My birthday present - The Guatemalan button

I saw the thing I wanted for my birthday but couldn't have it. The circumstances were just wrong. I didn't know how to ask for it. Neither did I have the audacity to let the words leave my mouth. This gift of which I speak is not a thing, per say, but a person. A guy who is as cute as a button :). For my birthday I wanted to sew him onto my dress and see if we would go well together. But how does one ask another to be a gift without wrapping? I guess guys do this kind of thing all the time, but women don't usually have much practice in the direct line of picking up men. What a shame though, because if he were female and I were male, I would definitely have at least asked for my wish.

Does every hoe still have a stick in bush?

Imagine being jolted from your sleep because of a loud roaring sound outside. Imagine realizing that it's only the rain. Imagine rolling over to cuddle but to your surprise there is no one there...

Imagine the chasm you'd fall into and the loneliness you'd feel. Just imagine the hurt you would feel because he just hasn't been searching hard enough to find you. This hoe definitely needs her stick from the Bush, but the stick needs a middle man to find it, cut it and bring it to the hoe. So a bit of coordination is required.

In the absence of or in addition to friends and family connections,  today's world offers dating websites - such a wonderful invention. With this wonderful creation it should have been easy to find a stick in the bush to insert into my hoe, however the sample has grown from a backyard bush to an amazon-like forest. With so many trees to choose from, how does one determine which stick is best? And so the awesome problem of an abundance of choices arise or as Economists would call it, 'the paradox of choice' arises.

This abundance of choices applies to all the users of these websites though which means meaningful relationships are harder to form. This leads us to meeting a lot of people, being confused by too many choices and forming less stable relationships. In the end, we end up waking up to pitter patter sounds of rain on the roof, rolling over and feeling nothing but space. All that pitters doesn't patter :) - the rain version of 'All that glitters isn't gold'.When online dating just burst on the scene, many persons felt that it would definitely solve their problems, but instead, it only made it worse for some.

In this bustling online world, does every hoe still have their stick in the bush? Maybe yes, but maybe we no longer take the time needed to find out if the stick is the right fit. Maybe seeing the stick online and meeting the stick in person is a challenge. Maybe the stick was even misrepresented online - 'catfished'. Oh boy, this online world can make life so much more difficult than it has to be!

If ever

If ever you were mine, 
I would change like the hands of time.

Forever changing while remaining the same

If ever you were mine, 
This poem,  I would not write. 

For my time would not be mine

And my desires would not coincide with ink and scribe

If ever you realized
That you i idealized,

would you be able to live up 

to the fantasies I fantasize?

Would i be able to proclaim all the feelings that have spun this tight knit web? 

If ever you were mine, 

Oh the feeling would be divine

But alas you have no price

And i have no means with which to acquire that which is without 

So onward little soldier, 

Onward with your stride. 

Someday lady peace will come 

and kiss you like the sun

Poetic Justice

Many moons ago, in my teenage years my brother bought the video cassette of a movie called 'Poetic Justice'. The stars were Tupac and Janet Jackson. At the time I only knew this because I secretly read the summary of the movie on the back of the cassette case. I read it in secret because my mother had forbidden the movie to be watched in the house. Honestly, if she hadn't highlighted the presence of the movie I wouldn't have been interested in it, given that we had heaps of video cassettes and membership at a video shop. However, as we all know, once something is forbidden, it becomes more attractive. So I read the summary in secret and got intrigued.

To cut a long story short, I eventually watched the movie in secret. I didn't watch it all at once though because my mother never left her children unattended for more than a few minutes. Even as teenagers, my mother constantly checked in on us. So we had no real privacy.

Anyhow, I watched pieces of the movie at nights and when we were left in the custody of my father and he spent most of day outside I watched pieces of it. To my innocent ears the movie was filled with profanity, music to my virgin ears (lol). I really liked the emotions in the movie and the characters were so alive. My favourite character, however was Janet Jackson. She was a Poet / hair dresser, who had endured a hard life filled with loss. She was essentially all alone in the world. She had a few friends and co-workers but she was really alone. So one day, in her state of loneliness she wrote a poem about her loneliness and it has been in my head ever since I watched the movie. The poem actually belongs to Maya Angelou, but at the time, I didn't know that, so in my mind there is always a connection between the poem and the movie.

