"Looking so fat man" is what you say to pregnant women. Fat women are so proud in Jamaica. They wear belly shirts to show off their fat. You don't stop at red lights at night. The drivers have a code: one light flash is hi, two flashes is there's a cop ahead. "Yeah man" is how you say hi to a man or woman. "Waah guan" is how you ask 'what's going on?' Negril is Diity's favorite beach in Jamaica. I saw a home with broken glass sticking out from the fence...Jamaican security systems.
Restafarian is Diity's religion. She believes in a higher power and that that higher power is most likely black. When people die the people mourning cut their hair. So Ditty cut her dread locks that were down to her bum when her dad died. It's so cool learning more about a person from another country. The best Jamaica quote is "in Jamaica we don't have problems. We have little situations."
Blue Hole was so so so fun! I could have spent a whole day there and I could have easily spent a week or two on Jamaica. So much to see and so much to do plus the people are all so laid back and chill (that may or may not be due to the very liberal use of Marijuana...).
A crazy thing happened as we were headed back to the ship. One of the very persuasive Jamacian salesmen had enticed us over with a cool drum/violin/guitar thing that he had made out of bamboo. We thought it would make a cool gift for the kids, so although we were already running late we bought one and had him carve the kids names in it.
Then another convincive Jamacian pulled us over to some carved wooden birds. Nick had so many things in his hands the man offered to hold one of them (a Jamacian mask we had bought earlier) And in the rush of everything Nick let him. They offered us such good prices that it was hard to refuse. After buying the bird we were really really late and rushed towards the ship. After getting through the first gate we realized something. The mask! We had left the mask with the bird salesman.
Nick started running back and I was close behind. As Nick ran down the street anxiously looking for the bird salesman, he ran right past a Jamacian policeman. The policeman tried to get his attention but he was so focused on finding the man he didn't notice. But I did. I tapped Nick's shoulder and pointed. The policeman narrowed his eyes. Nick explained that we had left something behind and we were late for our ship. The policeman said "do you know what happens when you ignore Jamacian police officers? You go to Jamacian jail. Do you want to go to Jamacian jail?"
Nick swallowed and said "no". And then the policeman turns to me and says "Do you want him to go to Jamacian jail?"
I noticed a small smirk so I said "no, I love him". Then the policeman said "Good. Because you know what happens if you go to Jamacian jail? She goes to Jamacian men."
Nick said " I don't want that".
The policeman said, "Ok what you need to do is take your woman and kiss her!" Nick gave me a good hard smooch the crowd that had gathered cheered and the policeman let us go on our way. The bird salesman had been watching the exchange and handed us back our mask and we were on our way, walking (quickly) back to the ship. We made it but both Nick and I were shaken by the experience. Even though I'm pretty sure he was jesting from the beginning, the idea of being stuck in a foreign prison was very frightening.
Jamacia was still awesome though.
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