Paul’s “G”odiva Spot

Please do not eat me for what I am about to tell you.  Today (Boxing Day), my parents, brother and I went to the beach for a swim, and for brunch!  I have fond memories of going to the beach!  In Jamaica, like in many other Caribbean islands, you can go to a public beach, and you will always find a hut or shop that sells the day’s catch of fish.  You can order fish and they will prepare it right there for you!

I cannot tell you how GOOD it felt to swim in the warm clear-blue waters of the sea today!  I remember as I was swimming around, how good the warm waters felt on my skin, with the sun gleaming through the waters!  Of course it was crowded today as being a public holiday, people from everywhere come to bathe and have fun at the beach!  I was in the water for about 45 minutes.

Afterwards, our fish was ready!  We had freshly caught fried fish, with festivals, bammi, and escovitch sauce.  Festival is something that was invented at this same beach!  It is a mixture of flour, cornmeal and brown sugar, fried along with the fish.  Bammi is a cassava wafer, with the starch washed out of it.  Escovitch sauce is a pickle, consisting of scoth-bonnet peppers, onions, pimento, black pepper, and other ingredients, soaked for a long time in white cane vinegar.  That poured over your hot fried fish is HEAVEN!

I know you all hate me now!  I am sure you wish you could be on a beach, eating fish and festival, and slow-baking yourself in the sun’s rays.  But try to live vicariously through me, and imagine this…(*time lapse*)  This isn’t helping any, is it?  Well, sorry.  But I just had to tell you about it.  *big grin*  And guess what?  I did not have to worry about being eaten, seeing that people came for to eat fish!

Moi

Christmas Day in Jamaica!  You know, I have spent Christmas in North America, and in Europe, but I have to say that NOTHING in the world beats Christmas Day in Jamaica to me!  You see, there are thwe customs that we practise out here that are so ingrained in me, that being back here at this time has made this very special to me.

On Christmas Morning, we are all up at 5:00AM!  We go to church for 6:00AM for our Christmas Morning service.  You see, as violent as Jamaica is portrayed in the news, we are still a nation that honours God.  So, on Christmas Morning, people are up and in church!  This year, as in previous years that I have been home in Jamaica over Christmas, I sang in our Emancipation National Park, where I sang ‘Gesu bambino’ and ‘O holy night’ as one of three soloists with the Nexus Choir. Then, after the sun has risen, and church is over, we go home to a big Christmas Morning Breakfast, which at my house (and many others), consists of the Jamaican national dish, ackee and saltfish.  Please feel free to google this and see what it is.  We also have ham, and roasted breadfruit, boiled yam, fresh fruits (oranges, bananas, etc.) and Blue Mountain coffee!

After such a meal, most people succomb to it and fall asleep!  My mother and I get busy in the kitchen, getting dinner ready, which is eaten by around 3:00PM.  for dinner this year, we had oxtail, curry goat, baked chicken, homemade macaroni and cheese (Caribbean style), stuffing (my way!), fried plantain, mango chutney, fresh veggies for salad, rice and peas, and all the other ‘trappings’ that go along with it!

Oh yes!  I forgot to mention the gift exchange.  That happens somewhere after breakfast, and before people start dropping asleep from the effects of the breakfast!  Do nto worry.  It is just that feeling of being full and happy! You know, even if I had not gotten any gifts, just being with my family during this time would have been enough for me!  I enjoyed cooking, and serving, and feeding everyone, and just being in the middle of all the bustle and attention!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and may every blessing be yours for the New Year, when it comes!

Moi

I have decided that after thinking long and hard about it, I do NOT want a HIPPOPOTAMUS named George for Christmas!  When I decided that I wanted a hippo, I never gave much thought to the work that George would entail!  Have you ever tried to BATHE a hippo…much less FEED one???  Plus, they have this thing where they love to spray their poop all over everything.  They think it’s cute!

So, I have decided that, in lieu of the river horse (more like the river JALLOPE!) I have decided that for Christmas, I want…A WINNEBAGO!!! Yes, my friends!  I want one of those oversized, wide-load house-on-wheels, gas guzzling contrivances that drive people nuts when they are caught behind them of the freeway!  Now you are probably wondering what in the name of Pete would I be doing in a Winnebago, seeing that I am not really an outdoorsey type of person.  I for one HATE long trips anywhere in a car!  I would rather fly!  But here are four reasons why I want one anyway!

