You have been living away from Jamaica for some 20,30 or 40 years, in all that time you have not been a regular visitor to the island but now you have decided that it is time for you to retire and you want to retire back home in Jamaica. In all the time you have been away you have been carrying around these romantic memories of how life use to be, how wonderful life was in the area where you grew up and you have spent all these years dreaming and pining about returning home to recapture the moments.
There is nothing wrong with this except, you have been away from Jamaica for such a longtime and like anywhere else life change, people change, places change, some for the better and others change for the worst but you would not know that because you have disconnected yourself from Jamaica and like Neo from the Matrix, you have been living in a romantic dream world.
First let’s clear up a few simple facts about Jamaica Today:
First Fact, Jamaica can be a Blood Sucking Black hole when it comes to money, once you prime that pump with a few dollars it quickly transforms into a transatlantic money sucking vacuum cleaner.
I am not saying you are not supposed to trust people because some of the nicest people I have met are Jamaicans in Jamaica, just apply common sense.
Building your Jamaican Dream Mansion:
So you have chosen to build your dream house instead of buying a readymade house, well one word of advice “You cannot be an Absentee Builder”, if you are going to build your house in Jamaica then you must be in Jamaica to oversea what is happening. I am not saying you cannot find a trusting developer to do the work for you, but there have been so many reports of people sending their money to Jamaica to build a house and when then come home, no house and no money.
Now you have it in your head that you are going to build that dream house to rival all other dream houses, your version of Buckingham Palace. The problem is you are going to build this mansion in a village that may not have improved in all the years you have been away, in fact the area may have declined and you are now building a $40 or $50 million Jamaica dollar house in a location where the houses cost on average $1 to $3 million Jamaican dollars. Yes the quaint little village that you grew up in is now impoverished and maybe crime ridden but as I said you would not know that, because you did not do due diligence, you have been away for 20, 30 or 40 years and did not keep up with changing times, you have no idea what is what and who is who and as they say “Location, Location, Location”.
So you built a mansion, a sight to behold, the talk of the town, you import the expensive luxury automobile, wear your pinstripe suit with a bowler hat and cane driving down to the local village market to pick up a few provisions, all the while attracting the attention of the wrong type of people, those that want, what you have and God forbid they decide to come and take it off you. It would be wonderful if the rural country village you grew up in, remained wonderful, charming and peaceful just a darling of a village and I am sure most are but you cannot just move into an area you have not lived in for 20, 30 or 40 years without having firsthand intimate knowledge of life in that area. This place is now completely foreign to you, the people are also foreign to you and you are foreign to them but here you are with all your wealth and worldly possessions on display for all to see, in an area where poverty is all around you.
Common Sense and Street Smart
Whatever street smarts you learnt in your adopted country should return with you to Jamaica, don’t be naive just be sensible. If you are planning to return to Jamaica to retire, then make plans to visit Jamaica often, especially in the years leading up to your retirement. Spend some time not just in the place where you grew up but in other places, research all areas, ask questions about different areas, about the crime rate in those areas, stop by the local police station and talk to the officers on duty, read the daily papers, watch the nightly news online, monitor the property value in different areas, research the schools in the area. Disregard whatever concept or notions you had about life in Jamaica 20, 30, 40 years ago, wipe the slate clean and rebuild Jamaica in your mind from the ground up. At the time when you migrated you may have been in a certain social class but you may have evolved or devolved depending on your experiences and now belong in a completely different social class.
I have a relative who came back to Jamaica for a visit after 40 years away from Jamaica, while staying with us he complained to no end that he hated where we lived, called us bourgeoisie and proclaimed that he was going down to Barbican to be with his “black brothers and sisters”, his words not mine, we tried very hard to talk him out of it but could not, we told him to exercise caution. That night he put on his best English threads and off he went down to Barbican for a drink at Beenie bar with his “black brothers and sisters”. On my way past the bar I stopped in to see if he was OK, he was having a whale of a time and was about to buy the 5th round of drinks for the entire bar, its was as if the man was trying to redistribute the Queen's wealth, people from all over Barbican filled the bar trying to get a drink from the very generous, rich English Gentleman, so I left him and went on my merry way.
