Jamaica: Lovely people, yet hard to love

I’ve not been blogging much recently. I feel fairly sure that my blogees continue to have fulfilling and happy lives without my ramblings, but they do then stop tuning in.

The reason is that I’ve been dealing with a seasonal spike of work and travelling a lot. Sadly, I mostly travel to places I don’t altogether love, such as the Czech Republic and Jamaica, where I am right now.

I pity poor people who come to Jamaica for holidays because I think it’s a dangerous shithole. Many of the people you meet are lovely, but many clearly just hate your guts because you’re white. Oh yes, racism is a two way street. As the experience of being in a white minority goes, it’s a world away from Ghana and Zambia. Also, things work in Zambia and it doesn’t come with the impression that everybody’s trying to rip you off or trick you somehow.

After a long flight, my pre-booked pickup at the airport wasn’t there. After about 20 minutes of loitering, along with a number of other lily white assed people, I began to feel that I was starting to look like the wildebeest that was tiring first. I thus expected to become prey to some scandal. Then I eventually noticed somebody holding an A4 piece of paper, rolled up and yet through which I could see my name. There was my pick up, found by accident. Things just don’t work here. He was a nice enough guy, but he’d just arrived and thought nothing of being late. Trust me, after a flight of nearly 10 hours, in 32 Centigrade heat but wearing clothes for an English early morning, you don’t want delays.

At the hotel, I was checked into a room which I strode into, sighed heavily and noticed that the room was already amply filled by a big angry bloke. It had taken me ten minutes of humping luggage about (no lift, no offer of help) before I’d found it, as the room numbering system is truly random. No apologies followed for the error but I now have a room with aircon. I’m making the most of it, as apparently it stopped working for a day yesterday.

I just want to be at home. The Caribbean generally is very over-rated (give me Greece or Spain any day).

The picture is a snap of the pretty view from my bedroom window. It aint pretty, but I’m glad the barbed wire is there.

Now don't let me encourage any racism here. One of the reasons I dislike it as I do is because I honestly am entirely indifferent to the colour of a person's skin myself, yet I feel a lot of Jamaicans make assumptions about me because I happen to be white. I've no respect for racists, but ignoring nastiness becasue the people invovled happen to be black is itself racist. Colour doesn't matter: if somebody's an arse who happens to be black, they're still an arse. Period.