The first verse of the poem goes:

Lying, thinking last night
how to find my soul a home
where water is not thirsty
and bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
and I don't think I'm wrong
That nobody,
but nobody
can make it out here alone

On nights like these I lie and think about the homelessness of my tired soul. Many moons ago, it had a home, but over the last couple years, my soul has started feeling at odds with the rest of me. My soul has hit a place where water is thirsty and bread loaf is stone. I don't quite know how it got there and I don't quite know how to get it back home. 

My Education is Useless

As a child, I've always heard that education is the key to success. So I made sure I got as much education as possible. Along the way, it dawned on me that the quality of the education is important as well. Therefore, I refused to go to the resource scarce schools in my community and opted to take a farther journey in exchange for a richer high school experience.

That realization paid off well. I sailed through school afterwards. Then it was time to get a job. Getting my first job was relatively effortless. I started working a week after my last exam in school. The job only required a Bachelor of Science degree so I was underemployed given that I had a Master of Science degree. However, I had no work experience so that did not bother me.

After working in positions that only required Bachelors degrees for about two years, I decided to start a PhD. I guess I never really thought about the job market for PhDs in Jamaica. I thought of the ease with which I would be able to enter an international organisation. Little did I know that it would still be difficult to get a foot through the door.

Anyhow, I've woken up from the dream of getting into an international organisation easily, so I started looking at all the job postings around me. It turns out that 90% of the job postings I've seen so far only require Bachelor of Science degrees. This is usually coupled with many years of job experience. So it turns out that post graduate degrees are useless in the Jamaican market, unless you become a University lecturer or consult on a rare high level project.

Therefore, for those persons thinking about graduate studies, I would advise you to do it while working. If you take time off to pursue education in Jamaica, when you get back to the job market, you will be back to square one, qualifying for the same jobs as those with only first degrees.

If I were a stamp...

Have you ever imagined that you were an inanimate object? Probably we have all done it as children. Thinking of ourselves as inanimate objects is possibly one of our greatest imagination boosters and I want to bring my imagination back to life. So, here goes,

My name is Jamal and I used to live with my family in Barbados. We were always together. We lived in the top drawer of the big cedar desk  in Papa's room. From time to time Jamila would open the drawer and play with me along with other things in the drawer. However, we never went very far. Usually she would just play with us on top of the desk. So, as you can imagine, I longed for an adventure. I wanted to go on long trips outside the drawer and meet new people. When stamps from other places visited they usually tell very interesting tales about their journeys. Tales that sound so amazing. 

I wanted to be able to tell a tale of my own one day too. So one day I changed my outfit, from a hibiscus to a mango in hopes that as a mango faced stamp, I would be luckier and someone would want to send me somewhere exotic.

Last week I woke up to something wet on my backside. It was a tongue! I was being licked :). Soon I would be off on a journey of ecstasy. One that would undoubtedly end with me being in a different part of the world.

After days and days of being shut away in the dark abyss of airplanes, I finally reached my destination. The only problem was I couldn't understand the language that the other stamps were speaking.

 I found myself between a strange looking man with a funny hairstyle and an unbelievably pretty woman with a face to be called innocence reincarnate. They both looked like the definitions of exquisite. Oh how small and insignificant I felt lying between them.

The pretty lady then looked at me with admiration in her eyes and began to speak to me in broken English. She exclaimed how privileged I must be and stated how expensive mangoes were in Japan. The funny haired man chimed in that the person who received me will undoubtedly keep me as a prized possession and show me off to all his friends and family. How wonderful it must be to be from the Caribbean. How rare and lovely. 

Hanami, the spring coloured stamp overheard our conversation and looked over to see what all the excitement was about. The sakura on the fringes of her dress were so delicate and elegant and Mount Fuji looked so inviting. Excitedly, with a breath of fresh air she extended an invitation to a picnic under the cherry blossoms. "Oh how lovely it would be to have a Caribbean mango stamp with us for this year's spring picnic next week" said Hanami. Oh what a lovely feeling to be welcomed into this new and beautiful place by all these beautiful stamps. 

You never know just how rare and lovely you are until the other beautiful stamps around you shower praises upon your head :). Oh what a lovely feeling indeed.

Source of pictures:

Hibiscus Stamp

Mango stamp

spring stamp

Caribbean Stamps

Sunday Living

The best Sundays are like today, peacefully bliss, meals with family and friends, chill time after dinner on the veranda while occasionally browsing the newspaper. It's a special day, the beginning of a new cycle and the end of an old one. 

