In under 1500 words write with your heart, not your brain, about plaiting sand and stoning breeze

The following blog contain a paragraph that is of a frank and surgical nature. (Hint - it's the second paragraph). Reader discretion is advised.

My scarred brain should have known better, so next time I'll write with my un-scarred heart instead. I'll write about plaiting or braiding of a Jamaican saying, many of those I met there, and a Canadian children's poem.

Here goes.

Words are fun. The land abounding in streams and trees combined some to create “Plaiting sand

and stoning breeze”.

[It was really difficult finding plaiting sand and stoning breeze graphics on the Internet, and the very few that I found involved children and not adults. I interpret this to mean that firstly not enough stoning and plaiting is going on, and secondly that of the very little that is, the adults are not pulling their fair share].

Meaning? Hints? You “plait” long hair by braiding or twisting it around itself. You “stone” something by throwing a stone at it.

But how do you combine hair care with violence against the environment? And while you may think the saying involves physical actions, could it be more intangible than not?

Beaches may illustrate the saying’s tangible meaning because they are often sandy and frequently breezy. However, even if you get to one, run your fingers through the sand and throw stones into the breeze, you might be nowhere near the intangible plaiting and stoning zone. You have to imagine yourself in that zone and be as one with it. Indescribable?

I hope not. Even if accountants, me included, stumble over numbers like the ones causing the Euro crisis, tie themselves in knots wrapping calculators around words, and fall flat on our faces confronting the monolith of ideas, plaiting sand and stoning breeze is so important that I must try to explain it in depth.

How can we give it the depth it deserves? Just arriving at a beach and performing plaiting and stoning actions is mundane. It occupies the shallowest metaphor group:

Level 1 - Meteorologist – sunrise 7:40

Level 2 - Accountant – The newly risen sun appears above the eastern horizon.

Level 3 - Plaiter and stoner –

“Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

And Lo! The Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

From Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyan.

http://www.okonlife.com/poems/page6.htm

The third level is light years away from the first, so how do you get there?

Your imagination transports you, not your arms. Lying on your back at the beach is a start, but then what? Suppose a large crab crawls over your foot that blocked the way to its hideaway. Don’t worry. Ignore it. What harm is it doing?

Relax. Feel the gentle salty breeze caressing you, appreciate the sight of eastern Lime Cay, smile at the cooked shrimp vendor walking along the beach,

[Here's a Thai vendor but the Jamaican ones are very similar.]

luxuriate in the sun’s rays supplementing your vitamin D, manipulate the soft sand, watch the pelicans patrolling and diving offshore, inhale the delicious Eiscoveitch fish aroma from the nearby fish shack. Be completely aware but never distracted. Everything is so wonderful. Think how lucky you are to be away from Freeze-Bonezia.

[An airplane at an airport south of Freeze-Bonezia. Freeze-Bonezia is not this warm and snow-free.]

Freeze-Bonezia is the land of the stressed Freeze-Bonezians, Could they ever plait sand and stone breeze? They pay hefty airfares to travel south over the USA to the land of streams and trees. Before doing so, if sensible, they should carefully look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves whether they have the right stuff to stone-plait.

As a first exercise, they might imagine themselves on a beach. They have to keep distractions at bay without trying too hard. Remember the zone. Let’s see if they can succeed against a determined, recurring distraction.

Zoom, zoom, zoom,

Ignore it. Put it out of your head. You can’t plait sand and stone breeze if you’re zooming. Zooming is too fast.

Thinking back to Sharon, Jodean, Noreth, Carol and Vivien, did they ever plait sand? Who knows? I didn’t ask. I was too busy working. And Devon and Jerome, how was their breeze stoning, or did they just soccer their lives away?

I'm going to the moon.

Well possibly not. I could hang around at the sandy, breezy beach long enough for the moon to come to me by crashing into the earth. I wouldn’t have had to perspire extra-terrestrially or endure other-worldly weightlessness traveling to it.

Stoning the breeze? Who has seen the wind and knows where to throw? Canadian author W. O. Mitchell has, and maybe one day I may too. Wray and Nephew could help me. Am I worried? No. Dominic will guide me spirituously.

