Nowhere better than Yard
A few days ago, a jolly gentleman, obviously high on something other than life, jumped in front of my car and with a perfect twang, begged me to run him over. “Hit me, I wanna die,” he said while I sat there mouth agape. “Hit me sweet girl, run me over.” We both stayed there for a couple minutes, me telling him that indeed, I’d love do the job but I didn’t have time for the police paperwork, him grinning like the Cheshire cat because he had scared me.
Nowhere but in Jamaica. There’s always a clown, no matter what your day is like, to render your whole equilibrium topsy turvy.
I don’t think we understand just how good we have it here, how unique and full of culture Jamaica is, and how envious others are that we belong here and they do not. It’s no secret that for most people Jamaica is the Caribbean, that the Jamaican accent is the one to mimic – and oh God, how they try! – and that Jamaica is the place to be. There’s absolutely nowhere else like Yard.
And like Tony Rebel sang, most of us don’t realise it until we leave and yearn to come back.
Before my daughter was born we discussed where would be the best place to raise her, and in the end, the decision was quite easy. Jamaica.
I’d hate to have her words laced with anything else but the Jamaican accent. I’d hate to have her miss the primary school experience. I’d hate to have her not know what it’s like to climb a mango tree and bite into a succulent Julie mango and I’d hate to have her miss the duppy stories that haunted my childhood. I want her to experience everything Jamaican – from Port Royal to Dunns River Falls, from othaeite apples to pear season, from ring games to police and thief. She has to. She has to go downtown and try on shoes right there in the street. She has to know how to negotiate the purchase of a box of doughnuts at the stoplight and she has to experience drinking an ice cold jelly with peppery shrimp in St Elizabeth. She has to learn that a handcart ride is fun down a country road and that green June plums with salt are the best things on earth.
Why do you think so many rap stars have suddenly developed a link to or family connection to Jamaica? Ya think Elephant Man is such a fabulous vocalist to be attracting so many international collaborations? It wouldn’t have happened if he was Trini. Nah. It’s the Jamaican in him.
I love selling Jamaica. I love setting my in-laws straight when they express reservations about visiting Kingston and I love seeing their faces when they bite into a Tastee patty and their eyes water. My Guyanese friend politely requested that the references to Jamaica stop, after my guyfriend and I teased her mercilessly about the incomparable quality of our music, our airline, our food, our men… We’re not cocky, we just tell the truth. And though load by load we invade the people dem country, you can spot a Yardie anywhere on earth, because the patois don’t stop and the dancehall goes wherever we go.
So sure, on any ordinary day you may just get cussed out by a dread pushing a handcart for almost driving over his b—- c—- foot. And sure, you may just have its rightful owner grab and reclaim your gold chain in Half-Way-Tree, and sure you could be chased and beaten for brazenly walking around town with someone else’s stolen cows, but you have to take the good with the bad.
Where else are you going to find a dancing idiot selling hangers in traffic at Half-Way-Tree, or a juice seller who leans into your car window and gives you advice on how to stop your baby’s hiccups or a vendor who’s willing to chase your car down when the light turns green so he can sell you a soda? Where else can you shop and see vendors selling everything from weed to oils-to-make-him-stay to ‘rope to hang yuhself’?
It always amazes me that we’re able to thrive, to laugh and to hope even when things are mucky. But we’re Jamaicans, and nobody nuh better than we.
