Welcome to Jamaica
Welcome to Jamaica. We walked off the ship to be welcomed by the most intense rainbow I think I have ever seen. Then boarded our tour bus for a city tour and visit to the Konoko Gardens. Our tour guide was the mother of several children so much of what she told us about was the duration system. Children begin school as soon as they are potty trained. The education system is based on the British Colonial model and all student must wear a uniform bought and paid for by their parents. Parents also pay for student work books as each student has their own as a way to make it impossible for students to cheat or share their school work. Because parents have to pay for these fees most Jamaicans are well educated. Also teachers are strong disciplinarians and the kids live in fear of the teacher who are free to beat the students to keep them in line. There is no messing around. The students are also required to take vocational classes and most do some type of internship which can often result in a job as most end up getting hired after the internship.
The Konoko Gardens were modest in comparison to most public gardens and have several small man made waterfalls for the local children to splash around in. One of the main attractions here are the many caged parrots. It was sad to see these huge Scarlet Macaws in these tiny cages and the budgies in a huge aviary.The gardens themselves were not spectacular and much of the focus was on local medicinal uses for the plants. The Cannabis ‘Ganja’ plant had mysteriously disappeared however the sign was still there. I did not see the locally famous Dr. Bird but did see a green hummingbird and a seriously large spider.
What was impressive was the small but informative museum. It explained the early history and settlement of the Island by the Spaniards. The original inhabitants, the Taino People quickly became enslaved in the most brutal ways and were tortured and abused and raped till the became essentially extinct. Very interesting is the history of the Maroons, who were basically Africans brought over to be slaves that escaped into the jungle and formed communities of what ere called ‘Bush Negros’. The fought the slavers and released more people to join them. The Africans that were specifically brought here belonged to several specific African Peoples. There were trade routes from Africa to Jamaica and back. At the same time indentured ‘servants’ were brought from Ireland, mostly woman and were ‘scattered at different places on the islands to become ‘mothers’ and bear white children as the slave owners we raping their slave woman who were not just laborers but sex slaves to their masters, hence many blue-eyed Jamaicans. Many Jamaican’s claim both African and Irish ancestry. The indigenous Taino people were so brutally abused by the Spanish and there is all this documentation of the cruelty inflicted on these people. So by the time the British took over the island the pure blooded natives were essentially extinct from Spanish brutality and just plain genocide and European diseases. The only survivors were the children of the raped native peoples and they were not treated any better. The British sent the convicts to Australia and the Irish ‘slave woman’ here. They felt if they had these poor Irish females the masters would stop having children with their slaves but noooooo. Raping slaves was their right as the slaves were ‘property’ to be used and abused as they saw fit. These people were property to be abused as the master of the plantation. Ever see the film, Twelve Years a Slave? Finally slavery was abolish and most of the white people fled as the Maroons and the freed slaves went on the rampage! Can you even imagine how horrible it must have been?
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