Category Global health and disparities
FMM 9 16 16 You Think you Know
“A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.”~Joseph Joubert. I still remember the smell of Pears Soap. I chose to use it as the first soap used on my firstborn, associating it with purity and simplicity, a transparent oval bar that we could only find in a Jamaican store. But I associate […]
FMM 9 9 16 Walk a Mile
“This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.”~ Alice Walker. At the age of 8 or 9, I attended a country school in the heart of Jamaica. I was the only white girl in the school, which meant I was […]
FMM 8 26 16 Road Trip, Baby!
“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike”~Maya Angelou. Before my family moved to Jamaica, our annual vacations began with a road trip. My parents would pack up whatever old jalopy we owned (one was the ‘orange monster’!) with camping gear, supplies for a month, and five kids. The journey was made slightly […]
FMM 8 12 16 Jamaica Sweet!
“Lovely dainty Spanish needle With your yellow flower and white, Dew bedecked and softly sleeping, Do you think of me to-night?”~ Claude McKay. For many years, I was totally loyal to Air Jamaica. I refused to fly on any other airline when I flew home to Jamaica. It was not just the beautifully sleek […]
FMM 7 22 16 Sound and Fury
“Or being hated, don’t give way to hating…”~Rudyard Kipling (‘If’). My father used to hate crowded places. He did not go happily (if he went at all) to fairs or festivals, crowds of people and loud noises. I tend to react the same way to multiple people talking at the same time, it seems confusing […]
FMM 7 15 16 Power Positive
“Love’s in need of love today.”~Stevie Wonder. The father of my children was a complex man. He could argue all day on a variety of topics: sports, politics, injustice, you name it. What animated him was the history of injustice perpetrated on Africa and people of African descent world over. He was not a fan […]
FMM 7 8 16 He Ain’t Heavy
“Each man’s joy is joy to me; each man’s grief is my own.”~Joan Baez. When I was a child I held my (only, older) brother in high esteem. I basically thought he was the expert on everything. He broke my heart when he told me the truth about Santa Claus (Father Christmas in our tradition). […]
FMM 6 24 16 In the Dark
“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom” ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “Use your common sense, child!” I remember being told this when I was young. I imagine it was said in exasperation by one or other of my parents, probably in response to some obvious question I had asked. Perhaps a […]
FMM 6 17 16 One Blood
“Fighting against isms and schisms”~ Robert Nesta Marley. Jamaica is a land of diversity. Some are not prepared for the range of colors and races that co-exist in that small island. The country’s motto is: “Out of many, one People”. The outward appearance may reflect an origin in India, China, Africa, the Middle East, or […]
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