My placement is Mandeville, in the Parish of Manchester. This is a small town in the middle of the hills, in the very heart of Jamaica. I work in the Manchester Parish Development Committee, a social organization entitled to promote and organize the community participation, particularly in terms of urban planning and local government. My responsibility is proposing communication materials (like brochures, leaflets, web page, workshops, etc.) about the Development Plan for the Parish that they have finished last years. After years of hard work at different levels of the social life (government, technicians, local community, neighbours), they accomplished a thorough development proposal. My position entails proposing different information strategies to enhance support, particularly in terms of financial and economical improvement, for the city and the region. In this sense, the work is particularly interesting to a development practitioner because they are just in the stage where the diagnostic and projection has finished and they need to foresee new links and relations with different actors in the community to transform the plan in a reality.
Meanwhile, I live in a traditional two floor house in a residential area. The house has five bedrooms, nice view to the hills and dense tropical surroundings, full of wonderful flowers and butterflies. There are many enormous old British mansions with beautiful and well kept gardens, but also strong bars everywhere. Usually, the neighbours remain inside, so the overall sensation is solitude and tranquility. The Manchester Parish is well known as a calm community, and they like to set the difference from the more insecure and chaotic Kinston. The majority of the population are returning Jamaican immigrants and retires from different parts of the island and abroad, but it is also a preferred location for young families wishing to escape from more anarchic centers and the ones that do not feel comfortable in tourist cities. In this sense, my neighbour is known by its British former settlers, but also by its calm spirit and cool climate. I would say the silent here is only interrupted by the singing of different and lively birds.
Because of these characteristics, the city of Mandeville (the capital of the Parish) has many education institutions, hospital, local government offices, shopping malls, entertainment centers, markets, etc. This is a lively community, the opposite from the quiet surroundings and country side; you can see people all around, but from my experience it remains a small town where everybody knows each other and has strong bonds and linkages. The uptown reminds me a lot of some Brazilian cities, but maybe is just the African influence that you can feel it everywhere. Walking around is a whole new adventure.
My first language is Spanish, and I have been communicating in English since fairly recently; hence understanding the patois is an everyday challenge, that sometimes make me feel pretty lost.
Recently, with my roommate and colleague from York Steve, we had the opportunity to visit the south beaches, particularly the one called Treasure Beach, and going there was just an adventure in itself due to the lack of public transportation and somewhat disorganized roads. However, seeing and experiencing the Caribbean Sea was worth all the troubles to get there. The waters are blue and warm, and you can only think about the old pirates of the seventeenth century sailing on those costs and escaping the British navy. All the area already has that essence, which make you feel that time and history stopped there, and anyone escaping from anything could just arrived and makes an easy living in a no man land.
I come from South America, from a small country called Uruguay. It is located between Brazil and Argentina, we have three million people living within the territory and, approximately, half a million abroad. The notion of culture is a very tricky one. I prefer to talk about cultures, not culture, or even better about narratives on cultures. In this sense, those narratives about cultures are seen as language articulations that establish as truthful certain aspects and condition about a particular group of people or a particular territory. As every discourse, these ones are arbitrary, contradictory, but at the same time, determinant about ways of seeing and portraying. We expect that the other would portray as "expected" in guides. To make things worse, those cultures have unclear boundaries, and they are not only made from features, but from practices, meanings and discourse. In this sense, a narrative will be the particular meanings certain ways of doing and seeing things have for a certain group of people.
I have incorporated some photographs taken last year in the place that we consider the main and most beautiful part of my city, Montevideo. This is an area beside the Rio de la Plata. One of them I like it particularly because shows a group of children playing soccer. This game has shaped, or in fact acted as a metaphor that involves values and attitude about the way we see reality and the community. First, equality, in a soccer game the two teams are equal, hence even if your team comes from a very poor country and the other not, in the field you are the same. Secondly, clear rules but also the possibility to question them in front of a judge that should consider your position and arguments and that should treat you with fair respect according to those same rules. Thirdly, the capacity to be creative in the field both as a group and as an individual, being generours, cooperative, belonging to something. Usually in South America the public does not only celebrate the winner, but especially the good player, the best athlete, the best mate in the field, the generosity and the sense of group created by sharing a goal.
