Japan Remembers

It’s one year and Japan has paused to remember the earthquake that went bad. The rest of us pause too, and once again extend our empathies to this who suffered loss on that fateful day.
LOVE

White Lines

So the white lines were finaly redrawn on Hagley Park Road, but what was the point. Drivers pay absolutely no attention to them.  They stop way past the line and continue to creep forward as long as the light is red. Then they move off when the cross lane turns orange. They also drive on the divider line when there are two lanes and they overtake when there’s a solid line.

When are the authorities going to do something about the chaos and indiscipline on the road?

Greys’ coming

My students just love to play in my hair, I can’t get them to stop. They look at it, they comment about it, they touch it.

Last week two of the older ones were standing beside and a little behind me as we examined something on a computer screen.  Suddenly one exclaimed “Miss you have grey hair!”.

I must tell you my blood ran cold. The thing shook me in a way that turning 40 never did.  Suddenly I felt aged and saw my mortality – grey hair! grey hair! My GOD it’s here. I felt cold, my heart froze, my breathing got choppy, I wanted to put my head on the desk and cry.  It’s as if she’d said Miss you’ve got x number of years of life left (x being a small number of course).

I’m a little calmer now, and truth be told it was only one strand. But talk about being rattled.  Two summers ago I read a book about greying proudly and naturally. I guess it was preparation and I’ll try to do that. But Lord please bring it on slowly please

and the Water Keeps Running…

Many months ago the garbage men broke my neighbour’s pipe. They emptied the rubbish bin and then as they do, they threw the empty iron pan into the yard. Oopps, it fell on the length of pipe leading to the metre. It instantly started spraying water.  I wonder why that length of pipe was exposed like that, and I wonder why we hold some professions to a lower standard in the way they do their work. Why do garbage pickup personnel throw the empty bins anywhere it pleases them instead of replacing them where they were found? Anyway this post is not about garbage men.. or maybe it is.

A  concrete block was used to kotch up the pipe. One would assume that this was a temporary measure to stop the leak, but the use of the block stretched into weeks, then months.  You’ve guessed it, the neighbour is  a renter.  It is my personal opinion that  a homeowner would have fixed the pipe.

It gets worse, the neighbour has now moved – to a different house across the road and one house down on the same street. They can stay in the living room and look at their old home.  During the move the block was dislodged. The water has now been running to waste for 3/4 days. Are they unaware of it? Of course not.  They walk and drive past it, it makes a spewing sound which we can all hear, AND they keep going back to the yard to take up left over possessions.

But I guess it is no longer their problem and so it is left to run. As to the homewoner, who knows who that is?

What really gets me though is the ability to be so casual about it – I no longer live there so I do not care. As I’ve said already in this column/blog, there is something missing from the Jamaican psyche/buildup.  At our core, a factor that makes up reasonable and mature human beings has not developed properly.

Maybe it’s because we no longer go to Sunday School.

Road Rage

Is it arrogance, ignorance or just a plain lack of morals??  How can you fire gun shots into into a public passenger vehicle? And over a car?

Why does someone like you have a gun? Is it licenced? Did your money buy it (the gun/the licence)? The same money that bought the expensive SUV?

I agree that the taxis are the absolute worst drivers on the road but you know what .. they are followed very closely by drivers of expensive cars, especially young male drivers, with too much money and very little upbringing.

And it is very obviousl that there are several Jamaicas. For some people others not of their world just do not count. So a young man on his way to/from school gets shot it the head by the driver of a BMW because his taxi driver hit the SUV. Confirming what we all know eh … things matter more than people here.

Rainy Days

So it rained for almost three days and mashed up my weekend to boot. But I do like rainy days as long as I’m at home so I’m not really complaining. The guilt normally comes form hearing about the towns in the rural areas which have been flooded out or cut off.  So far so good this time around.