How many visitors really hear us speak? I mean hear the real Jamaica patois spoken? Just a little help here, we may drop the “h” where you need it and place an “h” where it doesn’t appear many other places in the English speaking world. Like ome for home, im for him, and maybe the visitor may be confused to hear that everyone is im whether male or female, as in, “Gladys when is Doris coming?” “Im iere haredy”. (She is here already).

So here we celebrate H, either missing or otherwise in the Cool Runnings Catamaran Cruises Jamaica ABC.

Hardo Bread – Summer Lunch

The visitor to Jamaica may or may not get to try our hardo bread (or hard dough bread). Here is a chunk of it painted by one of Jamaica’s outstanding painters Judy Ann MacMillan, you can find out more about her here.

As you can see in the painting, there is the hardo bread and avocado pear, and I would agree with Judy that it makes an outstanding lunch. The ingredients are flour, water, salt, yeast and sugar.

 

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Harmony Hall

Harmony Hall was originally a mid-19th century Methodist Manse. The building was purchased by Annabella Proudlock in 1980, who restored it with a group of friends. It now houses an art gallery that represents over 100 of Jamaica’s finest artists. You can find the Gallery a short way out of Ocho Rios on the North Coast Highway. I recommend this as a place to visit after your sunset cruise with Cool Runnings Catamaran Cruises. The Gallery is open from Tuesday to Sunday 10 am to 5.30 pm.

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Hibiscus

There are several hundred species of this flashy flower. You will see them blooming all over Jamaica, in gardens, shopping plazas at your hotel. They are cheerful and gaudy and come in more colors and combinations than I could name in a day.

You can make a cool drink from the dried sepals of the roselle, which we call sorrel or you may have heard the name Agua de Jamaica. This drink is sweet and tart at the same time and very refreshing.

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Hog Plum

Or Spondias mombin, is native to the Caribbean, the Americas and has been naturalized in other parts of the world.

We were told that in Jamaica, where cattle were raised, hog plum trees were planted to line the lanes and around the ponds where the cattle were driven to drink. They provided cool shade and, in times of drought, the branches were cut and the foliage was fed to the cattle.

The hog plum is small and yellow when ripe with a leathery skin and a thin layer of pulp surrounding a large seed, but I like them anyway.[separator top=”40″]

 

Honor Maria Ford-Smith

Although Ms Ford-Smith was not born in Jamaica and now no longer lives here, her mother is Jamaican and she was involved in some innovative theater. For example, she was co-founder of a theater group collective for working women called Sistren, established in 1987, which we will learn more about when we get to S!

 She also edited and contributed to the book about Sistren called Lionheart Gal: Life Stories of Jamaican Women, published in 1986 and reissued in 2005. She was also very active in the Caribbean women’s movement creating plays and popular dramas dealing with critical social issues. She now teaches at York University in Canada at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, where she continues to write and work in theater.

Humming Birds

There are four endemic species of humming bird in Jamaica. These are the Black-billed streamer tail (Trochilus scitulus), the Red-billed streamer tail also called Doctor Bird (Trochilus polytmus), Jamaican Mango (Anthracothorax mango) and the Vervain Hummingbird (Mellisuga minima), which is the world’s smallest hummingbird. Others may be accidental visitors such as the Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) and the Leucistic Hummingbird.

Here is an incredible video about Humming birds this video is part of a lecture by Louie Schwartzberg at a TED talk.