My Jamaican Experience

“The fairest land ever eyes beheld . . . the mountains touch the sky.” This is what Christopher Columbus wrote in his log when he landed on the north coast of Jamaica on May 5, 1494. This statement has been affirmed over the years, resulting in up to two million tourists visiting Jamaica each year. Since then, Jamaica has gone on to become a record producer of sugar, banana, and bauxite (aluminum ore). Jamaica was the first country in the Western Hemisphere to have a postal system, a piped domestic water system, and a golf course. In the nineteen sixties and early seventies, Jamaica had one of the highest growth rates among the developing countries. Jamaica won more Olympic track-and-field medals, as a ratio of its population, than any other country in the world, and only the United States has a larger aggregate. In spite of this early sterling performance, Jamaica has been through a turbulent political uprising and is still trying to navigate through a crippling economic malaise. In the nineteen seventies and early eighties, Jamaica was ground zero for the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The author will take you through the good old days of the natural simplicity of growing up in rural Jamaica. He will recount the past and present great achievements that have been accredited to Jamaica. You will also visit with him the days of wrath when Jamaica was the staging ground for the proxy war between the Soviet/Cuban axis versus the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).