor asked that I stay until the conclusion of the school year so as to not reinforce the message to the kids that adults run out on the things they start.

Is it common for people to just show up and volunteer or do they go through some sort of organized group? (2)

Going the route that I did, just showing up to help out, is uncommon. Usually when people are introduced to the work which goes on via the Diocese of Mandeville, it is through an organized outing wherein a church will send a troop of volunteers down here for a small window of time to build houses and help out in other capacities. If people are so moved, they might arrange to come down for a longer period of time. My decision to just pack up and head down here like this is on the unconventional side.

How are you doing against the mosquitoes? (6)

Much better these days. I don’t know if my skin has adapted at all but they don’t seem to bother me like they did when I first arrived. However, it is still a matter of awareness around things like wearing shoes in the first hours of the morning instead of sandals. The other night I was sitting down and felt my left elbow itching and I looked at it only to see seven mosquito bites on it. The little buggers are fast, I tell you.

Where There's Smoke...

Aside from the laughs had around Saturday night’s adventure, yesterday was fairly quiet. I spent most of my day in my room going over my plans for the week; what material I was going to cover in class, other projects on which I was going to work, etc. After about three hours my stomach let me know in no uncertain terms that it was time to pick up where I had left off at breakfast.

As I grabbed the last three slices of leftover pizza out of the fridge and reheated them in the microwave, the phone rang. I picked it up and on the other end was Dr. Carol, a missionary doctor who frequently comes down here to run a clinic and who has made a name for herself in this community. “There’s a fire down the road near Phelipe and Anthony’s house. I think it’s a parishioner’s house; you guys may want to get down there and take a look at it.” I relayed the message to one of the priests here and 30 seconds later we were in the car and on our way.

Like most spectacles of fire, a crowd had gathered; as we approached we passed pedestrians who were leisurely walking towards the commotion which had gathered the locals. A fire truck was there and the firemen had already extinguished 99 percent of the blaze while the throng of locals stood around talking. The family who had just lost everything was safe and no one was harmed but everything, and I mean everything, they owned had been incinerated. One of the family members was napping and the fire woke him. He dashed out of the house, realized that a baby of the family was still in there, raced back in, grabbed the child and once again exited the burning building.

They are a family of 8 and they were living in housing provided by Food For the Poor. These prefabricated wooden houses take practically no time to assemble and have a footprint of 12 feet by 12 feet. This family was fortunate in that they were living in a larger version of this housing which was nothing more than two of these units put together. Less than 600 square feet of wooden house sitting atop a foundation of cinder blocks was their home and it went up like a tinder box in record time. Anything which was not made of cement was reduced to a layer of charred ash and the only recognizable items were a microwave and a refrigerator. During the fire the four sides of the latter appliance had peeled away from each other like a banana and curled down towards the floor leaving it looking like a piece of apocalyptic art work.

Around me people walked and talked while members this family cried out in agony realizing that the only clothes they had now were the ones they were wearing, they had no money, no food, no personal possessions of any kind and an even bleaker horizon that the one to which they had woken up. Last week someone had given them a generous cash donation and since they do not have the means with which to open a bank account, they kept it in a locked room in this house and now, with everything else, it all went up in smoke. The poorest of the poor had just been kicked while already writhing on the floor. An elder woman in this family, probably around 65, simply sat in a doorway of a neighboring house smoking a cigarette and cried, “God give me the strength. God give me the strength.”

This former house sat behind two other houses, each of them made of concrete but with only a flimsy hollow core door protecting the innards of the homes, and given the proximity of the blaze, neighbors rushed in to empty them of all their personal belongings just in case. A fourth house sat off to the side of these three about 20 yards away. About 70 people gathered and moved about clamoring and talking, some of them trying to figure out how they were going to provide for the family in crisis. It was determined that among the neighbors, this family in crisis will have a place to stay and that today would begin the work of scraping together some petty cash, clothes and new housing either donated or paid for through various means.

