Destination: Jamaica

Movie: How Stella Got Her Groove Back

I missed reading the book (1996), How Stella Got her Groove Back when it first came out and was a sensation of chick lit. And I never got around to seeing the movie version (1998). Recently I was invited on a press tour of Jamaica, and decided to Netflix (Netflick?) the DVD so I could see what the country looks like.

Jamaican Sunset

As it turns out, I was uninvited from the press tour, so the movie may be as close as I get to the luscious scenery of an all-inclusive beach resort on Montego Bay–but that is a whole other story.
The hotel where Angela Bassett‘s character, Stella, retreats from her pressure cooker life in California, I find out by Googling, is played by the Round Hill Hotel and Villas. One publication described the retreat of movie stars and presidents as follows:

“Amenities are many: 13 tennis and four squash courts; 51 swimming pools (34 three- to seven-bedroom villas each have private pools); a croquet lawn; jogging and cycling trails; basketball and volleyball courts; a fully-equipped gym with personal trainers; six gourmet restaurants; duty-free shopping, and a large and sumptuous spa.”

But in this movie, 40-year-old Stella only has eyes for a 20-year-0ld. He (Taye Diggs) looks as good as the beach scene or the deep green jungles, and as if  Stella was looking for “active travel” she finds it in her luxurious bedroom, turning the jungle ever more steamy.

While I’m googling, I come across the tidbit that Terry McMillan, who wrote the original book, based it on her own love affair and marriage with a younger man.  Shortly after the movie came out, they were divorced. Too bad she didn’t know the ending of her own romance before she wrote the book. Throughout the movie, alarm bells kept ringing. Stella remarks that he has “cocoa puffs in his bed”. He is put out that she focuses on their age difference. I never quite can believe it is going to work.

But, to be honest, I didn’t watch for the story. I just wanted to SEE. The people I know who have been to Jamaica had a wonderful time, but they were there on honeymoons, so what do they know?

Beach scene

Mostly I hear that the resorts are stunning, but travelers can’t venture outside the perimeter of the manicured resort without a guard.  That kind of travel just does not appeal to me. Plenty of Caribbean islands offer sugar sand beaches and neon green jungles without the lawlessness. (My only Caribbean Island and my favorite anyhow: St. Lucia).

Ladera Resort with view of the Grande Piton, St. Lucia

Of course there has to be more to Jamaica than crime ridden urban areas and ultra chic resorts. Here is an alternative view of Jamaica travel that does NOT involve either extreme. J The Travel Authority looks for off the beaten track adventure wherever she goes.

So, if you’re going to Jamaica, and want a little taste in advance, this movie might do it for you. But be warned–it is chick flick writ large.

The video trailer comes from You Tube, as I think they make perfectly clear! One photo belongs to me–the St. Lucia photo–all rights reserved. The others are from Flickr via Creative Commons license and you can click on the photo to find out more. Amazon links may earn me a few pence if you choose to use them.

So…been to Jamaica? Outside an all-inclusive resort? Tell me, tell me.

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Zora Neale Hurston

Book:Zora Neale Hurston : Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings : Mules and Men, Tell My Horse, Dust Tracks on a Road, Selected Articles (The Library of America, 75)

“Jamaica, British West Indies, has something else besides its mountains of majesty and its quick, green valleys. Jamaica has its moments when the land, as in St. Mary’s, thrusts out its sensuous bosom to the sea.”

This nice bit of travel writing comes at the very beginning of Zora Neale Hurston’s Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica (P.S.), a book written in 1938 by the masterful gatherer of tales and describer of what was then called Negro culture.  Hurston, better known for her short stories, also wrote well researched and insightful  ethnography. She focused on the absorption of African and Caribbean cultures into the culture of the African Americans of the  Southern United States.

If that sounds too scholarly, don’t worry, Hurston is above all, a terrific story teller–lively and a terrific mimic of dialects, she takes the reader into situations and places that a white face could never enter–and some that I would be far too timid to even try.

In this book, she explores the beliefs and practices of Jamaica before moving on to a Haiti that seems to have learned little in the past 70 years.  As she reviews the history of Haiti she says, “Haiti has always been two places. First it was the Haiti of the masters and slaves.  Now it is the Haiti of the wealthy and educated mulattoes and the Haiti of the blacks.” She does not romanticize the problems of the people, pointing out “their enormous and unconscious cruelty.” She points out that the people prefer to blame problems on somebody outside, particularly the United States.

She tries to look into the future, and is hopeful that the young intellectuals of the day (1930′s) will see a continued growth in pride in their own country. Unfortunately, that is not the direction that Haiti took. (The following video takes about 5 1/2 minutes to watch and gives a look at current day voodoo practice in Haiti).

