So this post is pretty much a response to last night, which turned out to be one of the most bizarrely authentic Jamaican experiences I've had while I'm here (in terms of the night as a whole I think)
The night started out with a trip to a local community theatre by all of the volunteers and some of the staff from Great Huts and the shelter to see the shelter manager's daughter Jolene perform in a pantomime entitled 'Love Tun Up.' It's at this point that I should note that due to a number of factors, primarily being that I'm so very disorganised and was running extremely late last night, I forgot to bring my camera, so there are no photos from the night.
The pantomime itself was a very interesting experience. It began somewhat shakily with a power blackout that lasted about half an hour, although that wasn't really the theatre company's fault. I was actually kind of worried that the kids wouldn't get to perform their play, but thankfully everything resolved itself. The performance was kind of like a medley of different performances ranging from dancing, to an acapella sextet (I think that's the right word?). The pantomime was also really good, although I won't lie, at times I really had to strain to understand the patois haha
After the play we moved up the road to a local bar in Fairy Hill where Gayleon, one of the handymen from Great Huts, was DJing alongside with his soundsystem 'Carib Sound.' We rocked up and kicked things off with an awesome chicken curry, cooked by a bloke who had set up shop on the side of the dancefloor, before getting stuck into some dragon stouts and enjoying the music. It was really crazy seeing the change in Gayleon as he DJed, normally he's a relatively quiet guy, but once he got (p)on the decks it was intense, he was jumping on the mic shouting out everyone and stuff, really cool to see. I also got shout outs for calling for rewinds on both 'Human Nature' and 'Sidung.'
So far, pretty tame right? Everything changed with the arrival of an artist (whose name escapes me) who was originally from Boston Bay, but who found fame and was coming back to play a set at the bar that his mum owns. He also brought his producer, a guy called Russian, with him. Anyway, they brought 'Team Russian' with them, which was an elite cadre of female dancers that proceeded to do things that I have never seen before outside of videos on youtube.
The following clips may give some idea of what we experienced:
Things got pretty intense towards the end of Gayleon's set and there may or may not be some videos of me trying my hand at daggering now lurking somewhere on the internet. Unfortunately the police rocked up at 2am and demanded that everything be shut down, at which point a lady who owned a club down the road said that she'd open it up so we could keep the party going.
Things then proceeded to get even more intense.
I will say this about daggering, it's absolutely fucking exhausting. Some select quotes/mental thought processes from the evening include the following:
"I'm sorry I didn't catch hold of your leg that one time, I didn't want to drop my beer"
"Who even uses these muscles in normal life?!"
"I knew getting a table involved was a bad idea, I think I've pulled my hamstring"
Nevertheless at 5am, a shell of my former self, I had to call it quits. I'm now waiting to head to the gorgeous Winifred beach to chill out and recover for a bit before work this afternoon. I'm heading SCUBA diving on Wednesday with any luck, so I should have a new post later this week relating how that went, until then:
The night started out with a trip to a local community theatre by all of the volunteers and some of the staff from Great Huts and the shelter to see the shelter manager's daughter Jolene perform in a pantomime entitled 'Love Tun Up.' It's at this point that I should note that due to a number of factors, primarily being that I'm so very disorganised and was running extremely late last night, I forgot to bring my camera, so there are no photos from the night.
The pantomime itself was a very interesting experience. It began somewhat shakily with a power blackout that lasted about half an hour, although that wasn't really the theatre company's fault. I was actually kind of worried that the kids wouldn't get to perform their play, but thankfully everything resolved itself. The performance was kind of like a medley of different performances ranging from dancing, to an acapella sextet (I think that's the right word?). The pantomime was also really good, although I won't lie, at times I really had to strain to understand the patois haha
After the play we moved up the road to a local bar in Fairy Hill where Gayleon, one of the handymen from Great Huts, was DJing alongside with his soundsystem 'Carib Sound.' We rocked up and kicked things off with an awesome chicken curry, cooked by a bloke who had set up shop on the side of the dancefloor, before getting stuck into some dragon stouts and enjoying the music. It was really crazy seeing the change in Gayleon as he DJed, normally he's a relatively quiet guy, but once he got (p)on the decks it was intense, he was jumping on the mic shouting out everyone and stuff, really cool to see. I also got shout outs for calling for rewinds on both 'Human Nature' and 'Sidung.'
So far, pretty tame right? Everything changed with the arrival of an artist (whose name escapes me) who was originally from Boston Bay, but who found fame and was coming back to play a set at the bar that his mum owns. He also brought his producer, a guy called Russian, with him. Anyway, they brought 'Team Russian' with them, which was an elite cadre of female dancers that proceeded to do things that I have never seen before outside of videos on youtube.
The following clips may give some idea of what we experienced:
Things got pretty intense towards the end of Gayleon's set and there may or may not be some videos of me trying my hand at daggering now lurking somewhere on the internet. Unfortunately the police rocked up at 2am and demanded that everything be shut down, at which point a lady who owned a club down the road said that she'd open it up so we could keep the party going.
Things then proceeded to get even more intense.
I will say this about daggering, it's absolutely fucking exhausting. Some select quotes/mental thought processes from the evening include the following:
"I'm sorry I didn't catch hold of your leg that one time, I didn't want to drop my beer"
"Who even uses these muscles in normal life?!"
"I knew getting a table involved was a bad idea, I think I've pulled my hamstring"
Nevertheless at 5am, a shell of my former self, I had to call it quits. I'm now waiting to head to the gorgeous Winifred beach to chill out and recover for a bit before work this afternoon. I'm heading SCUBA diving on Wednesday with any luck, so I should have a new post later this week relating how that went, until then:
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