Hope your weekend was enjoyable, and if not, here's wishing you a good week to come, whether you work, study, idle, or any combinations thereof.
Passed thru a bar operated by a friend of mine last night. He has reopened it for the first time since Hurricane Ivan. He was a seaman in his young days, and the bar is decked out (no pun intended) with maritime artifacts, including a propeller, a search light, a captains clock, a barometer, and other pieces of equipment that honestly, I need to ask him what those are.
The bar counter is made in the shape of the bow of a ship, and over the bottles of liquor is a replica of a bridge of a ship, trimmed with Caymanian made rope.
There is a pool (billiards) room, with 2 pool tables. There are several pieces of work in the bar to be complete, but I like it, and it is certainly off the 'trendy' circuit. This place is really a bar among bars. A couple of hispanic bombas working behind the bar as per the usual local routine. Having imbibed several Heinekens, I had a shot of 1800 tequila. It was nice.
After that stop, I went to a new restaurant opened by my clients. It is located in a shopping centre on Seven Mile Beach. On Friday, I attended a private luncheon (free, as well) put on by the owners to give the kitchen, the bar and the servers a trial run. Sitting with me there was the head chef at Cayman's brand new Margaritaville. He was the chef at Margaritaville Negril, before. He is new to Cayman, but is being well taken care of by several of my friends/clients.
Lastly, look at this humourous quote from Ja'can columnist and pollster Mark Wignall - I think its wonderful in terms of its humour, although serious in some of its implications.
"Teen girls quickly learn that the use and unveiling of their sexual organ far outweigh anything that the head can think up. And the men around these girls are always there to remind them of its importance. As the lack of education grips these communities, the sex becomes the bargaining tool among young women."Mi run up a marathon pon a gal man last night," said one woman to a dancehall channel cameraman recently. Now imagine if that man referred to was 'suffering' from a sex strike on the home front. Some suffering indeed.
No sane inner-city young woman expects her boyfriend, live-in or not, to be sexually active solely with her. Such a man is a rarity and is considered 'saaf'. The whole dancehall culture, which is deeply embedded in the ghetto, is centred around 'nuff' sex, male promiscuity, female availability and male sex-power.
When the man 'steps out' in the evening, probably after holding up at gunpoint a few people outside the community the day before, he steps out in style, dollars in his pocket, expecting that something new will be available.
If this 'something new' doesn't happen, there is always the live-in to fall back on. The man therefore learns that sex is available in and out, and the young woman outside who is poorly educated and broke, pats herself at the spot, looks down and speaks to it, 'We a go look a food later'."
14 comments:
What a quote. Couldn't help but laugh at that 'we a go look a food later' part. But, man, I won't even get into how angry it makes me -- society's ready acceptance of this wholesale abuse that's been passed off as ghetto culture. Indifference is hatred at its calmest, and if society is so indifferent to those "sufferin' illiterates" then employ ethnic cleansin' or some shat like that & put dem outta dem misery, but damn! De cycle persists, more broken kids, more broken adults, more depravity! Hopefully, this week's as good 4 U as last week was.
The concept of that bar sounds really good, I like it.
Margaritaville in Cayman! Wow!
That article sounds lighthearted, but it's an ugly truth.
true Stunner,it is an ugly truth.
Powerful article. Wignall's still got it. Nice souding bar. Would like to visit it someday.
Mr. Wignall, that fellow nuh easy. There are women with standards in the Ghetto, and I'd like to beleive that most men in the ghetto are not hardened criminals. But there is truth in what Wignall has said.
Wow, it sounds as if all ghetto folks live like that, but I knew some folks from Southside, downtown Kingston, and they tried real hard to live good lives.
But at the same time, we can't deny the truth in what Wignall says. How I wish our govts. would educate and help the youths, especially young women.
That bar sound like it's going to be trendy one day, mark my words.
Hey RI, and MB, what's life like for poor folks in the Cayman...they have poor people there?
Interesting question, GG... I will think upon it and give you an answer...
Pity you never linked the article Mr. RI, now I have to go search for it.
Unfortunately it is far too real and far too frequently the norm rather than the exception. I've heard teenagers from the area I used to live in speak only to often of the sexual exploitation and the cost it has.
Yes
We do have poor people here, in an amount that we find unnacceptable. Having said that, the amount is limited to a small amount, when you use regional standards, however since Ivan, there has been increased substandard tenements etc., and we are now even importing poverty, in addition to "home grown" poverty.
Hiya. I'm sure I met you one time in Jamaica. I see like me you love free food and nuh shame to say it!!
Could you give me the link for that Wignall piece? Thankya! ;)
I love this. Its cool.
I like Wignall's writing most of the time too.
"Importing poverty..." How so?
It's a sad state of affairs still.
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