If ever I were asked to choose just one day of the week to be my favourite, it would definitely be Sunday. As Lionel Richie once sang, I'm 'easy like Sunday morning'. It fits my personality, easy going and cool like a cucumber. 

In traditional Jamaica, church is usually a staple on Sundays, however for the non-traditional ones, it has become the norm to sleep late then have brunch. My newspaper vendor recently introduced me to another type of lifestyle for those who work on Sundays. Apparently there is night church for those who work on Sundays during the days but still want to attend church. 

In the future, I think I would like to visit night church to ascertain if the services are similar to the Sunday morning sermons or more relaxed. Sometimes the day services can go on for quite some time and after church there is usually a lot of things to be done, well a lot of talking among church members :).

Onsen Town, Kinosaki

There is a quaint little town on the Northern Hyogo coastline in Japan, called Kinosaki. It is both strange and lovely at the same time. People go there for one reason and one reason only, they go there to soak in expensive public hot baths. In Japan, public hot baths are called 'onsens'.

During winter (and in other seasons as well), many Japanese people prefer to bathe in public bath houses instead of using their private bathrooms. In these public bath houses, there are usually a few Jacuzzi type baths where naked people of the same sex sit in very hot water (40 degrees celsius or more) in absolute silence. Before sitting in the tub though, each person has to stand in the open and take a shower in front of everyone in the room. At the Onsen, there is absolutely no privacy.

Upon first learning of this cultural practice, one might wonder 'who would forsake their private bath tub at home to go shower naked in front of others then share a bath with absolute strangers?' I still don't really know the answer to this question, but since children are brought to Onsens from a very young age and are taught to love it, they grow up and go to places like Kinosaki :).

So, back to Kinosaki.

The town is filled with onsens. That is the only form of entertainment in the town. It is possible to eat eggs boiled in onsen water and stand around this special rock that brings forth water and steam from the underground.

Master or Jack of all trades?

A friend asked a question recently and since then I have been turning over the question in my mind without a solid answer. The question was 'Is it better to have a lot of knowledge about one field or is it better to have knowledge about a lot of fields?'. In essence, is it better to be a 'jack of all trades and master of none' or a master of one field?

Love the money (Dexta Daps)

So Dexta Daps got really popular after his 7eleven song - the one in which he wanted to be  her 11th boyfriend. Now he has a song called 'Love the money'. So in 'love the money' he says the lady knew he had a girlfriend and he knew she had her man, but now he's upset because she didn't love him. Like seriously?? Really?

One interpretation is that the two persons became each others' lovers knowing that they were both attached to other persons. They decided to pursue a relationship on the side, then the woman decided to change the rules of the game. Now she threatens to tell the man's spouse about their illicit relationship as a way to blackmail him into giving her more money. So he's not hurt because she doesn't love him. He's hurt because she wants to blackmail him into giving her more money for keeping his cheating a secret.

What I don't get however, is why he is bringing love into it. There was no love in the beginning and there is no love at the end. It seems maybe he started catching feelings for her along the way and now he's upset that she didn't catch the same train to 'pointless land'.

Anyways, have a listen to the song, after all, Dexta Daps, controversial as he may be, is one of Jamaica's hottest dancehall artistes at the moment. The translated lyrics are provided below.

WARNING: It contains explicit language. 

The more things change the more they remain the same

My driver’s license is nine years old and I am still learning new things about cars to this day. This week I drove a friend’s car and upon moving off I realized that there was no hand brake. Now, this is a car I’ve been in several times in the last few weeks but I never realized that something as common as a hand brake was missing. He kept telling me that the brake was on but I couldn’t, for the life of me, find the hand brake. He laughed at me and said he was rethinking whether or not he should allow me to drive his car.

He then turned on the ceiling light (since it was night) and pointed to the ‘foot’ brake, located to the left of the regular gas and brake pedals. He instructed me to step on it in order to release it. That’s when I realized that my license was old and so was my knowledge of modern cars J. Anyways, apart from the ‘foot’ versus ‘hand’ brake in that car everything else was pretty much standard.

The next day I told my brother about the interesting ‘foot’ brake and he laughed and said, ‘nothing is new under the sun’. He then explained that back in the days when my father drove a Colt van, there was no hand brake. Instead there was a foot brake, pretty much like what I was describing to him.