1. They are wide!  Nothing is more thrilling that to wake up one morning, and take your bago out for a spin!  People see you coming and they get OFF the freeway so as to not be caught in the billowing smoke of your exhaust.  You will always be seen on the road because you will block out anyone or anything else on the road, and once you are up to cruising speed, wind blowing through your pigtails as they dangle desperately in the wind, you can sit back and own the road…at least until it is time to pull off the road and fill up the tank again!  AND, it would be the only other thing that is wider than my behind!
2. Bagoes do NOT have minds of their own!  Hippos DO!!  Have you ever tried to move a hippo that does not want to move?  Well, with a bago, just start her up, and move her out of (or into) the way as you like.
3. They (i.e. bagoes) are not addicted to spraying their poop all over the place!
4. With a bago, you have a one-stop shoppe for everything.  House, car, laundromat, restaurant and hair saloon for pigtails, all in one convenient box on wheels!

And I want my bago painted hot bronze and named HILDRED!!

Moi

In every culture in the world, there are different traditions that are followed with regards to the seasons of the year.  I was talking to my niece and nephew two days ago when I went to visit them, and told them that in Russia, they celebrate an Orthodox Christmas, which takes place somewhere around 6 January.  And in terms of presents, the children are used to getting, as a present from Santa…a lemon!  So I told them that they were getting lemons this year…

Needless to say, that did NOT go over very well at all!  You see, my niece kept calling me everyday since I arrived to try to get me to tell her what I got her for Christmas.  So I am having such desperate fun making up the most interesting stories of what I know are given as gifts around the world.  In one culture, people actually buy get gifts, open them, and then give them away.  And that did NOT go over very well either!

In our culture, on top of the usual trimming the tree and buying gifts (which we do NOT give away after we have opened them!), there are some important things that happen here:

1. There is a drink that we brew at this time of the year, called sorrel.  This drink is made from a flower bud which is grown here in Jamaica and in other surrounding parts of the Caribbean, and Central and South America.  It is blood red in colour, and we make it by boiling water, with ginger, pimento/cloves and citrus skins, and then we soak the buds in that boiling solution.  It is left to stand overnight and the result the next day is…SORREL!  We strain it, sweeten it with sugar (or splenda for those who are too sweet already for their own good), and then we spike it with rum!  So it is a rather HAPPY drink, if you know what I mean.
2. The next is a cake we bake, that comes from the British tradition, called the plum pudding, or fruit cake.  As you know, we are part of the Commonwealth group of nations, and we beign a former British colony have a lot of British influence. Now this is not the same kind of heavy fruit cake that gets passed around as a white elephant gift, and ends up as someone’s doorstop or paperweight.  There is an art to making this cake, and after years of practice, working as my grandmother’s apprentice (she was a professional baker, and that was the surname as well!) in her kitchen, I am the one who bakes whenever I am here.  I have not been home for Christmas in two years, so I have not done this in that long time.  I use my grandma’s cookbook which is left to my family before she died, and I make them.  It is also an emotional time for me because it makes me remember my grandmother and how much I miss her.  Her careful preparation of spices, her combinations and methods were so meticulous, that I only remember as if it were a photograph in my head of how it was done.  This particular cake is made with no milk, but with lots of soaked raisins, currants, and prunes that have been soaking in rum and wine ALL YEAR LONG!  Every house in Jamaica has a jar with soaked fruit!  REALLY!  
   

So yes!  This is a happy time for everyone.  And on Christmas morning, we all get up at 6:00AM and  go to church, afterwhich, we come home to a traditional Christmas breakfast, which always consists of the Jamaica’s national dish, ackee and saltfish.  Ackee is a poisonous fruit that can only be eaten by cooking it.  Once you know how to clean and cook it, then there is nothing to worry about.  This is had with fried dumplings (called johny cakes), plantain, roasted breadfruit, boiled green bananas, and coffee.   And then, for dinner, we will have a baked roaster (like a huge chicken), beef, curry goat, fish, and some kind of pork (not me this time), along with all the ‘trappings’.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU and a HAPPY NEW CAR WHEN IT COMES!!!! *giggle*

Moi

Here are seven factoids that I have been reminded of since being BACH in Jamaica:

1. The best way for a woman to cure her man’s infidelity is to cook his favourite meal for dinner…

2. And then turn him upside down and beat him silly with a frying pan!

3. Hell hath no fury like a desperately pregnant Jamaican woman on a good or bad day!

4. Women in Jamaica are by no means the physically weaker sex. They can and will hurt you if crossed!

5. The true definition of a split second is the time difference between the changing of a traffic light and the car behind you blowing their horn at you telling you to move it along!

