by Alex Martin

You’re probably familiar with the scene of the sun rising early in the day and the rooster crowing to wake everyone up, but have you seen the little boy who goes out to wake up the rooster?

That was me when I was 4 years old but not in Brooklyn, of course. I may have been born and raised in Brooklyn, but a good part of my life has been spent on the beautiful island of Jamaica. I’ve had the pleasure of spending time in hotels, but I am in no way a tourist there. I am one of the few members of my family who was born in the U.S.

I’ve been visiting my family in Jamaica almost every summer since I was 2 years old. Most children that age can only remember people they see constantly. So when my parents sent me alone to a land that was still very foreign to me, to live with relatives that I saw as strangers, I thought my parents had decided to give me up. I cried almost every day, each time I looked at a family photo my parents and I took shortly before my arrival. It was so bad at one point that my aunt just took away the photo, and I didn’t get it back until the night before I went home. I still remember Aunty Madge on the phone with my mother one night: “Stop calling the house all the time! He was fine all day till he heard your voice.”

I didn’t cry for the rest of the summer.

My days always started the same, a morning run with all the dogs my aunt had. She had about seven of them, and I learned for myself that dogs are man’s best friend, especially when there were barely any other children around to play with.

I remember teaching my one human best friend, Tedroy, how to use a Gameboy, while he taught me how to climb trees and spot the fire ants before they got close enough to bite. I remember catching rain water in huge containers to use daily because water wasn’t always running in the pipes; at least twice a week, I had to bathe outside in a basin of water. I remember setting up and packing away the chairs for Sunday school each week because my aunt agreed to have Sunday school taught at her house. Thinking back now, I almost miss the itchy mesh net I lay under to protect myself from mosquitos as I slept.

My parents decided to raise my sister and me as close to the way that they were as possible. We never left the house in the morning without a cup of tea, and that itself was the remedy for every cough, ache and pain. We went to church every Sunday. Good grades were never rewarded nor did they have a spot on the refrigerator; success was supposed to be normal, and anything else meant filling our schedule with more time for studying.

When I think about Jamaica, the words beauty and strength immediately come to mind. Jamaica isn’t as picturesque as postcards make it out to be; it has many rural and poor areas to it. But the areas in which I saw my Aunty Madge’s smile are among the brightest I’ve seen in my life.

I think about my parents and their siblings, who were raised there, and then I look at where they are now – and that just gives me motivation. It makes me grateful for the good start in life I was given.

One of my friends pointed out to me that I’ve never gone a day without mentioning something Jamaican to her, but looking back now, can you blame me?