Monday, in my business class, we had a guest lecturer - Professor Alvin Wint - who wrote our class text "Competitiveness in Small, Developing Economies." Basically, Professor Wint realized that international business classes in Jamaica (and other small, developing countries) were being taught from the perspective of larger, developed economies such as the US or Europe. However, many of these strategies weren't as relevant in Jamaica. So he rewrote the text to look at case studies in the Caribbean and methods of reacting to globalization from Jamaica's perspective. Professor Wint spent the class talking about maintaining macroeconomic stability - meaning control over economic, social, and political forces. For example, we measured stability via the foreign exchange regime, which tends to be driven by inflation, interest rates, external balances, and fiscal balances (the four factors behind stability). What was interesting is that when you map out the Caribbean countries in terms of fixed versus foreign exchange rates, and high versus low political/monetary policy independence, you notice that countries with LOW independence tend to be the "high income" countries and have a fixed exchange rate (i.e. British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rice) and those with HIGH independence tend to be of lower income and have a floating exchange rate (i.e. Jamaica, Haiti). In Jamaica, the political independence has clearly led to macroeconomic instability. After getting its independence, Jamaican politicians turned to the Jamaican Central Banks to essentially print money and provide basic needs immediately, not realizing the impact this would have on inflation and interest rates. In fact, at one point in the late 80s, Jamaica's interest rates shot up over 50%! I cannot even imagine that happening! Clearly, it had a devastating impact on small businesses / investment and increased the overall amount of indebtedness in Jamaica. Jamaica is still in the process of recovering from this.
Towards the end of the class, one of the students asked a very practical question: in theory, it all seems so easy to control monetary policy and macroeconomic stability... so why don't the Jamaican politicians do it? The professor made a great point in response, stating that its not just the politicians that need to address this, but also the people. The people need to be more willing to "follow" what the politicians say, not blaming them at every step of the way. Clearly, policy changes take awhile to materialize, and rather than jumping to blame, the people need to follow and wait. Of course, this is difficult after years of hardship and poor political judgment, but unless both the politicians and the people can work together toward improvement, Jamaica will continue to struggle.
Tuesday, Erica and I ventured over to the Jamaican Cancer Society - an organization engaged in cancer control. In terms of cervical cancer, they provide screening for women as well as educational materials. As I am administering a survey on cervical cancer diagnosis and treatment, JCS said they would be able to help me gather data! After that, Erica and I traveled to the delicious Mother Earth (a vegetarian Ital restaurant) for some Jamaican lentil patties and then sat in the beautiful Emancipation park discussing her recent experiences in teaching youth about gender roles in Jamaica. I have to say, I am really enjoying all the intellectual conversations that I am able to have here daily - I feel like I am learning so much about the various social and political and economic forces in Jamaica.
In the evening, prior to Obama's state of the union, we did our first "roommate run." Jazz, Ash, Erica and I went for a long run in the park. It was so fun to do as a group! And, Erica pushed me really hard and I reached my personal best distance / pace :) We are all hoping to do a short race nearby next month... put our running skills to the test! Afterwards, our usual "Tuesday game night" crew (our friends Brendon, Troy, and Andre) came over for hours of dominos and card games. I seriously love that this has become a weekly tradition!
Thursday, I went out with my friend Kelley and met more of her Jamaican friends, all who seem to know each other from the world of polo. We had a home-cooked, delicious dinner (including wine and dessert!) at her friend's house and then went out to the bar at Devon House. I really loved meeting this whole group of young adults who are around my age! They were all so sweet, teaching me about polo of course, and asking about my adventures in Jamaica. Shocked that I had never watched a game of polo before (except for a super fancy charity event once in NYC, where Prince Harry played Nacho!), they invited me the following day to join for a polo match...
So after attending a dancehall dance class Friday morning (taught by our friend Raddy Rich, who you can see in this Shaggy/Alaine music video - look for the guy with the dollar sign in his hair, on the cell phone!), I ventured out for my first polo match! The Kingston Polo Club is located about 20 minutes outside the main city, and includes a beaaaautiful green field, lined with trees, with the mountains in the background. It was breathtaking! I watched several matches here, with all of the friends from the previous night playing! Polo is definitely an intense sport and - despite having a horse - requires so much agility and upper body strength! More than anything, you have to be an amazing rider. Given that my last experience with horses resulted in a bucking horse, I don't think polo is in my future... but I definitely enjoyed watching :) After the match, the entire group - which essentially consisted of the families of the kids I had met - had an evening of dinner, drinks, and dancing in the clubhouse. Everyone was sooo incredibly nice! It was so cute to watch this close-knit community of families that have known each other for generations through the sport of polo!
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| Polo match! |
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| Thrift Store Fun... |
On Saturday... Ashley's family arrived in Jamaica! After showering our apartment with gifts (a.k.a snacks!!), Erica, Ashley and her parents and I went on an adventure around Kingston. First, we went to a thrift store nearby that is open once a month. Erica found some funky dresses and I found a chunky and (what I think is trendy) gold necklace. There were even some fun Indian clothes that were being sold as "swimsuit coverups"... very random! After that, we all had lunch at a new restaurant called "New Leaf" that serves fusion vegetarian Jamaican food. We had "doubles," a popular, Indian-influenced Trinidadian dish of chickpeas in chutney, covered in naan (sort of like a burrito); pumpkin patties, callaloo patties, veggie burgers, red pea soup, and fresh coconut water. All I have to say is YUM. That night, we all went to dinner at Scotchies (our favorite jerk place!). Clearly it was a food-filled adventure with the Hydes! Ashley, Erica and I spent the rest of the night with a full apartment of different friends, learning dominos strategies, playing cards, learning about cricket, exchanging ringtones (not kidding), and finding out more about Carnival in Jamaica (more to come on this soon!!!).
In the morning, Erica and I joined our friend Kam (and his friends) for their weekly trip to the beach. We had some delicious parrotfish and festival and veggies and just lay out enjoying the sun and bright sky! Definitely a relaxing way to start the day!
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| Erica at Fort Clarence Beach! |
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| Fort Clarence beach |
Afterward, Erica and I decided to rewatch one of our favorite documentaries about Jamaica, called "Life and Debt." Any avid blog followers, you may remember me talking about watching this video during my first day in Jamaica, in my business class. I highly recommend that anyone interested in the background of Jamaica's economic status watch this at the link above - it's done incredibly well and is really, really powerful (read reviews/description). In fact, watching it again, knowing what we know now about Jamaica, Erica and I found ourselves sitting on the couch with tears running down our face. It is amazing that the video was made over 10 years ago, but really nothing has changed since then. It is so depressing to see how so many industries in Jamaica (banana, milk, meat, etc.) have been wiped out, one by one, due to globalization and increasing competition. Despite having its "independence," Jamaica is still at the mercy of so many international institutions, with few prospects for immediate change. As the director, Stephanie Black, says at one point:
"When we wished for independence from Great Britain - we had something else in mind. We cannot now remember what that was. So you could imagine how I felt when one day driving on the Queens Highway I asked myself, 'is the Jamaica that I see before me self-ruled, a worse off place than when dominated by the bad minded English?'"
Definitely some strong words, and it is hard to disagree with her on the status of Jamaica. However, just after few months of living here, meeting so many wonderful and bright people, and understanding the different opportunities for growth, I really and truly believe that there is much hope for Jamaica to develop.
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