Miss Queensbury 2011

It is FINALLY over…thank God.  Ha.  Not that is wasn’t it fun “conditioning’ the ladies, but it is just nice to have another project out of the way.  On a whole, the event was super successful!  The girls’ opening number dance actually wasn’t too bad.  CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO

The quality of the video is kinda crappy, sorry.  My camera screen is broken, so I can’t see the video/picture I take.  I also don’t  have a lil view-finder, so it’s worse than an old school camera.  Although, by this point I do believe that I’m getting pretty good with knowing where to point the camera.  In any case, there are definitely things that can be changed to make the show better, eerrr the girls should be wearing their sashes the entire time.  The Decorations should be done before a few hours before the event (to avoid anxiety), and umm…oh, the judges to NOT be 45mins late.  I mean, I understand, I’m in Jamaica, but one judge was even..wait for it… EARLY!  Fancy that?!  So I see no reason that the other judges couldn’t be on time, or at least 10mins late.  But pushing the event back a whole hour?  Arg…  Whatever.   I am just excited cuz I finally know who I am going to be working with for their community project for the next year!  Wooo!!!  Which, I actually have no idea on what her project is, actually…maybe I should try and retrieve it.

Durin the day, we had a “Treat for the Kids.”  There were supposed to be activities all day long, leading up to the contest.  I was in charge of the activities.  I made a schedule and everything.  Ha.  Well, NONE of the activities happened.  Cricket match never started, and no other races happened, either.  Needle and Thread Race, Potato Sack Race, Egg and Spoon Race, and Water Balloon Toss.  Yup, we were too busy trying to get the trailer decorated for the Miss Queensbury Contest, so no activities ever happened.  I put up a list and time of when things were going to happen, but nobody came to me to sign up.  I also didn’t have any supplies for these races.  Ha. I have no idea where to find this stuff.  I was under the impression that someone was going to get the stuff for me.  Tamor got me balloons, but they got moved, and I couldn’t find them, so that never happened.  I was excited about that one, too.  They never heard of water balloon tosses, so I wanted to introduce it.  Oh well, some other time!

So the best part of the night was definitely the lighting of the Tamarind Tree!!  It’s definitely NO Chicago, but it’s something!  It’s Christmas Decorations and that’s all that matters!  Check out the video HERE.

After the event, there was a street dance.  Oh deary.  I was just beginning to get acclimated with dancing in the States right before I left, and now I need to try and dance like a Jamaican?!  No sah!  Mi kyaan dweet!  Bah!  I am more/less not a fan of the dancing here.  First off, it’s all in the hips.  Slow movements of the hips, and NOTHING else.  Bore snore??  Secondly if you’re dancing with a partner, you’re basically having sex with your clothes on.  It’s not very appealing to my eyes, and I also don’t enjoy dancing err “wine-ing” is what it is called with somebody.  Nope, just not that comfortable.  I mean, there is grinding in the States, but wine-ing, is something different.  Think about grinding but even MORE sexual.  RIGHT?!  Blegh.  Not my style.  On top of that, everyone kept telling me to enjoy myself.  I WAS enjoying myself.  Apparently one is only enjoying him/herself when they are dancing with somebody.  So it’s either the term “enjoy myself” that means something different here, or the idea of “enjoying oneself” is different.  There’s gotta be something cultural in there, somewhere.  There HAS to be, because I thoroughly enjoy myself when I’m dancing by myself.  Or with someone, just not wine-ing.  Megh.  I have another 21 months here, we’ll see how acclimated I get with the “Dance Hall Scene.”

So I was talking to one of my friends, during this street dance, and he asked me if there is anything like this [a street dance] in the States.  The only thing I could come up with was a block party.  But in all reality, we don’t necessarily ”need” street dances in the States because we have bars/clubs that we can dance in all year around.  I tried explaining the bar scene to him, but he didn’t quite understand.  ”But we have bars, too.”  ”Haha, no..bars are different in the States, they are more like…clubs.”  Bars in Jamaica are little shack buildings that can seat about 5 people if it has an indoor space, otherwise maybe 10 people for the open-space bars.  Not quite the same as they are in the States.

Well, I am gonna peace out for now.  I feel like everyone is tired of my updates.  Perhaps not another one until after Christmas.  We’ll see.  One love.

Jamaican Proverb: A no want a fat mek nightingale foot ‘tan’ so.

Translation: It is not for the want of fat that the nightingale’s legs stand so.

Explanation: Do not judge by appearances.

Some of the girls enjoying themselves during the day

Tamarind Tree all lit up!