I felt pretty useless standing there looking at the smoldering remains and watching this gathering of people. My eyes drifted from image to image; a bed frame that had been pulled from the blaze whose metal and wood frame was charred black and letting off white smoke, a dresser that had been somewhat salvaged and was now warped and contorted from the fire and water, the gray concrete foundation and its newly acquired black scars. As the wind came up the mountainside it carried the smoke of the fire over all of us and many people took to covering their noses and mouths with their shirts and then turned their backs to the smoke to shield their eyes and their lungs. I turned my head to the side to avoid the blast of smoke and my eyes met those of a girl who could not have been older than three. Having found as much privacy as she could carve out in this moment, she was squatting over some weeds with her shorts around her ankles and was peeing. She just stared at me as if it was a normal occurrence, pulled up her shorts and went back to playing.

The entire episode seemed surreal and the smoke which blanketed the area ever now and then gave it the look and feel of a somewhat cryptic dream. “Maybe I am dreaming,” I thought. “Or maybe I was hit by an oncoming car while trying to my broken one last night and now I’m in some sort of purgatorial limbo thing.” The fact that I haven’t gotten more than five hours of sleep on any given night in the past week might have had a little something to do with it too.

Having done all he could do to help in this moment, Fr. Sam collected me and we drove back to the compound. “So now what,” I asked him.

“Well, we’ll have an emergency meeting with some people tomorrow and see if we can ease their suffering. We’ll try and get some money together for them, see if we can get some clothes donated and beg for some housing from someone.”

“And that’s just how it goes here,” I asked.

“Yes,” he said plainly. “We do what we can.”

Driver's Ed...

I knew it was only a matter of time before I got behind the wheel here and given what I’ve written in the past about the motor vehicle culture of Jamaica, I simply assumed it would be a memorable experience. But as I have said before, the Almighty has a sense of humor and I had no idea what awaited me.

A couple of weeks ago the monsignor came up to me and said, “Since we have the mid-term break coming up, if you and the other volunteers want to take one of the cars and head off to YS Falls or something, that’s fine.” This offer, having been made in the not-too-distant past might still have been on the table and so I approached him and asked, “Monsignor, I kind of feel like I’m 16 again but, can I use the car tonight?”

“And where would you be going, young man?”

“Little Ochie.”

“And with whom?”

“Miss Anne.”

(pause)

“You can take the blue car; just make sure you’re home by midnight and not a minute later!”

You see, during the week one of the teachers of the school and I decided that this weekend we would head out for a few drinks at a local establishment called “Little Ochie”. It’s a bar/restaurant which literally sits on the beach. They have creatively converted row boats into booths by suspending them four feet off the sand, installing small sets of stairs which lead up to said boat, and placed a table in the middle of it for your dining pleasure. These elevated booths, along with picnic tables scattered here and there, are sheltered with thatched canopies and provide great views of the Caribbean Sea. It is really quite an ingenious and cute idea and every spot is within reach of not only the main bar but the waves as well.

Just after sunset, with a few slices of pizza to simmer down my appetite, I was on the open roads of Jamaica. It was my first time driving on the left hand side of the road and on the right hand side of a car. It took about five minutes to acclimate to it all but I really didn’t have too much time to think about it because oncoming traffic “soon come” and I had to learn very quickly how to negotiate a very small road in a very small car.

One of the biggest adjustments came whenever I had to execute a turn, especially when said turn involved a stop sign. My instinct is, of course, that my flow of traffic comes from the left and that when I turn I will find myself on the right side of the road. Having to completely reverse my thinking, I began to wonder just how many aspects of driving have become automatic (no pun intended) and that maybe a refresher of a driver’s manual is in order when I get back to Chicago later this year. My license is up for renewal anyway so I can tackle it then. Back to our present story.

I wove my way around corners, dodged potholes and did my best to make room for other cars and to not hit pedestrians but the way things were going, I could have sworn that the good people of Jamaica had conspired earlier in the day to make sure I encountered all of those obstacles at the same time repeatedly. Yes, I was thrown right into the deep end, folks, and I was determined not to drown.