Because the majority religion is voodoo, rather than the official Catholicism, she writes about voodoo, hounforts and houngans and  zombies. She refused just to ask people to tell her about voodoo–she made contacts that let her visit voodoo rites.  The book includes her black and white photos, including some taken during ceremonies, and one of a “zombie.”

I find her detailed descriptions of voodoo fascinating, not because I’m going to Haiti, but because of the persistence of voodoo in Louisiana (brought there by Haitians, of course). In New Orleans, as Hurston reports in Haiti, the upper classes brush off the idea of voodoo as just a myth.

The complexity of voodoo rivals the intricacies of Hinduism, and Hurston makes it understandable, with sympathy, but a scientific detachment.

If you have never read Hurston, you may want to start instead on her short stories and articles, gathered in a separate volume by the Library of America series.  And I may revisit Hurston when we stop in Florida on the Great American Road Trip, since she wrote with homespun elegance about the African American life in her home state.

As one of the members of The Harlem Renaissance, along with Langston Hughes, Hurston is now recognized as a powerful force in American literature. When she died in 1960, however, she had been forgotten and was broke. It is bitter sweet to read her collected works in this elegant book, with a proud portrait on the cover and a classy ribbon marker.

Have you read Zora Neale Hurston before? Did you know about her investigations into Voodoo?

If you agree that this is an important writer, please pass on this story by clicking on one of the buttons below, and tell your friends what you read at A Traveler’s Library today.

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Destination: Barbados

Book: The Diplomatic Dog of Barbados by Winfred Peppinck

A MONTHLY GUEST POST

by JESSIE VOIGTS of  WANDERING EDUCATORS

I am so happy to share a wonderful book today, [amazonify]1905513232::text::::The Diplomatic Dog of Barbados [/amazonify], written by Winfred Peppinck.

Diplomatic Dog of the Barbados

The Diplomatic Dog of Barbados is a joy to read — full of life on the island of Barbados, intercultural snapshots, stories of the diplomatic life, and most importantly, the great love of a family. Rescued as a young, abused pup, the cane dog who was eventually named the Diplomatic Dog came to enjoy a life of great joy and security. He grew into such confidence and happiness that it just makes the reader smile. Often I prefer not to read books about pets, since you know the ending (sad!).  However, this one is a gem.

The book is quite humorous, and I was often laughing aloud at the images of DD swimming, running, chasing monkeys, and of course playing. The book also portrays a first-hand glimpse into the diplomatic life. Peppinck was the Australian High Commissioner to the Caribbean and he shows us a bit of the challenges and daily life – and the perks – of the job. It was quite interesting to read of the political issues of location, parties, famous people – and then relax with Winfred and Miss Wendy – and DD and Miss Lucy – when the curtain closed on the day and it was just family.

Here is an excerpt from our interview with Winfred – you can read the rest here at Wandering Educators Book Reviews.

Wandering Educators: Please tell us about your book, the Diplomatic Dog of Barbardos.

Winfred Peppinck: From 2001-2004, I was the Australian High Commissioner/Ambassador to the Caribbean, based on the beautiful island of Barbados. My partner, Wendy, and I lived in a magnificent house, set on a few acres of land, surrounded by the prestigious Sandy Lane Golf Course with views down to the Caribbean Sea. Wendy wanted to get a dog, and having had a pedigreed one during her previous marriage, she sought another German Short-Haired Pointer. I persuaded her that we should instead get a rescue dog which needed a home. She therefore found a Barbados ‘cane dog’ (a mongrel born in the sugar-cane fields of Barbados) which had been caught on one of the famous beaches, and had spent over a year in the Rescue Shelter because he was labeled “aggressive”. We think that he bit people largely because he had been abused and stoned as a puppy.  The Diplomatic Dog of Barbados is therefore the story of how this outcast was brought from the junk-yard to mix with the jet-set who were a part of diplomatic life in the Caribbean. It is an anecdotal, quirky and funny-in-parts story of Diplomatic Dog (DD for short) who lived a sort of a male, canine Eliza Doolittle life, hiding and scavenging for a living, then suddenly finding shelter, food and love in abundance, on one of the most beautiful islands on earth.

Photo of Barbados through Creative Commons

Dr. Jessie Voigts

Dr. Jessie Voigts is the Publisher of  WanderingEducators.com and  contributes each month to A Traveler’s Library. She has a doctorate in International Education, and is passionate about intercultural learning. She and her husband are Worldschooling their daughter, and enjoying every minute of it. She is also a nature photographer and lives on a lake.