Zoom, zoom, zoom,

Oh no! Back to zooming again. I’ve already passed on this one; but maybe Erin will zoom for me.

Another paragraph goes by. Tim knows there’s a Section up in the Blue Mountains, but not a lofty Paragraph or Chapter.

I'll get there very soon.

But not as soon as Varun because my toes might sink into the soft sand and the breeze could blow miniscule, micron-sized boulders into my eyes. In spite of this, a breeze is wonderful to a Liguanean apartment dweller cooled by a vintage floor fan. I very much appreciate Mother Nature‘s free air-conditioning services on the beach.

Back to the present in Freeze-Bonezia, a bus driver, maybe a Julia or Alex, strives to keep on schedule, but why? When in the sensible island I wore no watch. This was problematic one day at the St Peter and St Paul’s bus stop when I could only communicate that the time was about 8’ish. My life expectancy would have been further reduced if I had answered Wednesday-ish.. The correct answer was really something like 7:48 and a half. Who would have thought time mattered so much?

If you want to take a trip,

Why take a trip? I’m already where I want to be with the sand and breeze.

And you can be too. Although plaiting sand and stoning breeze sound so foreign, they should be to the forefront of modern Freeze-Bonezian philosophy. Doing two tasks simultaneously is multi-tasking.

Climb aboard my rocket ship.

Climbing? Hmm. That sounds strenuous. No thanks. Rocket?

Ship? Make up your mind. Do you want me to fly or sail? Speaking for myself, I would rather canoe with Delphine and use my fishing rod to catch a Wahoo or Grunt along the way.

Zoom, zoom, zoom,

Here we go again, no further comment.

However, more than just in the office, but all across Freeze-Bonezian culture, stone-plaiting is starting to gain momentum as marketers steer us in the right direction. Recently I dyslexically saw a SAD Auto TV commercial promoting their diesel Volkswagen Passat with a 1500 kms range between fill ups.

In its commercial, a Passat stopped impliedly after that distance and a Freeze-Bonezian child streaked out of a back door, charged through yellow flowers, crashed on his front in the sand, and immediately started sand plaiting.

Surely Freeze-Bonezians will soon also stone the breeze. Another commercial, “Taking 15 MacMinutes for yourself” further illustrates this more relaxed attitude in Freeze-Bonezian life.

I'm going to the moon!

I said it before so I’m not sure why I’m saying it again. Let the moon come to me! Even NASA is starting to emulate plaiters and stoners. It plans no lunar expeditions before 2020. Can plaiters and stoners allow themselves to be runners-up? If NASA does not plan to go to the moon until after 2020, then Abdi must not leave the beach before then.

Relaxing is challenging on the beach when you’re also inputting essays into your computer. Sand can damage a laptop’s hard drive. Sunscreen and spilled Red Stripe may gum up the keyboard. The breeze may scatter rough notes. Crabs may gnaw on web cams. Be safe. Do and think absolutely nothing. Use your laptop only as a canoe anchor. It will grip the ocean bed securely unless a large King Fish greedily swallows it on the way down.

[This guy, or gal, looks distinctly greedy and is undoubtedly regal. A Kingfish?]

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-plait-stone

You didn’t think I was going to end with blast off did you? Us plaiters and stoners know not to move quickly – I’ve already vetoed rockets.

Onyka and Dal, maybe former astronauts, can count down for me and blast off.

So relaxedly I remain on the beach making sand patterns and occasionally throwing stones seaward. “Relaxedly,” not “idly”, for how can you be an idle multi-tasker? Word’s spell-checker asserts “relaxedly” is not in the dictionary, but like the moon coming to the earth, it will one day.

Life’s a breeze. I am cool and would never stub my toe and exclaim what the Helen. I’m not currently wearing a toque or woolen hat that trendy islanders wear even at +34 degrees Celsius. Stiflingly warm hats in the tropics? Being cool? Should I try to figure it out or just plait my sand and stone my breeze?

