Carrie-Ann Gordon

Published on Friday, February 23, 2007 at 10:47

A simple story of A Little Jamaican Girl

Eagles soar. It’s the nature of their being; in order to exist they must fly above the world freely. As human beings, however, who weren’t made to fly, our paths are less glamorous, often troubling and surprisingly more blue. Despite this, us humans have defied our nature and allowed our souls to reach new heights. It’s often these movements upward that scare us because we simply know that we’re leaving our worlds behind.

My story is simple. It’s one about a little Jamaican girl, not poor, not rich, just human who makes her way from a home she loves and adores to a place up north in search of a dream of a new life and freedom for the country which she holds close to her heart. It is also important to understand that she wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without the love of God or her family and the support which both these forces offer. Once you read this you will realize that my story is not exceptional and that I do not hope to be an inspiration to anyone, I am pretty ordinary and ordinary has been good.

The Quality of Education

I remember my first day of school. Not the details but the feeling. My mother took me. She walked me to the door of the Reception classroom, introduced me to Mrs. Miller, and promised me I’d be okay before kissing me goodbye and walking away. I was not ready for goodbye. And I wasn’t interested in being a student. I was three and before that my world had been engulfed with her, my home and long days at ‘Small Fry’ nursery. That was honestly enough and she needed to not leave me there. I cried for hours.

I’m not the child who ever ran to her parents with her report card. I often hid it. It wasn’t that my grades were bad, but the ‘my’ in my grades had meant to me that they weren’t my parent’s. In addition I never thought they were a measure of my intelligence or my capabilities and my parents should just love regardless.

The relationship between my life and school has not differed much since that moment. I have aged and cried continuously less as time progresses but I am in a sense still that same little girl. I am never the person excited about the first day of school nor have I ever been the person with the perfect attendance record and never will I be or want to be. I have no qualms about getting an education; inheritance of previously gained knowledge is an important aspect of our society and expanding my understanding of the world excites me. It is the idea of institutionalized coerced learning which has yet to appeal to me; it almost scares me. It’s restricting. It doesn’t make allowance that different children need to learn different things in different ways and the classroom should not just be filled with books but life experience. Knowledge isn’t only begotten from books, if it did; it would render the majority of us knowledge-less. It takes away an important aspect of imagination as it allows one hardly any room for creativity and true self expression. School for me had been a place for conformity of the minds. It didn’t teach me that I should think but it tried to teach me how to think. I felt trapped. That lack of freedom, my fear of captivity, my ever changing but vastly growing interests in things unknown were forced to exist between a chair and desk before a black soon to be filled board for the great part of my life. Preparatory and high school (for the first 5 years) was like this and then graduation came.

The Next Anticipated Step: College

Some people dream of college. Some don’t. But for those of us who dream of this place have heard that this is where doors open even if throughout your life many remain closed. The problem is too few of us reach there. Or at least that is case in Jamaica. The difference in me lies in the fact both my parents both went to college, my dad went somewhere in England and my mom in Jamaica. Them being college graduates made college seem like the natural progression from high school so I had always known I was going to college. What I did not know is which one or where. I didn’t know if it would be hard to get into one or what I should be doing to prepare myself. I wasn’t even sure what I would do or like to do when I got there. All I knew was I was going to get there. It wasn’t until after high school graduation and I was in 6th form that I begun the college application process. It was a job in itself since I had not ‘done’ anything for the purpose of getting in to college and I now had the task of going through my life and deciding whether or not something was ‘college worthy’. It took creating resumes, finding old certificates, buying a SAT book when I realized that I was not going to UWI (university of the west indies was too restricting and there was no way I was going to be put in a box) and a lot of my parents hard earned dollars. There was never a time that the realities of our high exchange rate to the United States really hit me until I started converting the cost of college in the US into Jamaican dollars. It was a daunting process. I had a lot to do but I was determined to succeed and determination is something I had managed to go through life without since I was able to do many things without it.

