Blazing light had filled the room as I awoke the next morning. I felt incredibly rested as I squinted joyfully into the radiant sunlight. However, I immediately became worried that I had just wasted away half the day in bed. I wanted to be on the beach by 9! What if it was already 10? or worse, noon? I have been known to sleep that late. My vacation plans have already been spoiled! I rolled over and saw that Kaitlin was still asleep in the other bed and it became my paramount mission to find out the time. As there was no bedside clock [this could be foreshadowing to the considerable lack of clocks anywhere, and moreover to the lack of concern with the time in general in Jamaica] I struggled to think where I left my watch.
Oh! In the dresser drawer! I put my aggie ring on the band and put it in there for safekeeping. I was debating before we left whether to bring the ring or not for fear of losing it somehow, but then decided to use this opportunity to hone my "being-an-adult-and-not-losing-valuable-things" skills. I pulled out the watch and stared at the face. I turned it sideways and stared some more to make sure the thing was still really ticking. It was 6:15! Rested or not, that was entirely too early to get up, so I walked to the window and pushed one side open to make sure I wasn't missing something outside that could only be seen at that hour of the morning, nope, still gorgeous like yesterday, so I went back to sleep until I rose at a more respectable hour, 7.
Eventually we were all up and ready for a day at the beach. Mom, Kaitlin, and I walked down around 9:15 and Dad said he would come down a little later, he wanted to find a bakery first. So we played in the beautiful turquiose water for a little bit and then got our chairs positioned and began to bake. For the first 30 minutes I sat facing the water, occaisionally looking around at the lush hillside to my left with the white houses with terra cotta roofs built into it, unable to look away, as if I couldn't take it in fast enough. Halfway through the morning I starting forming an idea as to why a kept staring as if it would all suddenly disappear. Most of the time in our everyday lives, we get mere glances or snapshots of real beauty. I see an entire family out together enjoying each others company or the technicolor green that covered east texas this summer because of the abundant rain as I drove home, where normally everything is burnt to a crisp. Hardly are there bountiful opportunities to submerse ourselves in creation, and for this I only blame ourselves. We run around all the time trying to get more and more things 'done' as if when we get those things 'done' we are accomplished and we scarcely stop to slow down and just look around from time to time to look at the authentic beauty God has created all around us. So it took awhile for me to adjust to beauty being unashamed and then I pondered for awhile on what God was thinking when he made this part of the Earth. I didn't get very far, as I hardly ever do when I try to wrap my mind around God's but that morning was wonderful just sitting there. My mom and sister had flipped over a couple of times but I never did the first day, I stayed laying on my back, afraid if I did I would miss something even though the Jamaican landscape, as wells as its people, are never quick to change, and I feel as if there were an official facial expression of Jamaica it would be a lazy grin.
Winsome had lunch ready for us around 12:30 when we came up from the beach. Pumpkin soup and tuna sandwiches, both of which were amazing. Originally in my mind the day was going to go as follows: beach, lunch, beach, dinner, something else. Well after lunch we were all pretty tired so we took naps and around 2:30 Mom, Kaitlin, and I decided to walk around Ocho Rios and browse a little, while Dad wanted to go out driving around. My Dad always does this on vacations, he likes to just go off driving around to see whats there and so on. So we walked through several strip-type shopping centers [not getting as many blantant complements since Mom was there, but still obvious once-overs - we got used to it as the day went on and it didn't feel weird anymore - but realized it was just the culture and not that every Jamaican man wanted to take my sister or I down a dark alley] and then we came upon a large open-air type craft market where they have all kinds of hand-made souvenir type things: dolls, bags, paintings, jewelery, wood carvings, clothes, sandals, musical instruments, etc. As we came upon the market a vivacious woman, with named Dimpers came up and introduced herself to us and said, "Oh sexy ladies and sexy Mama let me walk with you and show you my friends shops." Okay, if this woman wanted to spend a few minutes walking with us around this thing that was fine by me.
The market is really just rows and rows and rows of poles and tarps haphazardly thrown together to form rows of shops that were each about 5'x8' and the owner of each shop stood or sat right outside it and when you approached said some form of,
"Come in and have a look, I have a special price today."
"Please come in, you don't have to buy, but just entertain me with a look."
"Come see, I have [insert random souvenir] special for you today."
At first I was obliging, going into every sweet persons little 'shop' as they called it and spending a couple of minutes looking at their things, even though I knew I wasn't going to buy anything that day. Then I realized all of them had pretty much the exact same thing, were using the exact same line, and Dimpers was leading us through every one like we were circus animals and the shop owners were the audience. I was beginning to wonder why this woman was still wasting her time walking around with us, I rationed it out as that in Jamaica they don't care what time it is, how long something takes, and the word efficient is not in their vocabulary, so I didn't care that this woman was tagging along trying to get us to buy something from her friends, which were in ample supply. After about 30 minutes we get to another shop, where the owner carves things out of wood, which are not surprisingly, just like all the other wood carvings we've seen [not to dilute the quality of the stuff - I mean some is junk - but a lot of it is really neat]. Dimpers turns to me and says, "Whadmondaryoubarn?" "What?" "Whadmondaryoubarn?" "What?" "Whadmondaryoubarn?" "What?" I look at Kaitlin because I could not understand what she was trying to ask me if my life depended on it. Kaitlin tells me she wants to know what month I was born. I tell her June. She sighs and looks away while I look at the wood things. After a minute or two she comes back to me and says, "Do you have defiansay at home?" I look at her and laugh and say no. Then she looks at me and tells me this is her son's shop and points to the rasta leaning against a pole.
Moving on.
We're almost done and Dimpers asks where we are staying and we tell her as we start walking in that direction. She is still with us and when we're about a minute from the entrance she says to my Mom, "So, sexy Mama, you going to help a lady out?" This woman wanted money for leading us around a place we were plenty capable and willing to do on our own! I was taken aback but apparently my Mom and sister had figured her out from the start. My mom gave her a few dollars I think and I was a little bewildered for awhile at her money-making opportunities. Did she not have a real job and just kind hung around on the streets until opportunity strikes and then siddle up to some Americans who happen to pass? Was this her only source of income? Was it her day off or had she just gotten off work and she thought she would make a few dollars in her spare time? It was beyond me and I wasn't bitter about it so much as just a little dumbstruck.
We got back home and Dad returned a little while later with new discoveries, one of which being Fern Gully, a couple of kilometers outside of Ocho Rios, which we would visit later in the week. We spent the rest of the afternoon resting around the house and enjoying the view out the windows until dinner was ready. Dinner consisted of jerk chicken [sooo goood, a carribean staple], rice cooked Jamaican style, and cabbage. It was reallly good, definitely compensating for the previous nite's meal. We went out and got ice cream a little later and then spent the evening together on the couch watching a couple of re-reuns of law and order.
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and a little less known,
and who could forget [mostly everyone, especially if you never knew them to begin with],