I know fashion has a way of coming in and out of style, but does that also apply to car brakes? Why was the ‘foot brake’ making a comeback? Is it really making a comeback or was that car just strange?

Just from my experience, I think the hand brake would be easier to access, given that your driving foot will be occupied with the regular pedals. However, since the hand brake is usually just used as an emergency or precautionary brake, maybe its position is not really that important, as long as it is accessible. 

New Experiences

Recently I have been having a lot of new experiences and most of them have been good. So I've decided to document my new experiences for a future date when I feel like life is boring or stagnant. I find that reflecting on my past experiences is sometimes helpful when I feel down. So here goes, for November 2015, I had the following new experiences:

Panacotta

I had Panacotta. I know, it doesn't seem like a big deal to you, but for me it was major. I love food reality tv. I religiously watch Master chef and on Master chef someone is always making a panacotta and running the risk of it not setting in time to complete the challenge. This dessert is not popular where I live, so I had no idea what it tasted like. I assumed however, that it would taste like jello or like a custard pudding. So, you can imagine that when I saw it in the convenience store, I squealed at the opportunity to finally taste this dessert that was so popular on one of my favourite tv shows. Needless to say, I enjoyed every spoonful of my panacotta :).

I learnt that there is a fruit called 'Buddha's Hand'. I didn't get the opportunity to taste this exotic fruit, but from my research I probably haven't missed much. So, just knowing it exists is enough. Isn't this world amazing! I would never have imagined that this was the normal shape of anything. It however, is beautiful in its own right.

Buddha's Hand

After living in Japan for several years, I finally tried hot Japanese sake and discovered just how strong sake can be and that I actually like it. I was at a public cafeteria when I saw some people drinking a clear liquid from cute, tiny cups  that looked like toy cups from doll houses. I was immediately intrigued. So I tried it. The heat from the sake is somewhat intensified when heated. The sake immediately warmed me from the inside out on a cold autumn day.

Hot Sake (Japanese)

In addition, I recently had two strange but interesting fruits from Vietnam. I tried langsat (lanzones) and dried lychee. The langsat was dirty on the outside but the inside had such a pleasant taste. The texture of the fruit was that of a grape, but the taste was reminiscent of passion fruit.                 

At first I was unsure about the dried lychee because I didn't know what it was, and it looked spoiled. I opened the lychee expecting to see white flesh, but was greeted by a black, shriveled object. As you can imagine I was surprised and scared to try it. Upon closer inspection, however, I realized that it was similar to a raisin or prune - a fruit that has shriveled up and changed to black during its aging process. After making that connection it got easier to eat the dried lychee.

Langsat (Lanzones)

Dried Lychee

What lies inside the dried lychee

Dear Mr. Sun,

For three whole days the sun has been in hiding.

Day broke at around 6:30 am but even at midday, 

the sky looked like late afternoon, right before sunset, dark and cloudy.

Mr. Sun has been hiding far behind the clouds.

Out of my reach for far too long.

Did we have an argument and you moved out while I was sleeping?

Are you away on a business trip? 

Where are you, my hot, sweet sunshine?

I miss your kisses and the rays that normally massage my skin daily.

I'm sorry for whatever I did.

Just come back and I promise I will treat you better. 

Don't you think three days is enough punishment?

The real meaning of development

One thing I'll miss when I return to Jamaica is the ease with which I can find past time activities in Japan. There's always something interesting going on, and I don't mean a party or a tv show. I can simply walk to a park and stumble  upon a festival or turn a corner and stumble into a museum or walk into a glass atelier with 5 minute classes. I can go to a coffee shop, study, watch YouTube, scroll through Facebook or talk to real people. I can take a stroll up the mountain or take a cable car instead.

"The developed country is not one in which the poor has cars.
It is where the rich uses public transportation."

These simple pleasures have become normal activities that are accessible to even a pauper like me. This is one of the marks of development - when people with the lowest income can enjoy the same things in life as the rich. A friend shared a quote with me recently that said a country is developed not when the poor can buy cars, but when the rich uses public transportation. This made a lot of sense. Of course, the rich will still have nicer things, they will have bigger houses and luxury cars, but they will go to the same museums, parks, ateliers, light shows, festivals and ride in the same trains and buses. Why? Wealth distribution and infrastructural development are key to real development. With wealth distribution, the poor is not really poor and with infrastructure development, public transport becomes more efficient and desirable than private transport.

