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Feelin' Better
February 05, 2005 ( life )
Friday night, me and some other Jamaica RPCVs (two from my group, and a girl from G65 (T-Beach Amy, who got married in TB last year) went down to St. Ed's, whose African-Heritage student group hosted a Marley bday celebrationm, with a live Marley cover-band, and free chicken rice and peas (not very good rice and peas). We hung out there for a few hours chatting about Ja (Amy was a good friend with Carla, who lived in my same house during her time there, and shadowed my PC sector director when she was just a volunteer) (it's a frickin' small world!) Anyhow, that was great, but then we split up and went home. The G73ers called me up and told me to join them at Flamingo Cantina downtown, for more reggae tunes, so I headed down and we walked over from their yard near 6th street.
The music at Flamingo was alright, nothing special, but they had Red Stripe, and as we sat upstairs talking about re-adjustment woes and what we missed (and didn't miss at all) about Ja, we kept smelling authentic jerk, but figured it was just something drifting over from a restaurant, consufed with out noses longing for some jerk vibes. At some point, I went downstairs to refill our Stripe supply, and noticed that indeed, there was a jerk man serving up some authentic chicken, rice and peas. He was from St. Mary, near Annatto Bay.
DAMN, I never thought I'd crave Ja food, but this was truly ambrosia.
It was also great to be around other people going through the same readjustment pains, and having the same problems ("where'd you serve?" "Jamaica" "Oh, tough" *smack*).
Also, Mom helped out with a great, ego-expanding email that further contained good advice:
Just read your journal entry S A D and thought I would offer some thoughts (!) Vague discontent with one's life is not necessarily a bad thing. It keeps one from becoming smug, satisfied with the status quo, blind to other's plights, and boring. One should never lose the hope that one can do more and better things. Of course, taken to extremes you get to be 62 and still haven't decided what to be when you grow up. I have always thought I should be doing more, achieving more. You are my one saving grace. You have become a better person than I could ever hope for. I take a small bit of the credit for that.
...
Now some advice....go for a walk. Get active. Do something. Make plans for after work. Spring will come. Life will happen.
Posted by griffjon at February 5, 2005 06:17 PM
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