An extract
To get to the beach we had to go steeply
downhill through a lush park with a craft village, different kinds of snack
counters, First Aid and police posts and an army of attendants all willing to
assist visitors. Joe seemed to know many of them so we often stopped to greet
and be introduced to various persons. Even those he didn’t know nodded and said
howdy. Most Jamaicans are friendly. You don’t have to know them, they’ll stop
and talk to you anywhere, anytime.
“If your trucking business fails, you can
make a living as a tour guide,” Auntie Candi told Joe.
He laughed. “I’ve thought of it.”
As we went down the steps we could see and
hear the rushing water of the falls; steep in places, looking scary in others
with lots of overhanging tree branches, and here and there a few calm pools,
where people who were climbing the falls were resting.
“Want to
climb the falls?” Joe asked.
I looked
at Maya. “I’ve never climbed it,” she said. “But since we’re doing so many
touristy things. I might as well.”
Finally,
we reached the beach, another beautiful stretch of light brown, powdery sand
with palm and almond and other trees gnarled and twisted by the wind, but with
clear blue waters stretching out into the distance. There were buoys marking
the limit for swimming and the end of the falls roaring into the sea. Maya and
I quickly stripped to our swimsuits which we were wearing under our clothes.
As it
was a school holiday, a lot of young persons were on the beach; some seemed to
have come prepared to spend the day. They had picnic baskets, drinks and beach
balls. Some were in the sea having a good time.
Joe
rented a couple of beach chairs for us, but before we could settle on a spot
for ourselves, I heard some voices calling, “Maya! Maya! Over here!”
Maya
shaded her eyes and started waving. A group of children from her school rushed
over. They were in swimsuits and seemed to have already been in the water as
they were all wet.
One of
the girls, whose name was Heather, welcomed me enthusiastically. “Hey, Lori, if
I knew you were coming, I’d have brought the skipping ropes.” I had been
teaching them how to jump double dutch when I visited their school.
I
smiled.
“Come,”
they invited us. “We were just setting up for volley ball over there.”
I looked
at Auntie Candi, who waved us to go on. She was already plastering sun blocking
cream on her skin and preparing to stretch out on her towel on the beach chair.
I didn’t
learn the names of all the kids, but they were very friendly. I am not a fan of
ball games, but since there were no rules, and all you had to do was to try to
get the ball over the net, I joined in. Teams were as many players as wanted to
join in the game. At one time we were about ten a side. Since there was no
competition and no coach, in fact what we were playing should NOT be called
volleyball at all. I didn’t feel pressured and was soon running from side to
side, bouncing into the others on my team trying to get at the ball and
screaming: “Get it! Block! Over here! Mine!” and things like that with the best
of them.
Then we
played a game of tic tac toe in the sand – boys against girls.
They
drew a very large square in the powdery sand. The boxes for the X’s and O’s
were very large, because the X’s would be occupied by girls and the O’s by
boys. It was great fun. We sat cross-legged in the boxes when chosen to do so,
and were all mixed up. (Us girls spread our towels across our legs to be decent
since we were in swim suits.)
While
the teams were deciding which box to ‘mark’, those of us inside had to keep
moving our upper bodies to the music from somebody's box. In no time we were
moving together as if choreographed, since, if you moved the wrong way, you
bumped into somebody. Maya and I were chosen to play several games. There was
one boy who kept bumping into me. Somehow, he always seemed to end up in a box
next to me. I realized he was doing it deliberately, but couldn’t bother to
take him on, I was having too much fun.
Again I had
that strange feeling of being in a movie. Neither team won a game because
everybody kept shouting instructions, so the teams were able to block one
another successfully.
After a
new set of players joined us, Maya and I went for a swim. The water felt
refreshingly cool. I was having so much fun, I never want to leave this place,
I thought.
In a
quiet moment swimming, I wondered why I was enjoying everything so much,
including the games, until I realized that one of the things I liked about this
vacation, was that none of the young people (except Maya) knew me. So, I could
do anything I wanted without fear of being judged. I could be myself, or NOT
myself, if I wanted to. Here I was nobody’s sister, I was not an A student, nor
the worst at sports. If anyone criticized me behind my back, what would I care?
Then Joe
called us to come out of the sea if we wanted to climb the falls.
