Jamdown Sundown. My whispered chronicles of the Caribbean

It is important, that all our interlocutors on the island, starting with the government leaders, regardless of which of the two main parties, it was formed, noted that Jamaicans who studied in the Soviet Union or, in modern times, in Russia, all returned to the island and worked there, often occupying high positions in various spheres of economics, health care and science, in the civil service, in political and public structures.

As we were told, there were times when Jamaicans who studied in the USSR and then returned to work in the acquired profession were ordered by the authorities on the island to report to the police station every week, as if they were going to criminals who had served prison terms. In the Western world, to which Jamaica conditionally considers itself, at that time, as it is well known, they feared the ideological influence of the Soviet Union on the local minds, the “infiltration” of alien ideas into bourgeois society that “corrupted” it.

Therefore, to this day, there is a great demand on the island for education in Russia. Over the decades, a kind of dynasty of “Russian Jamaicans” has even formed, in which father or mother or even both parents studied in our country, and the children followed in their footsteps and also study in Russian universities.

Of course, we couldn’t refuse the hospitable Maroons, who gathered us at a common table in the “club”, in their desire to introduce us the traditional food of the freedom-loving mountain dwellers (later we will talk about Jamaican cuisine in general, but now we will mention a couple of typical dishes “as a starter”).