sign created by Jim Restin

Sunday, August 28, 2011

A Musical Waiting To Happen!

"Every moment is a musical waiting to happen!", expressed one of our volunteers, as she described charming, chaotic everyday Jamaican scenarios.
The public bus, the taxi stands, markets, churches, town centers, roadways, schools, ~ swarming with passionate life. Song erupting everywhere, carelessly and freely shared, and expressed with abandon.
   Like the "street scenes" in Porgy and Bess, La Boheme, Oliver, Carmen and others...public life in Jamaica erupts, surges, sways, dances, all to a mutual beat. Look up, around, over ~ and witness the overwhelming potential of a grand expressive musical/operatic experience just waiting to happen. And what glorious music it would be! Tragedy, Joy, Struggle, Success...
   SCENE: The bus park in a central Jamaican city: We enter from the crowded roadway in a small group ~ so clearly visible as some foreign white women travelling with shoulder bags to Kingston. The bus loaders yell out and grab at us, shout in our faces with gesturing, conducting arms, surging as an operatic men's chorus..with cries of: "Kingston dis way!" "Tek yuh bags?" Mi find yuh good seat!" "Come,come ladies, Kingston bus ovah here!" We are propelled and urged forward, even as we yell back:" NO tek bags! We keep bags!" 
   The buses are small "Coaster" vehicles, with approximately 30 seats ~ but where you find 3 seats, 6 are forced to sit. The loader and driver expertly maneuver each of us into every available centimeter of space ~ Children in crevices, bags under seats and feet, bags across laps, windows wide open on both sides, people selling fruit, drinks and banana chips through the windows, shouting and trading.As the door closes on the last standing passenger, the Chistian music starts and we jolt forward onto the mountain roads and highways, 2 hours of passionate Jamaican life!
   Songs begin. People sing. Money is passed overhead trustingly throughout the bus, as the loader calls for the fare. Everyone helps, cooperates, as if part of a scripted scene ~ until one woman erupts in protest over here child's fare. AH! Time out for an aria, duet with the loader, trio with the driver perhaps, as he stops the bus, walks back to her window...and what ensues potentially becomes a full jazz opera! ....passion more real and intense than any stage can set or inspire.
   Driving on, standard neighborliness settles once more. We are one. We are the world. Who will write our musical? Every moment in Jamaica...a musical waiting to happen.
Peace to you all ~ Susan/Mom

Saturday, August 20, 2011

A Wellness of Spirit Experience

It is in helping others that we help ourselves......

   Saturday, 7am, off to help with my home host's free geriatric health clinic in a rural town in Jamaica. My friend,the nurse, plus 2 other health professionals,provide through the auspices of the Lion's Club International, monthly geriatric clinics on Saturday mornings, serving over 100 people on a bi-monthly schedule.
   Meeting in the 200 year old plantation colonial-style meeting hall,surrounded by acres of HUGE ancient ficus trees(like the small ones we put in our American homes) and gracious fields, the people just kept coming.
   When we arrived, 25 were waiting respectfully & joyously ~ elderly men and women smiling toothless joyful grins, hugging and laughing, surrounding the nurse, pulling me close and declaring instantly: "I love you, sweetie!"

  Hours passed easily in the warm air, stirred by ancient ceiling fans in the arched wooden, open-sided hall. The nurse read blood pressure and dispensed medications, sent each one on for glaucoma meds if needed, and a quick private check-up with the doctor. I simply did as asked - recording names, dates and times on patient file cards, handing out appt. cards for October, sometimes promising to try to be there next time to see them smiling again.(IF my next permanent site will be close!)
   And the people kept coming ~ walking,ambling through the tall grass down the long drive from the Linstead road. It seemed an epic scene from some long ago time. Our last visitor came slowly, slowly...and couldn't give us her age...only her birth year of 1904!
   The Patois was garbled and hushed by those toothless mouths - but their eyes, and a few words - told their intent and gratitude. It was an opportunity of learning and giving like no other.
   As I circled the group with my camera,- finding more smiles, Nike hats on balding gray heads,bright red ruffled blouses on stooped shoulders, and beautiful joy and respect all around - 

...I knew I was exactly where I wanted to be...where I should be.