Plait-stoning isn’t easy. I tried again later in California lying on warm green grass and watching the blue sky lob random leaves, head over heels, towards me. Dreamy. But I failed stone-plaiting. I nearly jumped out of my skin imagining the sound of an approaching combine harvester or army tank bearing down on my head. It was only a skate-boarder. I should follow my own advice and ignore distractions. Not relaxed enough. Must empty mind more.

So, without more ado, I shut my mind down. “Mi step out yah”. Fun is done.

Here is a photo of Sharon Scott who gave me the initial information on plaiting sand and stoning breeze. Like the remainder of the Dispute Resolution Foundation office staff she was to busy herself to be involved in plaiting and stoning type activities.

Acknowledgements

Zoom, zoom from http://canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems34.html

Jamaican saying from http://www.speakjamaican.com/glossary/

Volkswagen 2012 diesel model television commercial

http://viad.tv/video-12089/vw-passat-diesel-drive-more-than-1500km-without-stopping/

Great Blogs you never Read

Health considerations unexpectedly ended our stay in Jamaica so this blog will end too - except for in our hearts where it will go on.

Unpredictable events throw off the best made plans. History abounds with examples where tragic figures with iPads and laptops were ready to record incredible blogs for posterity. Sadly, bolts from the blue struck and derailed their best-laid plans. After that, the world had to wait centuries for third parties to recreate fictionalized, and usually not as good, versions of what happened.

For all we know, just before Juliet's sleeping potion took effect she smiled happily to herself that she would fool the Capulets and Montagues and be able to stay married to Romeo even though her family treated him as an accursed Montague.

Here is Juliet marrying Romeo at the start of her short-lived marriage, even by modern reality TV standards.

Later on in Jamaica, Nanny of the Maroons could have produced a great blog on guerrilla tactics for posterity - she was one of the few to beat the British army. Unfortunately the Blue Mountains were out of Wi-Fi range so we will never know how what her tactics were. Although she died of old age she never bequeathed a blog. I would suspect that she was too tough a character to ever have tweeted.

Men can write great blogs too, given a chance. The main roadblock is that they procrastinate and miss their deadlines. Jack on the left in the poster below could have composed an enthralling blog about Rose.

We are all the losers because he chose to hold off for just one day. If he could have, I am sure he would have told us that the fog over the water meant that he could not take the digital photograph up to the standards he wanted and he hoped for better lighting conditions tomorrow.

Tragically, the next day the Titanic struck an iceberg and passengers and crew had to abandon the ship and chance their souls to the icy cold ocean. As he succumbed to hypothermia, his last view could have been of his laptop lazily zig-zagging down into the abyss of the two mile deep Atlantic ahead of him like a Swedish cod jigging lure.

However, there is an exception that proves the rule. I had no in-law problems, at least none that anyone told me about, I did not operate out of a rugged internet-free Blue Mountain location and I did not sink down to the bottom of the North Atlantic 99 years ago. So here is the end of my blog - not a grand finale, but business as usual, or so I thought.

First a few sample photos from my CUSO-VSO farewell dinner.

Practically all the volunteers attended so it wasn't possible to include everyone, unfortunately.

Here is Arthur the wicker man, and yours truly without fancy headgear.

We all know that the blog unlike the heart in the Titanic song will not go on, but Jamaican dispute resolutions will. Here's how.

The first stage in dispute resolutions is for the aspiring mediators to embark on the basic mediation course. Here are a few photos from the course I attended just before I left. Not as Hollywood or as epic as the previous images, but more real and reality is what counts in the real world.

Our trainer.

Most, if not all, of the group.

One of the graduates graduating.

Later on back in Canada by the Niagara Escarpment. Note how you can escape the crowds by going to Canada in November and dressing warmly. Actually it wasn't that cold by Canadian standards - we may have had our hands in our pockets but we were not wearing gloves.


Thanks for reading. Goodbye.

Colbeck Castle

The weekend's hash harrier run took us to the fascinating Colbeck Castle. An excellent little spot just 20 minutes west of Spanish Town. So quiet and peaceful after my first few days back in noisy Kingston. I was so happy in the peacefulness of the castle I stayed behind and let George and the rest of the harriers get their exercise.

