Cool Breezes

Hurricane Sandy blew over Jamaica last week Wednesday canceling school across the country and battering banana fields. The eastern parishes got it much worse than the western parishes which, if you haven’t checked a map yet, is where I am. So we counted our blessings and fallen branches, waited patiently for the electricity to come back and watched TYJ broadcast the damage seen by the  eastern parishes. It’s hard to fathom the damage a category 5 could inflict on this small country if the damage from a category 1 is this significant.

Jamaicans see their homes as investments, which is why they are often very unfinished. It is common to see a family living in a downstairs while the upstairs is still being built. It is common to see rebar coming out of rooftops and it is common for additions to take years, if not lifetimes. Most homes are built out of cement blocks stacked over rebar and set in concrete, but the process is time consuming and expensive, so families save when they can and build when it’s possible. Some people build cement additions onto their wood cabins, others build their houses so slowly, plants and goats take up residence. If a house goes up quickly, I’ve been warned, that person is a scammer or ganja man- especially if it belongs to a young man. If a family struggles financially, the chances of living in a sturdy cement home are slim, and for those families, especially in the eastern parishes, the chance of their house being damaged or lost in a storm is highly likely. It’s a pretty typical commentary on poverty, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer but once you have a house that can stand the tests of time, that house is in your family for generations, sheltering your grandchildren no matter the circumstances.

So now Sandy has unleashed her fury on my home state as well as my temporary home, and I watch images of the West Side Parkway underwater while high quality split screen reporting takes place in the foreground. Graphics whirl, foreboding catch phrases swirl and one of the networks pulls a flat screen touch screen somethin something out of a van to illustrate the storms path while doing an “on the scene” report. Very different from the TVJ coverage that skipped with technical glitches and pixilated, basic camera work. Frankenstorm indeed. Regardless, I know that the damage to the NY, NJ and eastern seaboard has been significant, and I’m reminded of the serious flooding in the Hudson River Valley last summer. I hope that crops have been reaped and the agricultural damage is not too terrible. Manhattan seems to be experiencing some unprecedented situations, so I hope that leaders and policy makers act with caution, and with the people in mind.

On a lighter note, I went to Hanover this weekend to visit a fellow PCV! Her site is beautiful, higher in the mountains than I am but with a similar view of the ocean. We watched a beekeeping workshop and took a walk to a nearby river and waterfall. Visiting other sites is always a great opportunity to reassess your own situation, and recharge your batteries.

I climbed up the side, but the girls were too lazy to move to get a good pic