My efforts succeeded and I am currently attending college in Providence Rhode Island, the smallest state in the US. First it was hard. In a sense it still is. I just stopped dreaming of happiness and started dreaming of graduation. Classes were fine and scheduled around my soap operas and when I first started I hardly went to class. I go to more now but only to the ones that I would hate to miss the professor speaking. College also gave me added freedom; I choose all my classes as there are no core requirements and I just had to fulfill the requirement of whatever concentration I chose. I also didn’t get a report card mailed home so I have yet to report my grades to my parents. My mom jokes that I may have dropped out of school and not told anyone. I’d do something like that when I’m ready for her to kill me. On the other side I am far away from everything that I loved. My accent became a hindrance for those who tried to understand me. Snow wasn’t like in the picture books and cold is not A/C on full blast on your way to school. My friends were scattered and friendships hard to maintain, and the new friends I got here acted as if they didn’t have friends where they came from and loved people here too quickly for my liking. And I’m genuinely not the nicest person to people I don’t know so meeting Jamaicans who have never seen Jamaica, but had a plate of rice and peas once was beyond my tolerance level, especially when asked questions of what are the latest dance moves and that video they saw once on you tube. :: rolls eyes :: My culture then became even more important as I tried to latch on to every memory and song from the land of my birth. I needed it. But I am going to finish college that I am not too worried about. It’s the question of grad school which looms and I’m not sure where, what and how that is going to work itself out… or what I am going for. Hopefully I figured it out. Whatever I decide however will be for the benefit of me and my country. I need something Jamaica-practical.

Jamaica

I always knew I was going to be living in Jamaica. It’s my home. As a child I always figured I’d live somewhere quiet and visit my parents on holidays and randomly throughout the year. Leaving Jamaica has now added more to and taken from that dream. As the country becomes more unstable and not as safe as the life I would have here in the United States, it seems tempting to just stay in a country where I could jog (if I ever did such a thing) with an ipod just knowing it wouldn’t be stolen when I came home. And right now that’s not the type of country Jamaica is and I know it’ll get worse before it gets better. But it’s home. And it’s this simple fact that causes me to think about the land of my birth and why it is the way it is. I used part of my time here in college taking classes on Jamaican ‘Brown/Black Nationalism’, as a ‘Neo-colonialist state’, ‘Political Theories of Marcus and Walter Rodney’ and simply it’s culture, popular and unpopular. I have had students ask questions such as ‘why is Jamaica so violent towards homosexuals? ’ as if ‘gays are the prime target of crimes where over 1200 people are killed’ and as if I want to spend my time in college defending or redefining Jamaica in their minds when I have yet to do so in mine. When it’s all said, they’re not going to live there, I am.

But being here has made that place between the sea and the sky more gray, as racial politics now include a colour politics and socioeconomics include a small group of rich elites, a large group of poor, exploitation and high unemployment. And the question I often wonder about is how can Jamaica truly be home unless its ‘home’ to everyone who lives there. I’m not sure. But I want to live a life Jamaica can be proud of and most importantly benefit from because living for oneself is just selfish. And I’m not sure I could really be Jamaican if my life did not include and address its struggles. Being a college graduate I don’t want to be the person who everyone looks for answers because the problem is these educated men have ruled the ‘undereducated’ without truly asking them questions. The issues sometimes seem so complex for anyone to want to take on but we also need the answers. I want a united country and also to quite possibly fall in love with someone other than myself. Comedic relief.

In the end I hope to use this opportunity away from home to make the best of my life. It’s an opportunity that most people anywhere, First, Second and Third Worlds, don’t get and I am not in a position to waste it. There is no fall-back plan. There is just love and support to hold me up while I search for my dreams. It’s sad that many people don’t have the chance to dream and their possibilities restricted. I don’t regret where I am. I just wish it was better or even half as good as the feeling of being home, BUT I understand it to be a blessing. It offers me something being home at the moment doesn’t and that’s promise. Whatever I choose to be, I want to be good at it and I hope it benefits the world. I hope it benefits my world. In the end, this is a story of a little Jamaican girl who is fine, just walking on land.