My 3 Month Stay

     Upon my return from my second trip to Jamaica, I made three pretty rash decisions. The first one, was I was going to go back to Kingston once again for an undisclosed amount of time. This, in turn affected my other two rash and risky decisions, which were 1) that I wasn't going to go back to my full time teaching job I had secured, and 2) that I was leaving Santa Cruz, the place I had called home for the last 10 years. It was a rush and a whirlwind. I knew full well that what I decided to do could definitely back fire because of  its riskiness. I also knew, however that I had to do it, and if I didn't, I would spend the rest of my life regretting it. 

    I finished up the school year and spent my summer squeezing in a summer school teaching job, preparing to move, and making loose arrangements for my stay in Kingston. It all happened so fast, and before I knew it, I was on the road, my car stuffed full to my new life. I stopped in San Diego to store random belongings in my family members' homes, and, before I knew it, was on a flight to Kingston the next morning. 

....

    My trip, of course, did not go the way I planned, but it did end up being one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I ended up staying there for three full months, which ended up making me feel like I actually came closer to living there more than anything else. In three months, I ended up being in both a music video and an extra in a British movie, lived in three different places, became closely familiar with the Kingston bus and route taxi system, and got seriously schooled in quite a few aspects of Dancehall culture, music, and dance. I hiked to the top of a mountain to see all of Kingston, went on a few rocky boat trips to the small island of Lime Key, explored, in depth, the beauty of Hope Gardens, crammed in a car with ten other people on the way to hidden waterfalls, and basked in the beauty of Paint Jamaica. I bought groceries in downtown, and became a regular at Uptown Mondays, Boasy Tuesdays, and Day Rave on Thursdays. 

I left completely alive, and thankful that I was lucky enough to have this opportunity more than anything. I'll go into more detail about this experience in the following posts.