6. Even in a 36 degree C building, people still come to church dressed to the full ’soup and fish’!

7. Showing up on time for any function is considered a major faux pas, of which I am constantly guilty!

Last Friday morning, I got up at 5:00AM and went down to our Emancipation Park, which is located in the centre of New Kingston, the business centre of Kingston.  There is a 500m track that surrounds the park, and fellow zwiddlers (present company desperately included) also get up early to ’shake the bacon’ as it were round this circular track. 

For those of you are just tuning in and who do not know what zwiddling is, it is defined as simply a hilarious way of getting somewhere as fast as your ambulatory devices will carry you.  In my case, hamhocks!  A perfect definition of zwiddling can be found in the comic strip ‘Peanuts’ where Snoopy, the beagle is happily flitting about…little legs furiously beating underneath him…and the pencil print showing evidence of him jumping up and down as he travels…well THAT is zwiddling!

You notice that I tend to be an early riser.  This is the fact that finds me to be an authentic Jamaican!  Jamaicans (and other island dwellers in the Caribbean Sea) are used to getting up very early everyday.  This could possibly be from centuries back when we did everything only by the light of the sun.  Even our laws today state that any marriage that occurs in Jamaica can only be considered legal if it is conducted in the daylight hours.  Once the sun sets, a wedding which is not completed (due to bad weather, or the late arrival of the bride, as the grooms would never DARE show up late, lest they be crucified for attempting to escape!) would have to be put off until the sun comes back up the following day.  Whoa!  Don’t eat me now!  I did not write the laws here!!  So even to this day, I always get up early on Saturdays to do my laundry, even when I am in Canada.  I do this because when I am in Jamaica, I did my laundry early so as to catch the first heat of the sun to dry my clothes.  Even though we have a dryer at home, I prefer when my clothes are sun-dried!

I am digressing again, aren’t I???  How did I get unto this tangent?  What was it that I was saying again?  Hmmm…(*scrolling up to see what it was I was writing about*) Ah yes!  Zwiddling the pork in the park!  So this particular morning, I went to join my fellow zwiddle-buffs in the park.  It is amazing the people you meet while zwiddling.  I got wind of some very interesting conversations.  You see, zwiddling in Jamaica is usually done while talking to someone else, or to one’s self in my case.  They can range from talking about the pressures at work, to which fashion faux pas was the latest source of gossip!  You also have to realize that though obesity is not as rampant in Jamaica as it is in North America, we tend to zwiddle more for health reasons than for weight control.  A lot of Jamaicans suffer from diabetes, and hypertension (the latter of which I too have been afflicted since age 14).  So desperate zwiddling is something that we need to do in order to stay fit, or become fit if we are not.  Though we are not all fat, we aren’t thin either, and thus, I saw a desperate amount of hamhocks, zwiddling at different speeds round the track!

So, I have chosen to change the name of the park from Emancipation Park to Emancipation “PORK”, seeing that 97% of us are pushing pork through the park.  Every now and then, someone would barrell on by with beefshanks, or lumber on by with lambchops (i.e. very thin people who cause the rest of us to have issues) but it is mostly pork.  And I kid you not!  Already I have had unwanted attention from those seeking to pop me in their ovens, seeing that supermarket hams are too expensive!  It is a wonder how I am going to manage to leave here and return to Canada in one piece, but I will struggle through!

Moi

I am now BACH in Jamaica!  It is good to see my family and to be able to catch up with them. 

Now I must say this (even though I know that you all in Canada will hate me for this!) about the weather!  I got off the plane and immediately, I began to sweat in places I have not sweated in a long time!!! It always comes as a shock to my desperate little system, whenever I have to go to such a drastic climate change, especially at this time of the year. 

