Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Being that this is my life it probably doesn't come as such a big surprise that things didn't work out quite the way they were planned (again). This is why I am now in Mexico - which, I am sure I said this before, is arguably the best place to be in the world. So this is good news! It almost felt like coming home, when I arrived in Central America again.
I will explain what's going on in a little bit, but first I want to mention that writing a blog isn't easy, since I have no clue what people want to read normally. Of course, the whole point of this blog is to write down my thoughts and experiences in different countries, but sometimes I forget that other people do not travel as much as I do and I take things for granted that aren't. So what I want to say is: I really like getting feedback on my blog entries! In whichever way that may be. And I have recently gotten feedback from a dear friend who was asking about food and farming in Jamaica, so I will write about that first before I write about everything else. Prepare for a long blog entry…
So food in Jamaica is a rather difficult topic if you are vegetarian - as is food in many countries of the world really. In Jamaica the normal food is chicken and rice. That's what most people would have at least once every day. This might be accompanied by a slice of tomato or cucumber or a leaf of lettuce but that is only if you are lucky. There is also other meat, of course, but chicken is the most common and, I guess, the cheapest. The way meat is traditionally prepared is "jerk" (jerk chicken) which means barbequed. Generally this is done in BBQs that look like oildrums. So there are a lot of oildrums on the streets and in the evenings they are activated to roast meat. There are only few places where you can buy food on the street like this. Jamaica is not quite a social as Latin American cultures are. Life is not shared in public as much and it is more common to have families and friends at your house for dinner, rather than meet out on the street. There is very little variation to the jerk meat and rice dinner of Jamaicans. The only variation really is, when they try other culinary styles - European (mainly pizza) and Asian are both quite common.
For lunch or snacks there is fast food chains all over Kingston (and probably all over Jamaica). The most popular snack is called "patty". These are like empanadas: dough filled with something (usually chicken or other meat). They are fried, so not exactly healthy. But in many areas there is one of these patty-places every hundred steps so they must be extremely popular.
Now, since there is a widespread religion in Jamaica that is known as Rastafarian, these people have their own food. They do not eat meat, however they usually eat fish. And seeing that Jamaica is a small island, the sea is close, wherever you are, and fish is a very common food. Fish is usually also made on the grill but there are also different ways, of course. There are also fish-patties, for example. Tofu is used a lot to replace meat for Rastafarians or vegetarians. So basically you get whatever you would get if you were not vegetarian and just have the meat replaced by tofu (although the tofu is usually in a kind of stew, rather than jerk). For me more interesting were the side dishes that are available besides rice: festival and bammy. Festival sounds fun, and it is actually quite tasty, although I find it strange to eat it with meat but luckily I don't have that problem. It is dough that is a little bit sweet (not very but definitely on the sweet side) and is also fried. It has the shape of a sausage and is comparable to what Austrians know as "Krapfen" (not the shape but the taste and texture, maybe similar to donuts for Americans but by far less sweet). Bammy is basically like polenta but I think it is made of wheat rather than corn, but otherwise the same. It is not extremely exciting but it reminded me of a certain friend that stayed with me in Miami ;)
Now, as Jamaica is caught up in the money game the US forces on the rest of the world, just like other places are, the supermarkets are stocked with American food (I think half of the products on the supermarket shelves are typically made by Nestlé). There is Domino's Pizza, Subway, KFC, and Burger King. I have only eaten at Subway once and not tried any of the others but in general local food is a lot cheaper than imported food, so the American chains are mainly for the richer people, whereas the local chains are quite cheap and everybody goes there. Asian restaurants and fast food exist but also mainly limited to the richer parts of town, so probably also not quite as cheap as the patties.
The place where I worked offers a mix of Jamaican and European Cuisine, so I got great vegetarian food there with lots of vegetable. We also had great cooks who saw it as a challenge when I said I wanted something without meat and fish and always made me great meals. I did not really work on the farm that much, as I also helped in the kitchen, the office and the guest house. But I did go onto the farm enough to see how it all works. I was amazed at how fast plants grow there, but I guess the climate in the mountains is perfect for them. There is not that much sun, as usually in the afternoon it is cloudy. They still need to water all the plants though, because there is not enough rain. But other than that, they do not do a whole lot. They just let everything grow and only cut what they need and want. Weeds are usually allowed to grow so long as they do not stop other plants from growing. It is quite amazing too that the plants can grow on the steep slopes and that the rain does not wash out the soil and especially the nutrients. So I guess they do use quite a lot of fertilizer but no pesticides.
