I'll keep this one short[er], sweet, and to the point because I'm currently battling the UWI library wireless network on my laptop and I am losing.
I met with the President of the Guild of Students on Wednesday. The Guild of Students is like our Student Government Association. It's a very high profile group of students who are responsible for allocating student funds, programming on campus, etc. Similar to the processes that our SGA oversees, but the Guild does a substantial amount of programming in their Student's Union as well as overseeing the off-campus transportation system. I was amazed by how much external influence is involved in the campaigning process. The two major parties of Jamaica are the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People's National Party (PNP), and each party typically "backs" a candidate who is a member of its youth branch to run for Guild election. Politicians will show up on campus during voting week to encourage students to vote! (They're not supposed to, but many do anyway).
This year's president, VJ, is fantastic! We spent two hours comparing and contrasting our forms of student government and he also gave me a tour of their Union. Their Union has a club/sports bar, nail salon (yep, already went), supermarket, gym, Guild offices, steel orchestra room, etc.--it's a great space. I'm not as schooled in American college and university SGAs as I should be, so if you're a former or current SGA participant and have any useful information that I could pass onto VJ, let me know. :)
I spent most of my work-week in Rex Nettleford finishing up the development program and handbook for new residents.
The rest of my week was spent learning about Jamaican history and pop culture:
I went to the Bob Marley historical museum/his former house in Kingston. I don't really know how to describe my thoughts on Bob Marley. The people here have a tremendous amount of pride in his work, and my interest is definitely peaked, so I'll have to pick up some literature on his life and work when I get back to the States. I need to become more educated on the Rastafarian religion as well. His home was beautiful, and the curators have done an excellent job of maintaining its charm. The house had many of Bob's original belongings, but unfortunately tourists are not allowed to take pictures of the inside of his house. I have a few from the outside/statue, but they're not the greatest quality and certainly don't do justice to the experience.
A quick note on the statue:
The government commissioned a statue of Marley to be erected after his death, but they weren't happy with the first one, so they moved it to Montego Bay and erected a new one to stand outside of his house. We saw the other one while we were in Montego Bay--it's more impressionistic than the second.
We followed the Bob Marley Museum with a trip to the Devon House for ice cream. Devon House "I Scream" is like the Ben & Jerry's of Jamaica, only a million times better. I am completely lacking in creativity tonight, so I've pulled this description of the Devon House off its official website:
"One of Jamaica’s most celebrated historical landmarks The Devon House Mansion is the architectural dream of Jamaica’s first black millionaire George Stiebel. Stiebel was among three wealthy Jamaicans who constructed elaborate homes during the late 19th century at the corner of Trafalgar Road and Hope Road, which fittingly became known as the Millionaires Corner. Daniel Finzi and the Verleys were the other families that resided in the area, however, both homes were eventually demolished to make way for development ventures including the construction of Abbey Court Apartments. Stiebel’s legacy lives on with the beautifully maintained Devon House, which was declared a national monument in 1990 by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust."
The house and lawn are GORGEOUS. Absolutely beautiful. I'll put pictures up when I'm on a better wireless network.
I went to Port Royal on Friday. For those of you who don't know me well, I have a huge affinity for pirate culture. Seriously, this extends way beyond "Oh yeah, Pirates of the Caribbean was a great movie" type of fascination with pirates. Before committing to a degree in Higher Education, I submitted grad school applications to history programs with every intention of studying the Golden Age of Piracy. So, for me, Port Royal is like the Mecca of pirate history. Henry Morgan was one of the more notable pirates that made quite a living in Port Royal.
We grabbed a quick lunch at a wonderful seaside cafe on the outskirts of Port Royal before taking a tour of Fort Charles. I don't really know what I expected Port Royal/Fort Charles to be like, but it definitely wasn't the booming metropolis that I expected. Port Royal was one of the richest/most wicked cities in the New World in the 17th Century (1650-1692), but in 1692 a major earthquake swept 2/3's of the city underwater. The British rebuilt Fort Charles after the quake, and it served as one of its key naval bases in the Caribbean for the next 200 years, but it never regained the prominence and wealth that it had when it was the haven for pirates and privateers. Another earthquake hit in the early 1900's, and by that point, the British were fed up with the natural disasters and turned the town over to the locals. The town as it stands today is a small community that survives on local fishing business. The tour of Fort Charles was fascinating. Some of the artifacts that divers have pulled up from the original settlement (circa 1650) were marvelous. Unfortunately, no photography allowed inside. My favorite artifact was an old pocket watch that was recovered from the waters; they x-rayed the watch to see where the hands were last positioned (before disintegrating), and the technology indicated that the watch hands stopped at 11:43 AM--the exact time that the earthquake hit in 1692. How cool is that?
Lastly, I finally ventured off campus at night under the watchful eye of my new friend Michelle, who runs the kitchen at Rex Nettleford and supplies me with delicious yummy food everyday :)--she is an Angel! She invited me to join her and several members of her family at the Miss Jamaica Festival Queen pageant--which is apparently a HUGE deal in the country. Women representing every parish in the country vie for the title of Queen; typical pageant competition: talent, poise, question/response--and a category for cultural awareness.
The theme of this year's pageant was "Jamaica's natural treasure: Jamaican woman". All of the talent presentations acts demonstrating some issue pertaining to race/gender/equality/national pride--it was extremely interesting. Two contestants made commentary on skin bleaching--I didn't realize that was such a critical issue in the African diaspora. One contestant reenacted the defense of Lena Baker, the only African American woman to suffer execution by electric chair in Georgia. She claimed self-defense (rightly so) against a man who was violently abusing her, but her all-white male jury convicted her and sentenced her to death.
Also worth pointing out was that in an audience of about 1,000 spectators, I appeared to be the only White person. I haven't seen a whole lot of other Caucasians on campus or in Kingston (Montego Bay is a completely different story--tourist central), but the experience of being at the pageant/on campus made me understand a little more about why racial/ethnic minorities might have a tendency to group together in social settings. At the pageant, I found myself looking for other people that looked like me. It's a little unnerving to have a bunch of people look at you to see how you'll react to a performance criticizing white-oppression. I got to experience what it feels like to be the "spokesperson" for an entire group of people.
My hosts have done a phenomenal job of making sure that I'm always in good hands. I have felt safe and I have been treated with nothing but respect the entire time that I've been here. I'll never know what it's like to be a minority in the United States. I'll probably never endure racial oppression or discrimination, and I'll never be able to relate to any of my minority students who come to college with those types of experiences, but my experience in Jamaica has made me more sensitive to the types of feelings that minority students might feel when they come to schools that are predominately White institutions.
Okay, I need to cut this off because it's getting dark outside and I have a bit of a hike to get back to my Hall. I'll be working with Ms. Grace Jackson (former Olympian!) this week at a sports camp. Until then...
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