It is always fun to get a glimpse of what Jessie is up to over at Wandering Educators. But don’t stop with a glimpse. Scoot on over there and see what treasures they have in store for you. Back to this particular post, do you have a favorite pet book–and does it have the sad ending Jessie has come to expect?  I’ll start with a childhood favorite, Beautiful Joe. The book is about a very ugly dog, and it does have a sad ending, but it is beautifully told.

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Caribbean Sunset

Destination: The Caribbean

Book: A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean: A Grump in Paradise Discovers that Any Place it’s Legal to Carry a Machete is Comedy Just Waiting to Happen,  by Gary Buslik

A Guest Post by Jessie Voigts of Wandering Educators

I am happy to share with you today a book that just made me laugh, and laugh – and learn about Caribbean cultures.  Gary Buslik has written one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean (Travelers’ Tales).

When I first opened the book, the VERY FIRST chapter made me laugh (The Time I Accidentally Urinated on Idi Amin). It gets even funnier from there – Gary explores different cultures, ethics, philosophy, race, religion, and more – all the while making the reader laugh, with his wry sense of humor.

Gary explores different places in the Caribbean, the various people he meets as he travels, and of course the ever-present dilemma of intercultural differences. This book truly is a gem, in that it humorously explores some of the cultural differences the traveler experiences while in the Caribbean. I’ve only been to the Bahamas in the Caribbean (YET!), but I could still relate to the book – nodding my head yes at certain aspects of travel in the Caribbean, and making notes NOT to go to certain places (cockfighting). He certainly brings a great sense of place to his book – you feel like you are there, with him.

Here is an excerpt from our interview with Gary – you can read the rest at Wandering Educators .

WE: What is your favorite thing about the Caribbean? Least favorite?

Caribbean Drummers

GB: A lot of newbie travelers rave about gorgeous sunsets and sugary sand and exotic cuisine, but my favorites are the small things. I love meeting stray dogs you see on almost every beach, giving them a good scratch on their bellies, and telling the locals to shut up and mind their own business when they try to shoo the dogs away. Last December I found a sweet cat on the beach in St. Maarten, and every morning we had breakfast together in the hotel lobby café, with me sitting in front of one plate, she another, her dirty little butt on a placemat. It drove the manager stark raving nuts, so it was a double pleasure. I also enjoy stepping on the flip-flops of margarita-slurping tourists walking in front of me.

My least favorite thing about the Caribbean are mosquito nets. Any membrane that gets between my bladder and the bathroom at two in the morning—and I include pajamas here—is never my friend. If you turn on a light in the middle of the night, your “mosquito” net—a misnomer if there ever was one; they should be called “large-furry-things-with-buck-teeth” net—resembles a Night of the Living Dead reunion. The result being that while trying to make a mad dash from under the elastic, I get more tangled up in netting than a drunken groom in a garter belt, and my wife comes to my rescue by spraying my face with something that smells suspiciously like nuclear waste.

My other least favorite thing is steel drum music. West Indian bands never take breaks. I was not alive when they built the Panama Canal, but in hearing “Yellow Bird” for the zillionth time, my eardrums can imagine what the isthmus must have felt like when that huge, hardened-steel, saw-toothed gnawing wheel ground its way from one ocean to the other.

Dr. Jessie Voigts

Dr. Jessie Voigts is the Publisher of  WanderingEducators.com and will be contributing each month to A Traveler’s Library. She has a doctorate in International Education, and is passionate about intercultural learning. She and her husband are Worldschooling their daughter, and enjoying every minute of it. She is also a nature photographer and lives on a lake.

Caribbean photos by Vera Marie Badertscher, all rights reserved.

Thanks Jessie–even the subtitle has me rolling on the floor. Readers–any humor books about travel that you would like to share?

You might also want to read related posts about other islands:  Hawaii, Indonesia, the Caribbean by Patrick Leigh Fermor, not to mention beaucoup about Greek Islands (search for Greece).

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Caribbean stormDestination: Caribbean and British Guiana

Book: The Middle Passage by V. S. Naipaul

Quotable Thursday quote: I’m the kind of writer that people think other people are reading. V. S. Naipaul

The question is, if a man writes well, does it matter what kind of human being he is?

I delayed reading V. S. Naipaul because although he is always listed as one of the great travel writers, excerpts indicated that he is of that school that dwells on the negative wherever he goes.  ( I learned after I read the book, that he is an abuser of women and a racist.)

How, I wondered, could Naipaul be so revered as a writer if his travel writing consistently discouraged going to the places he explored? In order to find my own answer, I would have to read his work.

I bought two books, The Middle Passage (1962), his first travel book, and An Area of Darkness (1964) which relates to his first journey to India. In an introduction to the edition I read,  he introduces The Middle Passage as his first travel book, but it was not his first published work. He had already gained a reputation as a writer of fiction by 1962. I unwittingly picked up the two books which drew the most criticism to Naipaul as non-sympathetic to third-world countries.

