What’s In My Cup – Southern Hospitality in Jamaica

The Perfect Jamaican Sunday Brunch

There’s a LOT to be said about the warm-hearted hospitality of Jamaicans all over the island.  A couple Sundays ago I was finishing up a week on the north coast and had made arrangements to give a fellow travel blogger a ride to the airport for her flight home.  She needed to be at the airport for 6:30 am…..WELP!  But I love seeing people off when they leave Jamaica and I needed to be back to the south coast that day so I happily committed to driving her and then continuing on down to the other side of the island.  The funny part was that after three hours of driving I arrived at my destination so early (9:00 am) that the guest house I had decided to stay at wouldn’t have a room for me until afternoon.

After waking at 3:30 am that morning for the airport run I was quickly losing my steam and really just needed a place to chill out until I could get into my room so I called my friend Shelley to see if I could come by his house for a few hours.  Of course he gladly said yes but told me I should go up the road a little further to one of his friends’ houses where they were cooking.  When I drove up the long, rocky driveway to that house this is the first thing I saw….a bunch of guys cleaning up and working on a new fishing boat. It was such a nice Sunday morning activity to see.

Once I arrived the guys all stopped working and invited me into the half-built house that belongs to one of them and immediately asked if I would like something to drink. They also informed me that food is in the pot and cooking and would be ready in a couple of hours. Shelley ran up the road on his motorbike to pick up some beverage while I just stayed back visiting with the guys and relishing my return to the south coast. I cannot get enough of the country scenery and country people down here.

Shelley returned with beverages and I could see he had one flask of Wray & Nephew, one flask of Appleton (my tourist rum lol) and a big bottle of Pepsi. The only thing I needed now was a cup. This house and it’s kitchen weren’t even built yet so what did they do?  Well they did what any Jamaican would do and made me a cup out of my water bottle!  Shelley whipped out his knife and created two cups out of one bottle and I was quite charmed with my new “Country Cup”!  Life done so simply….

After a couple of drinks the liquor was killing me quickly due to lack of sleep the night before and they could tell I was fading. The one thing in this incomplete house that they DID have was a bed, presumably where the owner sleeps until there’s a real bedroom. He told me it would be a little while until food was ready and that I was welcome to have a rest until then. What a blessing for my tired body! I sprawled out in the middle of a mattress in the middle of an unfinished house and passed out cold with the smell of pots cooking in the back yard. I had no idea what was for lunch but the smell was heavenly as I drifted off to sleep!

I think it was only about an hour later that I woke up to the sound of music outside so I decided to get myself up and go be sociable again. But first I had to see what the heck smelled so good in the back yard….it was curry chicken.

I’d like to say that this meal and the company I shared it with were the perfect way to end a Sunday but this was just the start of my day and it was awesome! The five of us sat at the front of the house devouring our curry chicken, while cows grazed beside us lol. That’s what I call a decent Sunday morning!