The castle was built as a defense against the Spanish and as an opulent home in an Italian style red brick construction. It felt more like being in Scotland than Jamaica.


It's good to be back home in Jamaica.

DRF Basic Mediation Course

Please use the official source if any of the following information does not agree with Dispute Resolution Foundation (DRF) web site. You may apply on-line for the training and find the information in the services tab of http://www.disputeresolutionfoundation.com/

Here are notes on the DRF's Basic Mediation course in September/October 2011.

For trainee mediators, the mediations initially are at the resident magistrate level before one can apply to be on the Supreme Court roster. This is how the course complements the other practical components necessary to become a certified mediator, and later a Supreme Court mediator.

1. Take this course
2. Observe 5 mediations, preferably conducted by different mediators.
3. Do 3 mentored mediations and receive feedback.
4. Eligible to receive Certified mediator certificate assuming satisfactory progress.
5. Do 10 mediations on your own.
6. Do the 4 day advanced mediation training course
7. Eligible to apply to be on the Supreme Court roster.

The following photos give you a partial picture of what the 40 hour course entails. These photos in this blog were taken by Kriss Crassweller.

Terry, the DRF training manager along with the participation of other Supreme Court mediators conducted the training.

Megan and Sheryl participated with a role play.

Rhonda reciting her poem on dispute resolution.

Monique Edwards, the course valedictorian, delivering her speech.

Ellory Taylor receiving her diploma from Lorna Vassell-Walker one of the Supreme Court mediators.

George getting his one.

This photo shows most of the participants at the closing ceremonies. Participants included one or more law students, criminologists, quantity surveyors, trainers, industrial relations specialists, post-grad social work studies, etc.

Fay Williams reading the Vote of Thanks.


Part of Ellory's rough notes written on a napkin - inventive and economical.

At the final student's party on the last afternoon, we had a dispute resolution type cake. It contained both vanilla and chocolate to prevent disputes. Sorry - there is no photo because it did not last long.

Because I am an amateur poet, here is a quick mediation poem in case nobody else publishes it.

PRE-MEDIATION

Him bad.
I'm mad.
That lad
Will be sad.

MEDIATION

Mediate.
Don't him hate.
Communicate.
Negotiate.

POST-MEDIATION

Reach a deal.
How good it feel.
Bad opinion heal.
Resolve with zeal.

Reflecting on George and Going Nuts

This blog title summarizes two photos and is accurate in a photographic sense.

At Kingston's airport I experimented to see if I could line up this window frame neatly instead of at a noticeable angle.

Then after Bunty arrived she took a photo of this new small shop that wasn't there the last time she was at the airport.

San San Beach

Here we are before the coaster trip starting at Odeon Street next to the Half Way Tree JUTC bus terminal - Erin and Del (blue shirt) two rows from the back, and Kim, Samar and Julia in the back row.

Wendy was out taking photos on the sidewalk and appears in the distance in the second photo. Hint - she is the only one in this photo who might get sun burned on a sunny day.

Wendy suggested we make a quick day trip to San San Beach using a local means of transport. This necessitated a coaster to Port Antonio followed by a route taxi for the 10 minutes remaining past Port Antonio to get to San San beach.

I quite often jump to conclusions and I did this a lot today. Often the vehicles we were in at the time was crammed to the rafters and slowed down on the road. I felt that this would be good to ease the load on the suspension, but all that happened was that one or two more passengers would be loaded up.

The fee to get onto the private beach ended up being $400J each after a bit of negotiation. This is about half the price you would pay for a movie ticket in Canada.

The restaurant building was not operating but the attendants went off and brought lunch to those of us who ordered from somewhere else at a bit of a markup price. If you go to San San on a budget it's best to bring your own food with you.

The San San people were very helpful and arranged local taxis to pick us up when we discovered after 3 o'clock that the coaster buses back to Kingston stopped running at 5PM from Port Antonio. We worried that we could not guarantee that any passing route taxi would have enough room for seven extra passengers. That was an unnecessary worry because looking back any route taxi worth the name would have fitted us all in, whatever might have to be done.

