Jamaican Till I Die!

During my time at high school it was normal for us to get the occasional foreign student. These were mostly students of Jamaican Heritage, sent to Jamaica to live with relatives and get a solid Jamaican education and discipline. One of my best friend was also shipped out from England but he assimilated very quickly. I remember this one kid named Dennis who came to us from the United States of America. Dennis joined my class but it was obvious that Jamaica was completely foreign to him. His parents did a horrible job preparing him and he was having trouble assimilating into daily Jamaican school life. To tell the truth us kids did not make it easy for him either but hey we were boys in third form. One morning we were in class waiting for the next teacher to arrive and making loads of noise, chatting, laughing and sitting on the desk then from out of nowhere Sir (teacher) walked into the classroom and bellowed “Sit down and be quiet!” . Everyone was seated in a flash and quiet be...

By the time I was in third form Chinese Kung Fu movies became the craze of the land and every movie theatre used to show them, some movie theatres are however known only for their Kung Fu movies aka Kickkas like the State Cinema. My best friend’s mother used to work at the Regal Cinema in Cross Road and he would supply us with regular free tickets which made him the most popular, powerful boy in the class if not the school… However there was one boy in my class we used to call Nuts because he loved peanuts. I can count the amount of time on one hand I have seen Nuts not eating peanuts and even while in class during the lesson he would slowly sneak his one hand into his school bag, remove the nuts from the shell and eat them. The other thing Nuts loved more than peanuts was Kung Fu movies, he was hooked on them. So much so that he began to dress like a Shaolin monk after school. He was also very good at mimicking every Shaolin move and could recreate any movie scene with voice overs. ...