Day 498 { Jamaica 4 - Revisit Garmex H.E.A.R.T Academy } Thursday, July 30, 2009

Day 498 { Jamaica 4 - Revisit Garmex H.E.A.R.T Academy }

Today I went to my old workplace at the Garmex H.E.A.R.T. Academy in Kingston, Jamaica. Most persons were surprised to see me. I sat and chatted with a couple of them for a while, then I did a small presentation about Japan for a class.

Shortly after that, I learnt that one of the guys who has been working there for about 6 years now, will be migrating. So they were having a farewell party for him as today would be his last day there. We played a couple of games as well as ate food etc... They also surprised me by asking me to do a dub poem which had Japanese in it... So I did a version of "Into Japan" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTo56iw2c2E

I then left out before the little party was done because I was supposed to go meet the Japanese author lady who I spoke to on the phone. So I drove to Half way Tree and I was searching for a parking spot in the Pavillion mall area... I eventually found a spot and after parking, I saw my friend from University, ... I spoke to him for a short while then went to meet the Japanese lady. We chatted for a little while, then I learnt that it was her who wrote a translation book from Jamaican dialect (patois) to ---> Japanese.... The book has a couple of Jamaican dialect phrases which are translated to Japanese... For example:

Waah Gwaan? (How are you?) ----> げんき　ですか?　(Genki desuka?)

Mi Kriss man/Mi kool (Im ok) ----> げんき　です　(Genki desu)

I could not believe that she was the author... The name of her publishing company is mighty mules .....
Oh and she is actually from a prefecture which is like next door to Okayama, where I live... The name of her prefecture is Kagawa.

I plan to write a book of dub poetry and passionate love poems, so I plan to ask her to deal with the publishing part. Maybe next year or there about I will try to sort this out...
After talking with her for a while we went to look at some stuff in a store name Carby's then we ate in KFC... While we were in KFC, I saw my old friend who used to work at Maypen Primary, while I was teaching there. I haven't seen her since like early 2006.

After KFC, we were walking and I was surprised again, when I saw one of my former students at Garmex... We too stopped and chatted then me and the Japanese lady went to a very provocative art exhibition. There I met 2 other Japanese persons who were in Jamaica. One is an artist and have been living here in Jamaica for over 20 years....
The other was visiting here from Brooklyn NY... I heard she is a famous writer.

After all this, I dropped her to her house, then I went home.