Drinking cold beer on white beaches, the holiday makers never get to see the other side of the fence.
Towering over me, and blocking any potential escape, Steve spits incredulously:
“So, you don’t want anything? Dope? Cocaine? A nice Jamaican woman?”
I figure Steve is offering me these things because, as he’s explained, we’re friend and family.
Eventually, convinced of my purity, he says goodbye with a hand shake. Later he recognises me on the street and waves with a smile. Welcome to Jamaica, at times welcoming and homely, but simultaneously intimidating and frustrating.
Jamaica has experienced a volatile history ever since Columbus first landed in 1494. Along with the subsequent Spanish and British colonial powers arrived pirates, slavery, war, rebellions and eventually revolution. Finally after years of servitude and brutality Jamaica’s people were free.
But today, physical servitude has been replaced by financial chains as Jamaica’s residents are poor, dirt poor. And as I was to learn, Jamaica’s divides, established over the centuries, are still perpetuated today thanks to tourism.
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