In the wee hours of the night after spending all his money buying drinks for Barbican and under a couple drinks he decided to make his way home, but some of his “black brothers and sisters” must have been watching him because they pounced soon after he left the bar. He had no money left but they took his Jewelry, his clothes and his shoes, he had nothing left but his knickers (underpants) he was saved by some of his “black sisters” who had been drinking with him, they came to his rescue and escorted him home, for all I know it was their friends who jumped him. I am not saying Barbican and Beenie bar is a no go area, not at all, my friends and I have on occasion stopped in Barbican at Beenie Bar for a couple drinks over the years but it is an area that requires certain amount of street smart, especially after 1 am in the morning, use some common sense. I am sure there are parts of London that he would not have gone to flashing money about, the same for almost every country, I do not understand why the same level of street smart did not hold true for Jamaica.
Once you move back or even visit Jamaica it is NOT important for everyone in Jamaica to know you are a returning resident or visiting Jamaica, you are Jamaican then just be Jamaican, in other words, you do not need to follow Ms Lou's advice and say “Poo” instead of “Pa” simply because at times, fitting in works better and to your advantage, sometimes not standing out is what you want to do. There are people who talk more patios and act more Jamaican when they are at home in foreign countries but when they come home to Jamaica they are transformed into a proper English Gentleman and Southern Texas ladies with accents people in both England and Texas would never recognize.
The impressions Jamaicans have of returning Jamaicans was in fact created by returning Jamaicans because of their need to show local Jamaicans that they live in a foreign country, have been changed by it and made it, they have arrived. I know people who spend up to six months’ salary on two weeks’ vacation, splashing it from the minute they set foot at the airport. A person I know would start to splash cash the second he set foot back on Jamaican soil and boast how he spent several grand while still at the airport, I then heard he went back to NY and called another friend to borrow some money to pay for his rent.
Crime in Jamaica
The number one concern for returning and visiting Jamaicans is the issue of crime and rightly so, no one wants to return to a place where guns are barking every night like “mawga” dog on the street and bullets passing your ears more times than buzzing mosquitoes. But if we take the time to study the pattern of crime across the island one would realize that the majority of murders and criminal activities are localized to handful of parishes and very localized within those parishes to a hand full of ghetto locations. If one could look at a murder map of Jamaica, one would realize that the vast majority of Jamaica and Jamaicans are safe and living in peace, the people in these places rarely hear a gunshot or experience any crime what so ever. We have three Counties and 14 Parishes in Jamaica with a population of over 2.8 million people and most of those people and location go about their business in peace and enjoy life as much as anyone else in the world.
I am by no means saying that Jamaica does not have a crime problem, it is a fact that our murder rate has been over 1000 for the past couple years but 98% of those murders occurs in a handful of Ghetto communities within a hand full of parishes and everyone can list these troubled no-go communities. We know which ghettos in Kingston, St. James and Spanish Town and we know to stay clear of them and they seem to stay clear of everyone else.
One of the problem or recent development is that these days, we are now so very connected, a fender bender car crash can happen on Hope Road at 3:00PM and at 3:02PM news of the crash is instantly broadcast to Jamaicans worldwide, Jamaicans living in Germany are aware of the accident as Global satellite systems disseminate information at the speed of light to internet servers and smart high tech hand held devices worldwide. Back in the days if three murders happened today we may hear about 2 in printed or electronic media the next day or over the next couple days and a fender bender would never even make news that would just be idle chatter by the people who saw it. People outside of Jamaica may never hear of it at all, the Daily Gleaner used to be monthly in the UK and people in NY would have to wait for the Star to publish every couple weeks, so most crime would go by with most Jamaicans at home and abroad not knowing it ever happened.
Coupled with the fact that news media’s are competing with each other to see who can find and report the most negative news, because bad news sells and is addictive to most Jamaicans. We are now bombarded up to the nanosecond with every criminal activity, every accident, every little thing and at the rate it is coming in it has started to have on effect on the minds of Jamaicans worldwide, we cannot assimilate that much bad information at that rate about our little rock.
Do your Research and Practice Diligence
There are some wonderful places in Jamaica to live, in almost every County, every Parish but thorough research is required, integrating yourself into any society is a strategy that you must learn and understand. I have read reports after reports of returning residents complaining that after spending every red cent they have to return to Jamaica they are now too broke to leave, disappointed at the condition of the area they moved to or shocked that paying bills is such a manual process, while others complain about the crime rate. The fact is what they are complaining about is known worldwide and not a secret just requires due diligence, research and then research it again, understand what you are leaving behind and what you are coming home to and where you are coming to, weigh the pros and cons with an open mind before making that move.
Jamaica Nice Every time!!!
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