My trip was quite interesting actually!  I started off on Tuesday 12 December.  I got to the airport in plenty of time, to find out that my flight was cancelled, and that they would have to book me on another one.  So I left Toronto bound for NYC (New York’s La Guardia) where I zwiddled deaperately to my connecting flight to Miami.  I had to spend the night in Miami because my flight to Kingston was the following day.  When I went to claim my luggage, we all had to wait.  Apparently, a pet who was traveelign in the cargo hold of my flight had gotten loose and the airline was trying to find the owner to retrieve the owner.  Now I am thinking, “Great!  There is a poodle running around loose in the belly of my flight!”  It was actually a pit bull! So after almost an hour, they found the owner, got the dog off the plane and then we got our luggage.  The next day, I got to the airport early for my flight.  While I was waiting to board, I knew instantly that was an all-Jamaican flight.  I could hear the noise and bustle coming down the ramp to the terminal!  Let me tell you something about Jamaicans.  They HATE showing up on time for anything!!!  HATE IT!!!!  They do not show up until the last possible minute.  So all at once, they came crashing in (they never zwiddle anywhere), loud and obnoxious as usual.  I am the exception to the rule where I hate showing up late for anything!  So then, I boarded, and flew to Jamaica.  Upon descending into Kingston, I saw those evergreen hills and mountains we had to fly over, along with the rivers and streams.  I really do miss the beauty of my island!  Such wonderful thoughts were popped though after I landed and had to deal with people climbing all over each other to get out of the airport!  There was noise, cussing, people pushing and knocking over other people to get to the head of the line!  Yes.  A lady who was behind me in the line at immigration suddenly found herself in front of me.  She had been inching her way slowly ahead of me, in a most unsubtle way.  You see, she is quite fat, and there is just not subtlty or daint connected with her actions!  She should have just held me down and flung me out of the line.  That actually would have been more graceful!

However, in lieu of sleeping in, I woke up this morning at 5:00AM and I was able to walk out unto my balcony, and see the city from the hillside.  My house is up in the hills and I can see the whole of Kingston from it.  I stood outside on my balcony, in a t-shirt, shorts (YES SHORTS!), and barefoot; the air so warm and crisp against my bosom (*GASP*) with my hair blowing in the wind (*think “Casablanca”*), and the first thought I had was, “I wonder if I could talk Jeannette and Cleopas into wearing pigtails fpr their wedding!”  And then, I chuckled to myself.

Now stop right there!  I do NOT have a pigtail fettish!!  For that’s just silly. I just thought of them with their pigtails flapping about in the winds of the Caribbean.  Hmmm!  I wonder if that has any meaning at all…

So, I will post updates as to how my time here is going.  I will also let you know if any attempts to cook me have taken place.  You know, I cannot help it if I am one sizzling slab of bacon!  And boy am I sizzling in this weather!!!  

Moi   

The last day of classes was on Friday 2006 December 8. Yet, I still come into this building (the school’s library) again and again…WHY can’t I let go? I have already asked myself if I am ill, but that is not what it is, because I am perfectly fine. It is getting to the point now where even the member of the library staff all think I SLEEP here!!

So this is what is happening…I have been threatened to leave this place, otherwise the whole staff is going to gang up on me and drag me kicking, screaming and clawing all the way out of the building. Then they are going to lock the door and not let me in until the New Year! It did not even seem like they wanted to let me in this morning! Why do I torture myself so?? Am I that much of a glutton for punishment that I am just drawn to places where organ music abounds, as well as recordings of very high sopranos like Beverly Sills and Edita Gruberova (Helga, don’t answer that!)? Am I so droll so as to not have any kind of a life outside of music libraries (Cleopas, don’t answer that one either!!)? Is my existence tied to a building which has the desperate smell of…books, and mothballs, and sterilized bathrooms (NONE OF YOU ANSWER THAT!!!)??

No! I know what it is! It is the sheer glee I get from zwiddling desperately in here, and sucking up all the knowledge that is around me…and sometimes I get free chocolate! The freedom of flitting, on point, through the bookshelves, like Lulu after she has had for morning coffee I.V., except I do not skip daintily with nymphs and shepherds while playing the Wagner Tuba.

So tomorrow, I begin my journey home for Christmas. I actually feel guilty for going! Maybe the books will all be sad that I am leaving them… And to make sure I do not come in tomorrow, I am actually going to stay at a friend’s house tonight, and she has threatened to poke me with a cattle prod if I try to escape!

So, to all, have a jolly good CHRISTMAS and a desperately blessed and FAB New Year when it comes! I have to go now because they are actually coming to get me off of the computer and (*being dragged away now*) so t4ake care and 2seein 0oyu all l8er…/

Moi

Here are 7 factoids that I learnt from Taz, the little sheep dog who thinks it owns the place:

1) Everything that breathes smells like meat! Except rabbits. See # 4.

2) Knowing you are too adorable for your own good gets you everywhere, and just about everything.

3) Humans make no sense at all to me. All I hear is “blah, blah, blah, Tazik, blah, blah, blah!”

4) Rabbits (in this case, Robert) make good playmates, not menu items.

