This summer I went to Jamaica with my mom, aunts, uncles, and cousins for a week. I was so thrilled because I hadn’t been to Jamaica since I was two years old. As soon as the plane landed I felt like I was home, and because my family is Jamaican I’m very familiar with the culture so nothing really surprised me. The culture really wasn’t all that different from American culture. We stayed at this beautiful resort, and the staff made us feel welcome. While at the resort we got to experience the Jamaican culture, with the food, music, and lifestyle. We even got treated to a comedy show after dinner in the auditorium, but during the day we would swim in the ocean and in the pool to stay cool.

There were many different languages spoken in Jamaica because they speak Patwa, which is English, Dutch, French, etc. The language is relatively easy to understand so you don’t feel intimidated when being spoken to. The food was different too, of course they had the usual American dishes (hamburgers, fries, pizza, doughnuts, and others); but they also had real authentic Jamaican food such as ackee and saltfish with fried dumplings (traditional breakfast), jerk chicken, curry chicken and goat, Jamaican patties(traditional meal) , and grater cake (dessert). One thing that couldn’t get enough of was the fresh Jamaican eggs, they were huge and made the best omelets.

One interesting site we went to was Dunn`s River Fall. It’s a huge water fall in Jamaica that you can climb. It was very difficult to climb because the rocks were slippery and the water was freezing. It was very scary trying to climb the waterfall because there were times where we would lose our balance but we had to keep moving. Once we got to the top a sense of accomplishment took over the whole group, and from the top of the waterfall we could see the beautiful scenery. Unfortunately the trip had to come to an end but I was able to bring back bracelets for all of my friends in the colors of the Jamaican flag.