The small Jamaican town of Bath hosts the oldest botanical gardens on the island and a natural healing mineral springs.

The Botanical garden holds the oldest breadfruit trees, said to be the original trees brought to the island by Captain Bligh.

by Joyce and Carl Berdie

We found a nice place in Montego Bay called Palm View Guesthouse that we would like to share. It is up on a hill and it was easy to walk down from there to the main street of Mo Bay.

Morant Bay Market is as authentic a Jamaican market as it gets. Under its zinc roof is housed stall after stall of vegetables, household goods, school supplies. There is a section for the meat market where you can find various feet used enthusiastically in traditional dishes. There are spice blends sold in little plastic bags that are used just as enthusiastically.

When you travel to Jamaica you can do some humanitarian recyclIng from your first world community to the third world community to which you are traveling.

Clothing appropriate to the climate in all sizes can be gathered from friends and family.  Household items like sheets, pillowcases, pillows, pots and dishes, tarps, tools, flashlights, balls, sports equipment, books, baby items and toys, shoe laces may be items to consider donating. Surprisingly, they would like sweatshirts and sweaters because it gets cool.

Be sure to pack light, each bag has to be carried up and down hills. Backpacks work well.

That said, on our last trip, we compiled a list of things we wish we had brought, or were glad we had brought. Perhaps there is something that will be useful to you.

Jamaican patois (pronounced "pot-wa") is primarily English, but to the untrained ear, especially deep in country, we often can't hear this. We stumbled upon some funny likkle things over the years that helped surprisingly will with our Jamaica accent/Patois problems and I would like to share it with you. 

Explained by Moshi Soloman

Drumming and dancing, honor to the ancestors, these things endure from African roots to this day. We read that Kumina is most prominent in St. Thomas Parish so we asked Moshi about it.

This practice is seen most often at funerals. The night before the burial is a big party. A drummer might be hired. If the person was very rich, maybe also will be a duppie band. A big pot of soup feeds the people and maybe there is a case of white rum and a case of Appleton.