The African Festival in Kobe

I recently went to an 'African' festival with a few friends and ended up having a good time overall, but needless to say, there were a few regrettable parts as well. However, the bad moments don't deserve mention here.

The festival itself was on a mountain, on a cool October day. There were people playing rugby nearby and children playing in a park. The festival was the perfect vertex to the triangular scene of activities on the slightly hilly field.

The first thing I noticed was that this 'African' Festival had only a few Africans. To be specific, there were three Africans there. Everyone else were either Japanese or from another country. Anyways, this is usual at Japanese festivals, so I didn't think too much about it.

The Africans present did not speak English, given that they were French Africans. So, we conversed in Japanese, which felt a bit strange on my end.

They had smoked fish and cheese for sale, counterfeit African prints (because they were cheap) and a chicken stew with mounds of onions for sale. I tried some of the smoked food, but the mounds of onions that I sighted in the pot were too much for me.

The main event of the day, however, was the music, not the food.

Financial Prudence and Guilt

Sometimes the people around me make me feel so guilty about spending money. Guilty enough to make me cut back on simple pleasures. I tried to cut back on the little things like lattes. I thought that saving all my money would satisfy me in the long run. It did satisfy me to a certain extent, but then it left me wanting and made me feel guilty every time I indulged. So from now on, I’m focusing on the bigger picture of the big wins. Changing my mindset, investing money, earning more, finding earning opportunities, etc.,.

Ok, so now after I've said that, I will get back to the real world. The real world of insufficient funds and single people without support. Let me get back to the ills of joblessness and no thoughts of carefree spending. Let's get back to the world of poverty, in which I'm currently a resident. In this world, there aren't many big wins, unless I win the lotto and there isn't really much money to invest in fancy sounding institutions. Earning opportunities are also scarce and when they pop up, they are never really in line with my passions and never really pay enough either. So still, I'm left feeling poor.

Clitoracy

Recently, I read the Vagina Monologues and was saddened. I didn't know that a book by such a name could evoke such feelings. There are old women in this world who do not know how to self induce an orgasm and / or have never experienced an orgasm before. Apparently marriage and baby making isn't an automatic teacher for women. It seems schools need clit literacy classes - clitoracy!



In this regard, men have life so easy. Everything is less complicated. As a result, some men, in heterosexual relationships do not know how to navigate a woman's body to give her pleasure. Our society also teaches women to rely on the man to provide sexual pleasure. The man does the seduction, the thrusting and the coming (orgasm), while the woman sits back and acts like a vessel for the man's pleasure. At some point during her duty of being a vessel, the woman may become another vessel, one that carries a baby.

Young Hearts

It's Throwback Wednesday  on one of my favourite radio stations!

I love to listen to oldies because they are usually witty and clean music. They make me think, laugh, cry, sing along.

Today, one particular song grabbed my attention - 'young heart run free' by Candi Staton. This song is essentially telling young women to guard their hearts with all their might and enjoy youth without being bogged down with families and relationship problems.

Many teenagers yearn for adulthood so that they can be free. However, once they become adults, many young girls start focusing on finding the perfect mate. Finding the perfect mate, however,  is not the most important thing at the early stage of adulthood.

Jamaican Patois (Volume 1 Issue 3)

SAKURAIRO LANGUAGE SERIES

Onomatopoeias

When learning a language, some of the most exciting things to learn are onomatopoeias. An onomatopoeia is a word that is created on the basis of a sound. They tend to be funny sounding words and definitely add some excitement to language classes.

They are fun to say but they are very difficult to explain at times because sounds are heard differently in different languages.

Stumbling and Falling

I've recently started a new habit of starting each day by writing down an inspirational quotation. Today's quotaion is 'That stumble just prevented a fall' (unknown author). I've been stumbling a lot lately. In fact, it feels like all I've been doing for the last few months has been stumbling. Stumbling over my thesis, my life plans, my finances. I've been stumbling non-stop. Even as I write this blog entry, I'm still stumbling.

The constant stumbling creates a feeling of shame and sometimes even induces a roll to the bottom of the hill, metaphorically speaking. It's quite easy to allow ourselves to roll to the bottom of the hill, if it happens through a series of stumbles and not one massive fall.

Therefore, while thinking about my inspirational quote of the day, I realized that it has its merits, but as I said to a friend sometime last week, 'when will you pick yourself up and start climbing upwards again? After you've hit rock bottom?'