This was one of my favorite blog posts from my Jamaica Joel blog. I wrote this when I was living and working in Jamaica.
Well sit down and buckle up because this story is quite the ride. Over the last two years I have seen my friend Meg and her sister Peaches (both of those names are nicknames) walk by my house carrying a woven basket. They wouldn’t be carrying the basket every time – they have a farm past my house and sometimes they would walk by to go to the farm – but every few months they would carry the basket. Was it for carrying produce back from the farm?
I finally asked her what she is doing with the basket. When she returned there was never anything in it, so it wasn’t for carrying things. I was confused. She told me it was for catching janga. I was still confused. What is a janga?
Then I learned that “janga” is what Jamaicans call crayfish. There is a river, the Roaring River, that people in the community will go and catch some janga for a nice dinner.
Way back in the day, there used to be a community next to the river. Over time there were less and less people living there, until the last of the people that lived down there moved to other communities around the area. Meg and Peaches were two that moved from down by the river to the top of the mountain.
After Meg explained what the basket was for and what exactly a janga was, I was really interested in going to the river to catch janga. Fast forward 6 months or so and I finally get my opportunity.
Early in the week, Meg tells me that Peaches was going to be coming up on Friday (she lives in the community down the road). So we decided that Saturday was the best day to go catch janga. It just so happens that Saturday my two friends Don and Ray would be coming up to visit the community and meet my friends. On Sunday we planned for the three of us to hike part of the Cunna Cunna trail.
So now you know the back story lets get right into it. In the morning, before Don and Ray even left where they were coming from, I met up with the janga expedition party. It was Meg, Peaches, and my friend Darian. The four of walked past my house carrying the janga basket, a bucket, machetes and a backpack with snacks.
We walked up to the top of Hayfield road and then turned down a trail that used to lead to the community by the river. It used to be a more heavily traveled road, but now it is a small farm trail, where it is easy to get lost if you aren’t familiar with the area. Luckily I was with my friends and guides. There was actually a point where we lost the trail because a tree fell over the trail and the bush overgrew into the trail, but we quickly found it again.
There were farms on the left and the right. We ran into my friend Chemron and we all talked for a little bit. Chemron laughed a jovial laugh when I told him we were going to catch janga. After we were done talking we continued down the trail.
We walked for a little over an hour. In many parts it was straight down. After we passed the last farm, the bush was replaced with forest and there was more trees than grasses, which made it easier to hold on while climbing down.
We finally reached the river and we set down our bags. The river was made up of many pools with a small stream emptying into the next pool below it. When it rained heavily the water would flow violently down the river, but today it was rather calm. It wasn’t the best conditions, ideally it would have more water in it, but the river also wasn’t dried up. I just want my readers to know that there were plenty of mosquitoes buzzing around. But they didn’t bother me this time because I was so excited about the adventure.
Meg and Peaches began to work the process to catch the janga. They told me to watch first so I wouldn’t get too wet so early. The water in this pool came up above my wata boots (rain boots). So I watched the two of them as they caught the first of the janga.
One of them would set the basket into the water. Then they would pull in the stuff floating in the water into the basket. This includes any leaves, sticks, and janga that’s in the water. Then they would lift up the basket, pick out the janga and throw them in the bucket, dump out the leaves, and start again.
Once we caught all of the janga in the pool, we would move up to the next one. We were at the first pool for about 10 minutes before we moved on.
We started at the pool on the bottom of the river and worked our way up to the top. Each pool we went to we spent a few minutes trying to catch janga. We would get maybe five in one pool and then move to the next where we would catch only one or two, then the next pool we would catch more than ten! Each time it was like rolling a dice, hoping that we would catch a lot. It was exciting and the whole time we were all joking back and forth and chatting patwa. We all would get really excited when we pulled up a big fat janga!
We got to one spot and Darian said there was a tangerine tree next to the river. So Meg and Peaches stayed behind and kept fishing while Darian showed me the way to the tree. When we got there, he climbed up into an ancient tangerine tree. I didn’t see any Tangerine on the tree but Darian said he saw a few. He managed to grab four of them, one for each of us, and threw them down to me. Then went back to the river. We each ate a tangerine and then continued to climb up the river.
We reached this one spot on the river that had really cool rocks. The water was running from the side of the mountain and it formed a cool design on the face of the rock. I don’t really know what to call this rock formation here but we caught a good amount of janga in the little pool. The whole hike was full of beautiful formations like this, where over time the river carved a path through the tough earth.
We climbed up and up until we came to a point in the river that that we could not climb up. So we had to take a detour and climb around. The path that we climbed was very steep and it is best not to look down. One time my step kicked down some rocks and they took a good while before they hit the ground. But we all made it to the next pool no problem. And once again Meg and Peaches began to fish janga.
I wasn’t sure I was going to add this part of the story to the blog, but here it goes. What is a good story without a bit of drama. At one point in the adventure, Peaches gave me the bucket full of the janga to carry. This was a big responsibility. It was my turn to carry it from pool to pool and she would fish for janga and then would throw the them in the bucket, I would put the lid on, and we would all move to the next pool. Everything was going fine until I stepped on a slippery rock and fell. It wasn’t a bad fall, but it was enough that I dropped the bucket and all of the janga flew out. They started flailing all over the place. Luckily it was on a flat part of land and we were able to scoop up the janga and put them back into the bucket. Its weird, they didn't ask me to carry the bucket anymore after that. Meg or Peaches carried the precious cargo the rest of the way.
