The TV was on late this evening, muted and ignored, until I noticed a series of clips showing motorbikes, cars and trucks trying to drive at high speed up sand dunes before getting stuck halfway up or on the crest. The bikes’ wheels spun sand jets vertically, while the trucks slid and rolled like beached [...]
Our plan last night was to put up shelves in our wardrobe and further reduce the chaos of our living conditions, which seems to involve shifting boxes from one room to another, until it becomes unmanageable, then redistributing the boxes to other rooms. Every few days we generate enough garbage to fill the bus and [...]
Today is the most important national holiday in Senegal, Tabaski, the Wolof word for the Festival of the Sheep, known elsewhere in the Muslim world as Aïd-el-Kebir. It is a celebration of an event that is also important to Jews and Christians, that is, the sacrifice by Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic) of his eldest son. [...]
While other place spellings may vary in Jamaica (Savannah-La-Mar, Savanna-La-Mar or Savanna la mar; Acadia or Arcadia), Cross Roads in Kingston is defiantly two separate words. A few years ago, it was considered to mark the frontier between uptown and downtown Kingston, although these days, one could argue the urban decay is still creeping northwards.
Uptown [...]
Best headline of the year so far:
MAN RUN OVER WITH MOTOR CAR, SHOT, ESCAPES
(source: Jamaica Observer)
It’s a fairly typical report of street crime in Jamaica, relying on unsupported interviews with the nearest person at hand, vague and incomplete police statements and victims that disappear, never to reappear.
I’d been scanning the local press since last Friday [...]
Say what?!