“We may give without loving, but we cannot love without giving.” ~ Bernard Meltzer.

When I moved to South Florida in the late 70’s, it was the third big cultural shift I had made in my young (ish) life.  My first move had been the most dramatic, emigrating from England to Jamaica at the age of almost eight, I had to adjust to a tropical, rural life surrounded by people who (superficially) looked nothing like me.  Like an anthropologist, I studied hard, observed greatly, learned to speak ‘Patois’, and tried to fit in.  It was only when I looked in the mirror that I remembered that I was white! In no time I felt more Jamaican than anything else.

After high school I made the cultural shift in the opposite direction, returning to the UK to study nursing.  That move left me surrounded by people who looked (superficially) like me, but I felt foreign.  Once again I found myself studying hard, mimicking an English accent, trying to fit in.  I often felt as if I had spent my life defending one or other of my homes.  In Jamaica I was teased whenever the West Indies beat the English team at cricket.  In England I was expected to defend Jamaica in any argument.  It made life interesting.

My move to South Florida after nursing school (third shift) introduced me to life in the US.  My early impressions were of huge cars (this was just about the time of the energy crisis, before ‘compact’ cars made their entrance), gaudy neon lights everywhere, and people who shared way more of their personal life than I was comfortable with.  But for the first time I found ‘my people’.  South Florida was full of people who had moved there from somewhere else, whether within the US or from far beyond its borders.  My story of hopscotching across the Atlantic was no longer unique or strange.  In nursing school in England you were thought to be adventurous if you had moved from one city to another!  Now my story was just one in a room full of stories.  We were all adjusting.

South Florida continues to be a glorious melting pot of cultures, races, ethnicities.  Like other big cities in the world, there tend to be areas of the city where there are people from a specific place in the world.  We don’t have a China Town, but we have Little Havana, Little Haiti, Jamaica-hill.  For many years, Miami was referred to as ‘Kingston 21’, because there were so many Jamaicans.  The first wave left Jamaica when Manley (a Democratic Socialist) seemed to be getting too friendly with Castro, and so those with money left for Miami (rumor has it, with cash hidden in teddy bears, woven into wigs, and sewn into clothes), and soon became part of the business establishment, mostly in South Miami.  Later waves, often made up of students who over-stayed their visas, moved to the Northwest.  More recently there have been those Jamaicans who settled first ‘up North’, then moved south to find warmer climes, where you could grow your own Jamaican fruits in your back yard. 

But Jamaica wasn’t always that close.  In the late 70’s you could only hear Jamaican music on one AM radio station, and in the early hours of the morning, a couple of days a week, there was ‘Sounds of the Caribbean’, a show which played classic and current music on WLRN.  This was a lifeline for those who longed for home, a way to keep in touch and feel comforted.  This was long before you could hear Peter Tosh on a Starbucks playlist, or hear reggae beats with a Latin flair blasting from a Spanish radio station (Reggaeton, baby!).

It took another few decades to find that, in this my new country, there were not only Jamaicans on every corner (and Jamaican stores with Jamaican food, Jamaican restaurants, Jamaican patty shops), but there were people I went to high school with.  Although to be fair, one of the people I met on my first job was the mother of a boy I went to elementary school with! Before long, a group of my high-schoolmates had ‘linked up’ enough of us for us to have a get-together, and from that we formed an alumni association.  This was not unusual, since many other Jamaican high school graduates living in South Florida, had done the same.  In fact in many of the big cities on the East coast, you can find such chapters of Jamaican high schools. 

This means that, despite having traveled many miles, moved across the ocean and settled far from my immediate family (my siblings are mostly scattered between Wales and England), I frequently find myself surrounded by people who knew me from (as they would say in Jamaica) ‘mi yeye deh a mi knee’ (when my eye was at the height of my current knee!).  Which is incredibly comforting, and saves a lot of time trying to explain why a white woman speaks with a Jamaican accent and dances reggae as naturally as breathing.

One of the beautiful products of these associations is the ability to raise money in support of high school students in Jamaica.  It is impossible to imagine how difficult it can be for students to get to school, sometimes traveling on several public buses, taxis or even walking for miles on foot, to get to school.  Although education is ‘free’, there are fees, and books and food costs, quite apart from the necessary transportation.  In the rural parts, parents may not have a steady income, earning money by selling produce in the market, sewing clothes, or driving a taxi.  So for us in the diaspora, raising funds to assist them is not a bad thing.  And, given that we are talking about Jamaicans, there is food, fun and music involved!

This weekend (and every Labor Day weekend in South Florida since 1998, apart from when Covid tried to keep us down), we have come together to celebrate our alma mater, Clarendon College, a high school situated on (one of?) the most beautiful campus on the island, perched atop a hill, overlooking surrounding hills and valleys.  The school was founded over 80 years ago by a Congregational minister, a young man in his 30s, who, on the eve of the first day declared ‘Tomorrow, by God’s grace, I will light a candle in Chapelton whose flame will never be put out’.  In a dramatic but tragic turn of events, he died in a train crash 30 days after declaring that, and today, by God’s grace, the school is still going strong, with countless generations of successful, well-educated citizens.

This Friday morning I am looking forward to a busy weekend, but full of gratitude for a life that introduced me to so many vibrant, wonderful people.  As we party with intention we are also sending as much love back to that place that molded us, aware that for many of us, it made all the difference in the world. 

Have a wonderful weekend, Family!

One Love!

Namaste.