Good to be home.

My brothers, mum and I always looked forward to our annual summer holiday to visit our cousins in May Pen, Jamaica.

Dad would stay behind as he had work on the farm.

We would leave early in the morning to catch the Doreen bus heading to the nearby market town. Then we’d change to a minibus heading to another town before taking a taxi for the final bit of our journey to Aunty’s, the family matriarch.

Mum would stay for the first week and then leave us to it.

We loved visiting our cousins because there were so many of us together. Most days, after our chores and in the evenings, we would take it easy in the front garden, the adults and us kids, and play dominoes and Ludi, talking and laughing at each other while sipping on our favourite D&G sodas and sharing home-grown guinep, cherries, mangoes, and roasted cashew nuts.

At our many get-togethers, I learnt a new skill: having multiple conversations with different people, all at once, without skipping a beat.

I would be chatting to one cousin on my right about one thing, the other to my left about another, playing a game while listening in on a conversation in front of me and joining in.

Telling each other our problems and troubles, we would talk things through, share our thoughts, and offer advice on how to resolve them.

We would also “take the mickey” out of each other, but if we showed that we were upset about it, we would be ribbed further. So, from a young age, I learned not to let insults bother me, and in fact, I became quite good at quick returns.

Sometimes, just a head turn with a look would be enough.

And when a friendly sting was particularly accurate, leaving an opponent stumped, we would all congratulate the person who delivered it, including the one who received it, with belly laughs and giggles.

We talked over each other, around each other and finished each other’s sentences, sometimes in unison, while keeping up with our games simultaneously. And when strangers passed by, we would naturally switch to our family-coded language so they couldn’t understand us.

Sometimes our conversations would turn into arguments, as our older cousins had a few disagreements, but at the end of the day, we would always make peace.

I loved playing with my cousins and being in May Pen, as we also had bag juice, CheezTrix, jerk chicken and Juici Patties on tap. Aunts, uncles, and family friends living near would stop by throughout the day to bring us treats, join in our play or converse with Aunty on her way to or coming back from church in one of her pale pink, soft blue, creamy peach, bright white, pea green, ice-lolly yellow, matching-from-head-to-toe outfits.

One of the highlights during our holidays was the Denbigh Agricultural and Industrial Show, held nearby. My cousins would dress in the latest fashion, and we would head out to spend our money on rides, games, toys, and sugary snacks, like strawberry syrup over shaved ice sold by men on their colourful remodelled bicycles, playing the latest tunes, with parasols shading us from the hot summer sun.

One year, when money was tight, my dad gave my brother and me one hundred dollars for our pocket money, the equivalent of our month’s grocery shopping, but we decided not to waste our money and saved it to return later. Instead, we got dressed up and helped one of our cousins with her kids’ clothes stall at the show, selling her wares and making her some money.

A few days before our school reopened, we headed back up country and, upon our return, changed out of our travelling clothes and put on our yard clothes.

Freeing our feet from shoes, we ran like crazy to our friends’ houses to see if anyone was up for a woodland adventure or a trip to the river.

Good to be home.

Best wishes,

Sherry Collins, I am her.

Jamaican Freedom Fighter, for the people.

Fighting for the creative freedom of the Jamaican peopledem and Pitch Futures, our future creative talent.

I am human. I create from my own visions and ideas, reading culture and the world.™

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Life Lessons Learned.

The birth of a Jamaican Freedom Fighter.