May 3rd, 2020: Your favorite family vacation.
Growing up, my mother sent me to visit family in Jamaica almost every summer. While most kids my age were gearing up for summer camps and swimming pools, I was getting ready for netball games and Juicy Beef patties. Going back to Jamaica was always my favorite time of year. For most of my life (until I was 10), I was the only child so getting to be around all my cousins was always something I looked forward to. We spent the majority of our summer days dancing on the veranda, playing on the road, and eating mangoes under my aunt’s coconut tree.
My family lives across the street from the neighborhood park. Every Thursday, there would be a league football (soccer) game, and the entire neighborhood would come out. There would be music blasting from my aunt’s roadside bar, delicious food, and endless laughter. I would struggle to walk barefoot across our graveled front yard to watch the game from the front of my aunt’s bar. My cousins and I would drag plastic chairs to the front to sit while other people would struggle to find a place to stand. We watched adults argue about the game, listen to their inappropriate jokes, and watch as they got progressively drunk throughout the game. After the game, we would get snacks from my aunt’s shop and practice the newest dancehall dance moves until we were told to go to bed.
Jamaica was where I first fell in love … with reggae music. My room shared a wall with my aunt’s bar. After she sent me to bed, I would stay up to listen to the music blasting through the speakers, trying to learn the lyrics of the song so that I could sing them with my cousins the next day. Through those nights, I became familiar with the sounds of Beres Hammond, Gregory Isaacs, Buju Banton, and more.
For me, Jamaica was like a different world. Back in the States, everything felt forced and stuffy to me. When I went to Jamaica, I felt more like myself. I was relaxed, happy. The most memorable moments that I have taken place during those summers. It will always be home.