For those who want to know more about the man behind the writing, Paul Theroux, former friend turned caustic truth-teller,wrote Sir Vidia’s Shadow in 1998. An authorized biography by Patrick French, The World Is What It Is, was published in 2008 and is no less disturbing, according to Theroux himself in a lengthy piece for the London Times (unfortunately that article is now available only to subscribers).

In The Middle Passage, Naipaul writes with the observant eye of a sociologist or anthropologist, but without the scientific detachment. The title refers to the route taken by slave ships between Africa and the Caribbean, and tips off his focus in the book.  His visit to Trinidad (where he grew up), British Guiana, Suriname, Martinique and Jamaica constantly circles back to race relations. Allegedly, he is comparing the effect of colonizers from Britain, France and Holland on the West Indies and the northern edge of South America. In fact, he pretty much lumps the colonizers together and lines up with them.

Although he refers to his family history–India to Trinidad to England–he does not openly acknowledge the personal prejudice this brings to his observations.  In each society he mocks the people in power, but lives with them and complains about hardship, while he claims to be wanting to find out about those on the bottom rung and wondering aloud why they don’t feel more pride.  He seeks out connections to slavery and racial division wherever he goes.

The cynicism wears thin, and yet–a big fat “yet”–I don’t believe I have ever read anyone who could as deftly bring to life a character and a setting.  I could see the buildings, rooms, and people he described.

With his pompous air of superiority, Naipaul is not a person I would want to dwell with on a desert island . (Particularly after reading about the way he has treated the women in his life.) However, that biting intelligence and felicity of expression would make for an interesting dinner party.

And, oh, yes, I am going to read the second book.

Now please let me know if the kind of person an author is in “real life” affects your enjoyment of his or her work? Would you rather just not know? Or do you think it is important to know something of the life of the author in order to understand the work?  Let’s have some exchange of views on this. I know you have an opinion.

Photograph by Vera Marie Badertscher. All rights reserved.

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Ken climbs the Cashel hill in Ireland

Fishing Boat at Chyssopigi, Siphnos, Greece

Several weeks ago, Dr. Jessie Voight, from Wandering Educators, interviewed me.  She asked, among other things, “Can we ever read enough to get to know a place?  Even if we’ve been there?”  She also asked about some of my favorite books about different cultures. And she borrowed some of the photographs I have taken on my trips, like the ones here.

It has been a while since I answered her questions. Let’s go see what I said. Wandering Educators

How would you answer that question? Can we ever fully know a place by reading about it?

But do Volcanoes read signs? St. Lucia, Caribbean

Bavarian Castle

All photographs by Vera Marie Badertscher, All Rights Reserved.

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Dominican Republic Sunrise

Destination: Dominican Republic

Book: The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

I mentioned a Don’t Even Go There Book in a previous post.  That book actually scores high as one of the best books I have read in a long time.  But The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz does not inspire travel–although it definitely does inform about place.

If I had ever considered Caribbean travel to the Dominican Republic, this book would remove that destination from my wish list.  Granted people sail or fly into D.R. and stay happily cosseted in high class resorts without venturing out on the street, but that is not my style.

And yet, Diaz works hard to educate those who, as it puts it “missed their mandatory two seconds of Dominican history..”  We are set straight about the nature of the Trujillo regime and the few Dominicans we  actually heard of in the fifties and sixties, like Profiro Rubirosa, international playboy and, according to Diaz all-around bad ass.

The grim history of the island nation has left its mark not only on the island dwellers, but also on those who migrated to New York/New Jersey.  But Diaz’ book is anything but grim.  He tells the story of three generations with no holds barred sardonic humor.  I laughed out loud at horrific revelations–not because I am heartless, but because Diaz wanted me to see the incredible (as in unbelievable)  nature of the acts of the dictator. Understanding a bleak history, as in Ireland’s struggle for independence, Greece’s long subjection to Turkey or Russia’s more recent history is indeed “mandatory” for the well informed traveler. Diaz understands that we would turn away if the picture were too bleak, so he leavens it with an almost adolescent humor.

Ironically, I finished the non-travel book on the same weekend that I saw Slumdog Millionaire, a non-travel movie (IMHO). From each, I learned a great deal about a destination that I no longer wanted to visit.

Have you ever taken a place off your wish list because of a book you read or a movie you saw?  What does an understanding of the worst of history add to the total experience of a place?  Come join the discussion. ( See previous post on Slumdog Millionaire and slum tours) And as usual, if you enjoy this discussion, please share the joy by clicking one of the buttons below. Thanks.

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