In the Middle of the Sea Again

Wednesday, December 15, 2005

Since my last note, we spent a day in Jamaica and a day in Grand Cayman.

First Jamaica; we landed there on Tuesday. We took a guided tour of the island in a jeep-type vehicle that covered a lot of the backcountry. We drove through some sugar cane fields and several orange groves. The people in Jamaica seem to quite poor. The people we talk to, admittedly not very many, talk a lot about the years of slavery and the slave revolt(s). Jamaica got rid of slavery somewhere about the 1830’s or 40’s, a full twenty years before we got rid of it in this country. I gather, though, no land reform ever occurred, so much of the land is still held by descendents of the plantation owners, and there is not much of a middle class. People are either rich or poor. The most surprising thing we learned was even that today, there are no free schools.

The Cayman Islands were once associated with Jamaica, when Jamaica was a British colony. When Jamaica became self-governed country, the people of the Caymans decided to remain British. The island is quite small, with very few trees. It first was prominent with sailors as a source of sea turtle for fresh meat. Even today there is a farm, where sea turtles are raised. (Indeed, in my former life at Purina Mills, I used to formulate all the sea turtle feed that was exported to Grand Cayman Island). The Island seems fairly prosperous. I think the main industry is offshore banking.

Today and tomorrow we are at sea, and will return to Galveston on Saturday.