This morning I had my first Jamaican breakfast... I had what my colleagues deemed a very "local" experience of wandering around downtown looking for some place still serving breakfast. At "The Steamer," where apparently there is always something on the pot, I got a traditional meal of: Okro and Salfish (spicy okra with fish and steamed veggies in sort of a stew), Potatoes (sweet potatos), Fried Dumplings (like sweet fried dough balls), regular dumplings (basically, slabs of dough), and daschine (spelling? something related to yams and potatoes) with fresh orange juice. 4 hours later, I was still stuffed from the yumminess and in a deep food-coma. I found out that some of my classmates at UWI survive off their Jamaican breakfasts until about 9pm. I had to snack, but I can definitely see how... breakfast here is SO filling!
So at "The Steamer," a guy called me "Chiney." My colleagues said that literally, this means that he called me Chinese (which is definitely a first for me...). But after discussing it further, they interpreted it more as meaning that I don't look Jamaican, and look mixed, so I must have some sort of Asian background. Default adjective for that: Chiney. I asked my colleagues why people don't think I'm Jamaican since there are a TON of Indian-looking people here. Their answer? I don't have the swagger. So they spent the early afternoon trying to teach me HOW to have swagger. This meant staring back at people who might stare at me, until they look away - no ignoring! This meant "talking" with my eyes (still not sure I understand what that means). But basically, this meant total attitude. We'll see if I can pick it up... currently I am failing.
On a side note, yesterday I meant another foreigner! A man from Japan, Oyama (sometimes he uses the name Obama so people will remember him haha)! He was so nice. He lives by me and works by me, so we carpool to and from work together. He is here doing consulting work for the Japanese Govt. for Air Jamaica. Pretty cool job because every few years he gets to switch it up to a new country! We bonded over the fact that he once was posted in Massachusetts :) I also enjoyed hearing all about life in Japan... another area of the world I need to visit!
After spending 2 hours trying to get a student ID today (which I actually still was unable to get), I attended class... my 5th week of classes, crazy! As usual, very interesting discussions. Today was around the "tools" we can use to analyze an industry and then determine whether an opportunity really exists to enter it. We looked at the power of buyers, sellers, threats to entry, threats of substitutes, and rivalries. Pretty basic, but was very interesting to analyze with case studies of higher education in Jamaica and the Jamaican mobile communication industry. It was more interesting then to analyze how this framework changes when you introduce the concept of globalization - how barriers to entry come down, competition increases, substitution increases etc. etc. Probably a class with less debate than usual, but interesting to finally put more structure to some of the concepts we had touched on.
Jazz and I came home (at almost 10pm yikes) to a set table and dinner ready! Jazz and Ashley together made an awesome, Jamaican-spiced baked chicken. And we discussed the events of our days :) I love our Jamaican family dinners!
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