We stopped at a spot that had coconuts all over the floor. This was part of their land and they had coconut trees all over it. Meg and Peaches used the machetes to cut the husk off of the coconuts while Darian and I just chilled. After about 30 minutes they had about 20 coconuts and they put them in a bag. Meg carried it back up the hill with her (what a badass!)
We went up to another part of the river that had pools again. The two women got in and started to catch janga. We continued the routine and went further up the river, continuously adding janga to our loot.
We went up some more pools and we got to another waterfall. A big and steep waterfall. This time it was (apparently) climbable. So we had to rock climb up the surface of the face. I have some experience with rock climbing back in the US, but man, this is different. I was wearing my wata boots and carrying a machete. The rocks were loose and wet and I had to be very careful where I stepped. But I managed to get up to the top gracefully enough and the Jamaicans were impressed still. Meg climbed the whole thing with a heavy bag of coconuts.
Then we got to the last few pools. They finally let me get into the water to catch the janga. They showed me how to fish for them and I even caught a few. It was pretty cool but I need to practice my technique. The Jamaicans were laughing at me while helping me to scoop in the janga. Around this point I was getting tired, but at least I can say that I have caught janga in Jamaica.
The story doesn’t end here, we still had to get back to the community. We were about an hour away. We began the walk back up. It was hardly a trail. It was a straight vertical climb up the side of a mountain. I clung to the trees to pull myself up, barely able to do so, and all I had to carry was a machete. I don’t know how they did the same climb with all of the coconuts and gear, but we made it back to our friends farm after 30 minutes of a grueling climb. We stopped for a few minutes and rested. The rest of the hike should be a lot easier.
Starting at the farm there was an actual trail and we began to follow it back to the community. The trail met up with the water pipe trail (where we get our water pumped in) so I was familiar with where we were. We walked down the trail until we got to another one of Megs farms. She was going to dig up some renta yam, which is a really nice soft white yam. While she and Peaches went down the hill, Darian turned to me and asked if he had any tics on him. I looked at the back of his neck and I didn’t see anything.
Darian and I watched the birds in the tree next to us for a few minutes. It was a otaheite apple tree and the birds love it. Darian turned to me and asked me to look for tics again. So I look closer at his neck and I realize that he does in fact have quite a lot of tics on him. I don’t know how I missed it the first time. So I pulled a couple of them off of him and killed them, squishing those suckers between my fingernails. I was careful that they didn’t fall on me, because I have never had ticks before and I heard they are miserable.
Then I looked down at my arm and saw there was a few tics on me already. I was wearing long sleeves so I didn’t see my arm. I pulled up my sleeve and I looked on my one arm and it was covered with little biting tics. I pulled up my other sleeve and the same thing. Then I looked at my stomach and chest and it was covered with tics. Damn. My back and neck were the same thing. I must have had over 200 tics on my skin. At that moment I was defeated. There was nothing I could do. I laughed and sighed and just gave up. There was nothing I could do and we were still 30 minutes back to my house.
About the same time, the two sisters came back up the hill with the yams. Peaches laughed a good laugh when I showed her the tics on my arms. Meg gave me a bag with a big yam in it and said I should hurry home to take care of the tics. They still had some farming to do, so Darian and I hurried in front of them.
We reached back to the Deans house. Mr. and Mrs. Dean were sitting on the veranda with an older woman in the community, Mrs. Brown. Darian and I showed them we had tics. Mr. Dean chuckled as he remembered a time when he caught tics when he was younger. (Why do Jamaicans like laughing at the fact that I have tics? Lol.)
They gave us kerosene oil on a rag. We rubbed it over the tics to get rid of them. After I rubbed the oil rag everywhere and getting most of the tics to fall off, I went to the side of the house and I stripped down to my underwear. Then I took my side entrance in and went straight to the shower. I washed with soap 3 or 4 times to try and get rid of every last little tic.
I am pretty sure that got them all off. Mr. Dean reassured me if I didn’t get every last one, they would get real fat in a day or two and I would be able to feel it and pick it off. Thanks for the advice haha.
Later that day, my two Peace Corps friend Don and Ray came up to visit me. Meg cleaned up the janga and gave it to Ms. Dean, who then cooked it up in a coconut rundown. Oh my gawd, it was amazing nd satisfying. We had it with the renta yam and fresh otaheite apple juice. I wish I took a picture of the meal but I was so hungry and tired that I ate it too fast and never remembered. Everyone enjoyed the meal.
The next day, Don, Ray, and I walked over 8 miles on the beautiful Cunna Cunna trail. Then we went to our PCV friend Matts house to watch the Super Bowl. At that time my tic bites were starting to pop up and itch. It was miserable but it is kinda hilarious now that its over and I am writing about it. It was quite the adventure and its safe to say that I was exhausted after that weekend.
(Note: there is no tic born diseases in Jamaica luckily, and I went to a doctor to get the bites looked at. I am still alive and I still love janga and hate tics.)
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