As far as growing seasons are concerned: since there is no seasons in Jamaica there is also no growing seasons. The climate chart said that the winter months should be cooler and drier but from my experience it is not really cool (in the mountains it is but not down at sea level, and if I say it is cool in the mountains, I mean that you might want to put on a sweater at night, it is certainly nothing that you would call "winter"). And as far as rain is concerned: it certainly rained more this year in November than in October, so I don't know about rainy seasons really. But Jamaica is in a tropical climate zone so I guess the best thing is to assume that the climate is the same all year. So vegetables grow all year, but fruits seem to have seasons. I think most fruits can be bought year round from different parts of the island but you might have to travel further to get certain fruits at some times of the year. But some trees also just fruit year round.
Our farm produced mainly greens (different types of lettuce), but also zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes, bananas, plantains and several different herbs. They were cut at least 2 times per week, washed and packed to be sold. Left-overs were always given to the kitchen. The greens grow in the beds that are built on terraces, and so do some of the herbs, but the rest of the plants just grows on the steep slopes without much help from the farmers. Growing food in Jamaica seems to be incredible easy (although, again, I did not spend that much time on the farm, so maybe there is a lot more work that I don't know of).
So, beside the farm, there was a guest house where I was staying in the mountains and I enjoyed quite a few nice evenings with guests from various places (a lot of Germans to be honest). It was very nice to get the chance at night after work, to talk to either the people who work in the place or the guests that were staying. I loved that! But they did not have any room for me to stay after November, which is why I left now.
The floorball project in Kingston has not gotten any better, and the truth is that we were promised several things and were given none of them: we were supposed to have trainings with our teams at least twice per week and give language classes at least once per week. There was supposed to be a league with matches every weekend, starting at the end of October. And - probably most importantly - we were supposed to have jobs that, preferably, should earn us enough to pay for our living expenses. My team - much as I love my boys - trains once per week and the training facility is so small that I couldn't train with them, even if otherwise I could have. The supposed league is far from reality and we had a couple tournaments so far that were played on concrete floors and with very little preparation. I did not get a school to teach language classes in (although that was the least of my problems), and, of course, it was impossible to find a job that pays - and as I said, the only place I found that at least provides food and lodging couldn't have me longer than November. Seeing that the living expenses we had were ridiculously (and stupidly) high, the only way out for me, was to move to Mexico, where my dear friend from the finca/resort I have worked at before (also through WWOOF) made sure I can stay for December and then in January I have a bird project that I will work at (both for food and lodging). So luckily there was a good and relatively easy solution to the problem. This does not stop me from being angry at the people from the Jamaican Floorball Association for lying to us and making all kinds of promises that they could not keep. I do appreciate, however, that it was mainly one person's doing that made it all go wrong, whereas other people in the organization actually try very hard to make it all work. Still, I wish I could have had a better experience in Jamaica and keep the country in better memory but that's just the way it is now. I have had some very good experiences and met some very nice people in Jamaica and I know it would be a perfectly nice place, if things would work out the way they should. I also met many really nice people which also made the whole experience worth it. The last few days on Jamaica I finally got to travel a little bit which was very interesting and I will write in my next blog (as soon as I can), about Jamaica and travelling around there.
I want to finish for now, by saying that strangely it took me all this time to find out, why I like so much being in poor countries: I finally understood, that, since I hate money, being in poor countries makes life much easier for me, because you do not need a lot of money to fit in. In Europe I am always an outsider because I refuse to earn a lot of money and own a lot of physical goods. In Mexico I am just average, which is very nice. Jamaica is on average a lot richer than Mexico, so that didn't help, but besides that I also lived in an expensive apartment in the rich part of Kingston, which made me feel even more alien than I should have. Here at the finca, when I wash my clothes by hand, next to all the other women who live here, they accept me more as one of their own than I could ever be accepted in Jamaica. I am starting to feel that, because of this and because of everything I said in my last blog, maybe Mexico should be my real home after all…
- comments
Edeltraud Liebe Martina, endlich habe ich einen, nein zwei blogs gelesen und staune wie immer und freue mich wie immer über deine spontanen Entscheidungen. Diesen Bericht über Essen und anderes fand ich sehr interessant. Hab eine gute Zeit in Mexico! Ich freue mich schon auf den nächsten blog. Alles Liebe Edeltraud