Adding insult to injury was the fact that I only a vague idea of where I was going. Signage on this island can best be described as pathetic and magically every destination is “just around the corner.” Combine that with the fact that the last time I had made this trek I was but a passenger in the car, I was sure that my odds of getting utterly lost were very high. But fortune smiled on the daring, as they say, and I was soon united with my friend and we were off to Little Ochie.

The drive there was an eventful one, to be sure, as we navigated the local happenings of the area. Saturday night was in full swing and I often had to dodge parked cars and congregations of people. The practice of setting buildings away from a roadside or making room for parking is practically non existent and so a road, which is barely wide enough for two cars, becomes even more treacherous as one third of it is taken up by parked vehicles. On our way we passed three or four exotic dancing establishments and every one of them had a group of guys outside huddled around a grill, drinking and swapping stories.

Now, I’m not here to condone or admonish exotic dancing, however, I would be remiss if I did not mention my bewilderment. That someone would take in enough exotic dancing as a spectator and manage to fit in a meal is, well, odd to me. I do not usually equate the two activities but apparently that is how it’s done here in Jamaica. Fair enough. Eyes on the road. Let’s move on.

As I described above, Little Ochie is perfectly situated on the beach. To boot, it has an almost dive-like quality to it and to someone from Chicago, the prospect of drinking at a beachfront bar in March is heavenly. The crashing waves added a nice touch to the atmosphere and the weekend’s full moon meant there was no need for exterior illumination. All that was missing was a cheesy, four chord pop song playing in the background. Instead there was a 20 foot high speaker stack and a DJ pumping reggae tunes with the bass blasting at levels high enough to disintegrate kidney stones. I had to take the good with the bad, I guess.

After a few hours at our magical locale we decided to call it a night and our return trip was not too dissimilar from our original drive. The end of the night looked to be fairly uneventful. Then the accelerator broke.

While taking my friend home to her town of Southfield we passed through Top Hill, so named because it sits at the top of a hill; a very long and steep one at that. It was on said hill that the throttle cable attached to the accelerator snapped rendering the car useless. In one moment we were cruising along nicely and the next, I suddenly found the pedal was to the floor and the engine was slowing down to an idle. These two things, for obvious reasons, did not go together and in the time it took for my brain to make sense of it all we had ceased moving forward and were starting to roll backwards. Realizing that our reverse momentum was more of a priority than figuring out just what the hell was going on, I moved the car out of harm’s way. Without a flashlight, tools or any knowledge of this car, it quickly became clear that my ability to MacGyver my way out of this was practically non-existent. Our only hope was to make some phone calls and get Raymond out here to save the day.

A word about Raymond: He is a brother in the Mission Society of Mandeville and will be ordained a priest in July. Originally from Manitoba, he came here ten years ago as a volunteer, realized his calling to religious life and has walked that path ever since. As I have mentioned in the past, each member of the society seems to fill a particular role and Raymond is the Swiss Army Knife of the group; a role I have become accustom to playing in certain circles so he and I get along nicely. He can fix just about anything and if he can’t fix it at first, give him twenty minutes to figure it out and he will. When something mechanical breaks he is the first person we call. The phrase, “Get Raymond” is used as often as the word “Amen” and this was, once again, a time to “Get Raymond.”

After some abrupt midnight phone calls wherein I woke up half the house, Raymond was soon on his way and arrived at our troublesome scene in ten minutes. It was quickly decided that I would use his truck to finish taking Miss Anne home while he attempted to fix the problem. If he was still working on it upon my return, we would leave the car until the next day and if he was not there, it meant he was successful and I would simply meet him at home.

Fortunately this car had experienced the same problem in December and since he was the one to fix it then, he quickly re-fixed it now. As I approached the place where I had left him, he was gone so I continued home and met up with him there. After a few laughs about the whole thing it was time to retire. Sunday morning prayers and Mass were “just around the corner.”