big tings a gwan on weekend! part 2

The rally for the PNP started heating up at 6, but I first came there at 2. My companion/host/ride to the event was a young entrepreneur, planning to sell to the audience. When we got there, the sun was beating down, alternating with spots of rain that barely seemed to cool the air. No audience folk were around, but vendors were setting up, and the stage was being constructed, with gangs of men in various event company t-shirts setting up cables and backdrops and lighting. We walked around for a while, he knew a good number of the crew. He wasn't carrying anything yet to sell, but talked to a few folks, and we walked over to an Ital restaurant called Eden. I was too hot to eat much – I just got a veggie pattie and a really good fruit juice (bottled coming from South Africa). He had a full plate of hot food that looked really tasty but I couldn't face a full meal yet.

Afterwards we walked back through the growing crowd, I was hot and dusty and felt like a swim, so we went back to the apartment. As we drove home we passed parking lots and open spaces in which there were buses carrying crowds of teenagers in orange, who were gathering to ramp up their energy before joining the main rally. Flags, hats, and bright orange T-shirts abounded. One popular look was wrapping sections of the t-shirt around the face like a bandit, or cutting eyeholes in it and wearing it like a Mexican wrestler mask. Many of the women had strategically cut and tied the official PNP shirts to be form-fitting, fringed, or strategically windowed in various creative ways. If people didn't have an official shirt or hat, almost all of them still had orange clothing.

We went back to the apartment to pick up my teammate and headed out again with her as well. This time we had to circle around Half Way Tree a few times to find a place that we could park that was reasonably close. Everywhere were people in orange, or yellow, or occasionally red t-shirts with PNP slogans and the face of Portia Simpson-Miller (the prime minister) or their regional leader. The main slogan (indicating PNP is the party in power now) is "NOT changing course!!" said with great emphasis. Or shouted. People also shouted out Portia's name occasionally. My companion took some photographs, something I am always a bit shy about doing. Being an outsider anyway, sometimes a camera makes people angry, and it often makes it harder to actually talk to people – I think it kind of signals you are not actually interested in talking to people on their level but see yourself as outside the situation. We were, of course, in one way, but then again we weren't. One woman did get angry, and asked us if we were going to support the PNP in return for taking her picture. I learned quickly that since we were both obviously foreigners, anything one of us did was ascribed to the other one as well. So the fact that I wasn't taking pictures didn't matter at all, I was held to account for her (and her likewise for me). Good to know.

I decided that telling people we were just here to listen and learn was a good way to go. Revealing ourselves as learning from the people and the situation instead of setting ourselves above. It did seem to defuse some of folks' questions.

Later another guy with a small videocamera tried to ask us questions and film us, and it took some polite refusals, repeated a bit, to get him to go away. Not knowing what it's for or where he was going to show it.. Didn't want to be videotaped myself. Photographs would have been okay, but for the most part people were only interested in us enough to say "whitey whitey" and "miss chin." Walking through the crowd was tiring because especially men were all saying this or variations on it, or hissing or trying to get our attention in some way that didn't seem to suggest they actually were interested in talking. Some were interested in talking, it seemed, but still, the main way of signaling it was to say "come here" in a commanding tone, or gesturing us to come to them in a way I always find off-putting – I wouldn't speak or gesture like that to anyone but a pet animal.

I noticed that for the most part groups of people were either men or women – rarely a mixed group. Lots of single older women and men. A smattering of rastas, mostly older men. Groups of teenagers from various districts representing. We made our way through the crowd and ducked underneath the stage where the sound engineers were set up, directly facing the main stage across a wide swathe of ground (filled with hundreds of people). When a bit of rain threw down, everyone jumped the barriers and crammed under the stage with us, and then would come hot sun and wind, which made me slide through to the edge of the stage to try to get some air as people spread out.

The event began, was underscored and punctuated by music. There is the PNP theme song, but also a band playing selections of big hits, and a dj as well. Each speaker had their own theme song that seemed to be a regular reggae tune hit, which would get the crowd excited, they would start jumping and singing along –and the dj would cut out the music just as the chorus came so people were singing out. Similar technique to the nightclub dj from the night before. The whole atmosphere was part gospel revival, part dancehall show, and part political rally.

The speakers referred to everyone as "comrades" (always disconcerting to Americans I think), and also called an a great deal of Christian language and imagery. The event was kicked off with a Christian prayer. The speeches focused on call-and-response, relying on short, repeated phrases, and giving the audience a way to be involved. I will have many of those phrases burned into my memory for a while, as they increased in repetition and enthusiasm as the day went on. Many of the speeches called on the history of the PNP as a party that made great strides for women, it was PNP leaders that presided over the equal pay act as well as, earlier, votes for women, etc. The PNP being the current ruling party with a female prime minister, the emphasis was on women all through the introductions: "It WOMAN TIME NOW."

After a few hours, we got hungry and tried to find the ital restaurant again for dinner, trying to go around the main body of the crowd and take a side street. We were perfecting our technique of moving assertively (so people would actually step out of our way or make space), not making eye contact (so the people, mostly the men, would not bother us too much), and watching where we were going. Unfortunately the Ital restaurant had closed, so we settled for patties from a local chain – Mother's. this concession was mitigated by the fact that they also serve ice cream. Nice1. After a fortifying break – oh I can't forget the coco bread which was actually really yummy as well – we walked back around and through the crowd and staggered home.