Here is a photo of the water. My photo with swimmers was blurry so did not make the cut. Talking about cuts, it's good to be in safe Jamaica. Del reported that three little fish were nibbling at his toes which sounds a better deal than Paul Hine's anecdote from Guyana where a piranha reputedly bit off a bather's toe. The locals advised that person there was no blood in the water that it was OK to swim among piranhas.

Other fishy but non-piranha news from San San was that Wendy reported that when she went snorkeling and saw large striped fish and blue fish over near the reef on the west side of bay.


At the end of the day one of the San San employees took a group photo. The group from left to right George, Erin, Del, Wendy, Julia, Samar and Kim.

The island behind the group is Monkey Island. The monkeys apparently weren't Jamaican ones and were released there by a resident who lived on shore close to the island. The monkeys are no longer there.

On the way back towards Port Antonio we passed an interesting looking large procession with dancers followed by a band.

This was actually a funeral procession as a hearse followed close behind them attested. It makes you think, some days one person's mind is on the beach while for another's is thinking of a funeral.

Here is some sundry information to close off.

1) There are many nearby beaches and attractions with the Blue Lagoon being just round the corner to the east, and Frenchman's Cove within 10 minutes walking distance to the west in the Port Antonio direction.

2) If four or more of you are going it might be cheaper to share the cost of a rental car to get more flexibility, but then you would miss the local flavor that a coaster can provide more authentically than a Toyota Yaris. The Grande River rafters do not actively market to coaster buses when you stop at the Grand River bridge with its traffic light system.

Their business may be affected soon when the new larger bridge is completed and traffic no longer needs to slow down or stop.

With our mud we are all the same colour

Finding mud and dirt was a challenge for an Internet browser, however in real life they just come to you , no questions asked.

This special Spring Vale red Jamaican mud on my shirt was on its way to a fate worse than death. Without my intervention, it would probably be roughly handled by heavy excavation and mining equipment. Then poured together with tons of other indistinguishable bauxite ore. Next shipped off thousands of miles away from their home and native Jamaica in a dark hold. Then free from the tossing and turning of the ship, taken bewildered ashore and finally incinerated by foreigners at thousands of degrees centigrade. All this, just to be made into boring aluminum. Luckily, I intercepted the mud and saved it.

Here's a photo of my shirt that may or may not come clean ever. From Wendy Lee's blog: http://wendyinjamaica.blogspot.com/

To get photos of muddy clothes, I thought that I only needed to pull up a photo of the English international rugby team who used to wear a completely white outfit and play in a country with really bad rainy weather. And there I would easily get mud-spattered clothing. (I should have been patriotic and picked the Scottish rugby team because Scotland has worse weather than England. Unfortunately, mud would not show up as well against their darker colored rugby clothing. Geezeabrek lads, but I couldna' find anything suitable).

I had no luck for at least two good reasons - the English rugby team would always pose before they started playing so would be spotlessly clean. And even if they did not, the people who looked after the grass playing surface performed such excellent work that it was 100% turf with no bare patches that could turn into useful mud sources for the blog.

Muddy pictures are becoming fewer and further between because at the highest sports levels the games tend play in huge covered stadiums with artificial turf.

Baseball players have great fun diving into the mud and dirt - they call it sliding, but we know they are having fun.

Ty Cobb arriving safely at 3rd base. An old photo, that's why there's real dirt.

Children in India enjoying rain and mud.

More muddy waters, but of a human type, "Muddy Waters", born as McKinley Morganfield, an American blues musician, and ranked by Rolling Stone as #17 in the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. (Source Wikipedia).

Jamaica can have its muddy days too, especially after hurricanes.

With our mud we are all of the same ethnicity. Who wants to clean off the mud and return to being different?

Some corporations might want to clean you off for their own selfish vested interests.

But there will always be work for them to do. So we should just relax and enjoy it as in the old English song "Mud, mud, glorious mud, there's nothing quite like it for cooling the blood." Well my blood certainly got cooled that afternoon in Spring Vale with all that rain and mud.

I narrowly escaped catching a cold, and was saved by the warming cups of soup dished out by the Hash House Harrier executive to us all.