saturday evening was selassie and asam’s school christmas concert… originally i had been told we weren’t to head out till 5, then the morning of, marie told me we would have to head out at 2. randy came for all of us after 1 and all the kids were present, including the green sisters, rocksan, marie and myself. we made a quick stop at the rasta cook shop in mt. carey, so i could get some much needed food. i ended up walking out with 4 box lunches for jessie, selassie, asam and myself. the christmas concert was to be held at a theatre out past bogue way.

we arrived with plenty of time to kill… kids were running around all over the place. we had been looking forward to asam’s dialogue about the ‘roadblock,’ and  his ‘flowers for mother’ class poem. he had been rehearsing at home so we could hear it, but then he would say how he was going to charge all of us if we specifically asked him to perform. somehow he would forget all about this and galang with his antics and acting same way. we were also looking forward to selassie’s acting debut as king stefan in the glass slipper…

the mc finally came on stage.. they didn’t officially start till nearly 5pm. the infant school children performed some song and dance, as well as three little girls who sang and danced to linstead market… they were in full garb, heads wrapped to sandals donned. one of them performed a dialogue later on in the evening and she blew everyone away… it turned out to be quite a long night. the entire function didn’t officially end till about 9pm. the glass slipper was a painfully long performance of singing and dancing. literally, we watched children twirling on stage for about 15 minutes a scene, then they would break out into song, but the sound system was so overbearing all you could hear were their muffled voices and blaring midi files. every time we thought it was soon over, they would just keep going, on and on and on… selassie had his 15 minutes of fame and did an outstanding job as king stefan. asam came out all on his own, a bit shaken, and we begged for an encore so we could hear him. he did spectacular for a five year old, on stage by himself, in front of all those people and lights.

finally all was danced and sung.. we all piled back into the bus and made a quick stop at mega mart, always a disaster of an idea when it’s just me and the kids in a huge playground of a store. mega mart is a local interpretation of big box enterprise, similar to warehouses like costco, sams, … it’s just that the prices tend to be more expensive than local shops and wholesale markets, which is quite ironic. anyway, it’s always the same scene, a mass of children usually in two groups running around and going through every aisle and then me trying to find everybody or running into them by chance. it’s great fun and usually no one has a phone, and then i get bombarded with calls from outside saying to hurry and get out, but then i can’t find every one. great fun. this evening was just that again… asam, zane, selassie, jessie, chubby, asha, lasco, shanice, and myself, all running around looking for each other in mega mart. i kept running into jessie, zane and selassie who would repeatedly ask me to calculate gct (tax) for different items; then they would disappear again. finally we managed to all make it out, i think we spent something like 45 minutes wandering around. the ride home was a makeshift session in the van… the kids singing at the top of their lungs and trying to dance.

sunday was the long anticipated seaford town christmas concert… after weeks of rehearsing with the kids, the time had finally come. the concert opened with the students’ march; those who had dressed in white marched from the back of the school to the stage, candles in hand. they sang christmas hymns, said a prayer and then marched back off the stage and the lights went on. the place was decorated full with garland, christmas lights and a tree. every class had at least one performance, not to mention student group and individual performances, including past students. the night came to a close with a play by the gas station crew, which was in proper style and well enjoyed by all.

later that evening i met up with kat down at carl’s and we caught up on life, waiting for yanique to come so we could head out to the much talked about riverside party. eventually, nearing midnight she showed up hollering from a taxi that she would soon come, up the hill she went and fifteen or so minutes later she reappeared and we made our way to riverside. the place was packed with people and cars. packed, packed, packed. we walked down, deeper in to the massive crowd… gigantic sound systems on either side. we nestled our way in, a little spot on the embankment and settled in. the music was top notch, thanks to the stellar selector. throughout the night there was drizzling and nobody paid it much mind. at some point a girl fell over the embankment and rolled and tumbled down the hill into the river. she attempted to appear as if all was good, got up and started whining while still in the river, her boyfriend followed in after her and all that ensued was pure madness. the rain began falling heavier and heavier and we all decided it was best to head home, as the time had also been quite cold, and the frigidness mixed with the wet downpour left us shivering. we headed back up to find the rasta taxi we came with, but all we could see was his car, we couldn’t find him, so we again walked back down… there was a quick call and yet again we headed back up the road. he had fallen asleep in his taxi. he told us we would never see him out of doors during a rainstorm. anyway, dripping wet and soaked through and through, we managed to get home. yanique ransacked marie’s yard, then her mothers and we made our way up the hill back to my yard. food was heated, sorrel passed out, we tried to dry out and soon all went to bed.

the next morning came to suddenly… in fact it was quite early to the sound of hammering outside my room window. cudjoe has been working on/off on different parts of the house when he gets some free time. he had been trying to finish the back of the house, and was for some reason hammering at such an hour. as i shouted for him to take time, he responded by laughing momentarily and then started singing. eventually i managed to get out of bed and put on coffee for everyone. yanique made breakfast and i soon was off to cleaning the house. sarge came through and stopped for a while and the day went on to be a rather lovely afternoon.