Read Around the World November 2023 – Jamaica

Map link https://mycanadianpassport.com/facts-about-jamaica/

November and we spend the month in sunny laid back Jamica (not miserable, cold and rainy Great Britain)

Fun facts from this website 60 Interesting Facts About Jamaica – The Fact File

• The original inhabitants of Jamaica cultivated corn and yams. Today, Jamaica is famous for cultivating sugar cane, bananas, and mangoes, none of which are indigenous.
• Jamaica produces Blue Mountain Coffee, a highly sought-after and expensive coffee that is popular across the globe. It is one of the rarest coffees in the world.
• In 1988, Jamaica was the first tropical country to send a bobsledding team to the Winter Olympics. This is the basis for the film Cool Runnings
• Jamaica is home to over 200 species of exotic orchid.
• Jamaican, Kool Herc, is responsible for starting rap and hip-hop music.
• Rastafarians make up less than 5% of the total Jamaican population.
• While it may be widely spoken, Jamaican Creole or Patois is not a written language.
• Jamaica has one of the highest numbers of rum bars per square mile
• Jamaica is home to the fastest man in the world, Usain Bolt
• Jamaica is among the happiest places in the world
• The island of Jamaica has one of the most number of churches per square mile in the world.
• The country’s national dish is Ackee and Saltfish, with jerk chicken, curried goat or mutton, and oxtail with broad beans bringing up the rear.
• In 1997, Jamaica made history by becoming the first English-speaking Caribbean country to qualify for the World Cup.

I chose to visit Jamaica via Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn a powerful debut novel about women and family.

The story focusses on one family of three women; mother Delores who works selling knick-knacks and more to tourists in the local market, Margot her oldest daughter who has a legitimate job in the local resort and an on the side job as prostitute and youngest daughter Thandi the great hope of the family a bright teenage girl destined for great things.

The women are all complex and fully formed characters and they show the particular struggles women face on the island paradise of Jamaica.

Delores is an awful mother and her way of dealing with the “wayward” Margot is despicable and her actions have a major impact on the family dynamic and how Margot chooses to live her life.

Margot is beautiful with a great body and from an early age she has learned how to use it for her advantage. She is also cold, calculating, manipulative and ambitious. Under all that however is a soft heart and a need to protect her little sister from the life she herself has been forced to live.

Thandi young and intelligent resents the fact that the family are pinning all there hope on her for the future. She has the benefit of a private education but doesn’t question how her sister can afford to provide it for her. Thandi is more concerned with making herself more attractive with skin lightening products than in loving herself as she is an insult to her dark mother Delores.

When the hotel resort decides to expand the family are thrown into conflict as events unspool and undo everything the women have worked so hard for. Secrets are revealed and gulfs are opened between the women.

Told with lots of Patois in the narrative this is a fascinating read about Jamaican life the tourists never see.

4 Stars – Well worth a read

 Did you join us on this leg of our journey? Let us know what you read.

Next up we will be spending the Christmas season in Poland – will you be joining us and what will you read?