The Way to San Jose, CA

When I touched down in Kingston, Jamaica, I was feeling a little smug. I was prepared for this. I had watched Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come” twice before I left home. Admittedly it was with subtitles but still, Patois was going to be a breeze. It took about ten minutes before I realised that my “research” had been a futile exercise as my proficiency for the local dialect was significantly less impressive than I had convinced myself it was.

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long before I decided to scrap the Patois.

After a few days exploring my new surroundings, I found myself speeding down the Kingston streets with my volunteer friends en route to Ocho Rios, the home of Rebel Salute- an annual two day reggae festival and one of the many reasons I wanted to visit Jamaica. Upon arrival, I’m shocked at the lack of people and assume we’re at the wrong site but am quickly informed that punctuality is not important in Jamaica and while your concert ticket might tell you to arrive at 7pm, it actually means “Start arriving at midnight as all the big names will be on around 3am.”
With time on our side, we took the opportunity to explore the empty grounds and before we knew it, a peculiar thing happened...

Two minutes earlier the crowd consisted of a smattering of overzealous German tourists wearing marijuana leaf t-shirts. But with the raspy utterance of “Lucifer son of the mourning, I’m gonna chase you out of earth,” the place was filled with Jamaicans who miraculously appeared when Max Romeo graced the stage. And from that point the energy at this festival was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Everyone danced. Everyone could dance. Rastafarians expertly navigated through the crowd selling anything and everything. Jamaicans kept trying to engage me with, “whaa gwaan, yu pretty nuh rass” and my Patois knowledge failed me again.

Despite being in a sea of strangers and having lost my shoes, I remember thinking that this is the type of experience that is going to resonate for a long time.

If you find yourself in Jamaica; love reggae, love the culture or just love dancing (and are comfortable with the knowledge that you’ll probably be the least rhythmic person there), GO to Rebel Salute. It is an experience you’re not likely to surpass anytime soon.