the culture of begging was a term I heard when I first came here that almost made me sick with capitalist, hard-lined conservative puke.  my strong socialist philisophy tells me that people beg because the proper social welfare and job creation programs are not in place... how dare people accuse these helpless, uneducated people of adopting a culture of begging.

 

Yesterday I was waiting on the street for Erin to give her money.  A homeless guy who I had apparently given about $20 USD one night in a drunken stumbling of a mess came running over to me... " I beg you a liikke somethin, just a likkle somethin"  but I told him that I had no money - which was true, the money I had was for Erin.

 

Today I'm doing my usual lunchtime walk to the gym when he comes running up to me "You mek me sad, why you tell me you dun have money... me saw you had money in your hand and thats why I asked... you mek me sad because you waan give a likkle somethin"  I almost lost it on the guy... its my money if I wanted to give it to him I would have, I'm usually pretty liberal with my money and I don't want to hear about how I'm disappointing to this guy because I didn't give him money this one time.

 

On Friday the aforementioned security guard from Erin's work caught up to me while I was at the bank.  Nothing worse than seeing a known beggar who you usually give money to at a bank.  He asks me for the big one... "loan me a blue one" - blue being the colour of the J1000 bill ($20 CDN).  I hesitate... its a lot of money and I know he has a crack problem.  I make him a deal and tell him he has to wash the car in and out on Monday and i won't loan him the money but I'll pay him J1000 to clean the car.  He agrees I give him the money.

 

Monday comes, Erin takes the car to work.  She asks him if he's giong to clean it.. he tells her no unless he gives her a likkle something.  She gives him a couple of dollars.  He cleans the car.  She comes out, he's leaning against the car and begs for even more money.  Another $5 and everything is fine.  It gets worse, he washed the car with his own shirt which stinks like BO.  Now the whole care smells like BO.  I paid $28 for a BO smelling car.

 

Is there no honour among beggars these days?  Maybe its the culture of begging...

This morning an event reminded me of how fragile life and security are in Jamaica.  I was waiting for Erin on the side of the street when a guy came up to me "Please bredren, give me a likkle money man, a bwad man stabbed while me sleeping, and it hurt and me want to go to the hospital" and with that he stuck out his cut up arm and showed me the blood and slash wounds.  "Nobody cares" he says.

 

Two days ago the security guard for Erin's work got attacked.  He got stabbed repeatedly in the arm as well.  Everybody, including Erin and I, know who did it... the guys who run the parking lot.  The police will never be phoned - I mean the security guard has a crack problem after all, he doesn't really deserve rights.  Its the second time they've attacked him in under a month, last time they broke his hand... I was on anti-inflammatories at the time for an injury so I gave him some.  The police will never be phone... certainly not by me... I don't want to get shot or have something happen to Erin.  The helpless mentality that crime breeds is perpetuating into me - its like watching a train wreck in slow motion... I know one day I will go to pick up Erin and the security guard will be gone... dead... probably killed in his own parking lot.  There will be no media, no police, no nothing, just one dead of 1600.  Erin's own station probably won't even cover it... and he works for them.

I went home for christmas and a funny thing happened.  I realized that Kingston, aka Dodge, is now home.  I have long held romantic views of Canada and have longed to see friends and family, but returning home made me romanticize Jamaica and made me long to return (grass is always greener).

 

Eventually I will always end up in Canada, it is home and I do love it... but for now I think I've finally gotten over my homesickness and am moving forward fully with life in Jamaica.