5) The best way to disorient a human is to walk around in circles for a long time and for no reason.

6) The best way for humans to disorient me is to do the same, in reverse!

7) I always start drooling when the scent of a certain individual enters the room!

NB Now I refer to Taz (or Tazik, as I call it) as an it, because none of us can really figure out what gender it is, and I do not think it knows either. I am guessing male, because I think I saw it becoming a little too friendly with a fire hydrant!

To be a dramatic soprano! With big bosoms, big pigtails, viking helmet, chain-mail skirt, and a nice, long spear! Well, not quite, because some of us are altos and tenors and basses, but it would not surprise me in the least that there are some wishing desperately to be a soprano at least for a day (present company NOT included!). There is nothing more thrilling, or conquering to any singer than to be able to blast your way through a Strauss or Wagnerian orchestra with ease, and walk away knowing that not even the brass section to drown you out! I am sure that the likes of Birgit Nilsson, Ghena Dimitrova, Eva Marton, Jessye Norman, Dame Gwyneth Jones, and Kirsten Flagstad enjoyed many triumphs with these orchestras, rubbing their hands in glee, planting themselves in their midst, taking in a deep breath and just letting it RIP! It is a sort of game as it were, of ‘anything you can blow, tinkle, smash, or in any other way aggress upon, I can sing louder!‘. Each of these rather ‘Reubenesque’ ladies has had the privilege of being desperately accoutred in some kind of WAGNERIAN paraphernalia, replete with a good battle-axe.

I know that for me, there are days I wish I were a Heldentenor. I think every tenor has that wish at least once. Heldentenors are basically baritones with high notes. They are able to get the heft of the chest voice into the upper register. Such examples are Ben Heppner, Lauritz Melchior, and Peter Hoffmann, all of whom have had, or are still having wonderful operatic careers. At least in one of those operas, I too would have been desperately accoutred in some kind of armourwear, and would carry a big sword, and not one of those puny little rapiers that Don Ottavio gets to carry in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. But alas, I am not a Heldentenor. Actually, think I have had a personal breakthrough in the last few weeks. I used to (and every now and then, this becomes an issue that I will always deal with for the rest of my life) obsess about not projecting, or being loud enough, to be heard on stage. Thanks to all of my teachers, over the years, my projection powers have been safely increased due to the application of a good vocal technique. I figured that if I were a dramatic tenor, then I would be able to be heard without issue. At least, in my mind. But lately I have been finding a lot of joy and even comfort in being a lyric tenor. My voice is developing into a resonant full lyric tenor sound, and with that, I am learning to go to the extremes of vocal colour, range, and even dynamics. I am getting braver, and am daring to do high notes at mezza voce (i.e. piano and pianissimo), and trusting that my voice will be OK. I am learning that when I let go of the tension that I think is helping (and it is not) the voice says, “See? Now if you would only just get out of my way and let me do my job, we would not be having this conversation!” And yes, my voice does talk to me, and it talks back too. It is rather cheeky and does have a diva-like attitude. It likes to be wrapped in mufflers, loves mint tea, and Swiss chocolate (that is one of the only links to why we get along!) and abhors colds and the burning of tobacco! However, it does have a tendency to decide when it will and when it will NOT co-operate! In other words, it is fickle. To put it even more bluntly, it is like some sopranos! Plus, as a lyric tenor, I can continue to safely keep the very high notes that I have got. As of today, on a good day I can sing (in full sustained voice) up to a high F. That is one octave above middle C and the F above that. I have only performed up to a high E-flat in performance, as there is hardly any music with a high F for tenor…well..there is Puritani by Bellini, but that is another story for another time. I also have coloratura abilities which allows me to really enjoy the music of the bel canto school!  Long story short, I am learning to project the lyric voice that I do have.

For those of you reading who are singers, I would like to say this. Enjoy the voice type you are! I am learning this. Dramatic singers for the most part cannot manipulate their voices as easily and as fast as those with light coloratura abilities. I will never know what it will be like to be a baritone, nor do I need to. Baritones and basses are voices which, in my opinion, provide a solid underpinning to the rest of us higher voices. They are voices with substance! God knew what he was doing when he created difference voices with different sizes. So I, as a lyric tenor, desire to enjoy the voice given to me, and my task is to continue to learn to use it in the way it was meant to be used. Trust me! Even voices as small as soubrettes have played some of the most powerful characters on the stages of the world, so be encouraged. I know I am.

Moi