reclamation

We dance in the diaspora,
those spaces between no kinds of places,
in those tight spots in action movies
where the walls close in, slowly;
at the corner shop
where everyone knows everyone
and strobe lights shimmy across
plastic packets of dried salt-fish
and rusting tins of apricots.

Sofia's magic afro

from the sofia the daydreamer series

...Sofia twiddles a strand of her hair whilst she thinks.  

Sofia blinks.  She sees a yellow taxi whizz by.

The buildings are high as giants.  “Where am I?” 

 Sofia wonders.

“We are in Los Angeles,” a woman answers.

She is wearing black trousers,

a blue shirt and a black leather jacket

with a badge displaying a picture of a panther.

Londoner in Jamrock

editorial, gal-dem

Jamaica is not all blue skies and palm trees. One of my favourite Jamaican sayings, “see me and come live with me”, means to know someone on face value and to know them intimately are two different things. The same can be said for the island.

Just because you visit Ocho Rios or Montego Bay for a couple of weeks each year and eat ackee and saltfish every Sunday doesn’t mean you have any experience of what it means to live in Jamaica.

You know the cardboard cut-out experience fed to you by foreign all-inclusives. You’ve appreciated snapshots of the island’s stunning scenery and if you’re lucky, you know what a mango should taste like. But yuh nuh know bout box food, bag juice, bad mind, zinc fence, true poverty, the sweetness of custard-apples and the bitterness of papaya leaf tea, market day, what it feels to like to live in the same country your ancestors were enslaved, what it feels like to have no water for weeks. You might not have experienced the myriad angles of the place’s silencing beauty – the lush green mountains of Portland, the desert-like, cacti-dotted planes of Saint Elizabeth and the rainbow of blues from sky to sea in Westmoreland.

“swapping London for Jamaica is like spinning a dial, you move from monochrome to sun-emblazoned life in technicolour”

I’m not saying I know everything there is to know about Jamaica, nor do I necessarily want to but I have peeked into the culture enough to know swapping London for Jamaica is like spinning a dial, you move from monochrome to sun-emblazoned life in technicolour; life in its rawest, realest, most painful and most exquisite forms.

When the humidity hit my face outside Sangsters airport, I didn’t know what to expect other than sunbathing, rum cream and Red Stripe.