(02-22-2016 01:10 PM)rudebwoy Wrote: Djemba - great post about Nigeria.
However, Jamaica is not a model you want to emulate.
The country has alot of problems and for me I don't think it is a "livable" place. For the common man, living in "yard" is very hard and unless you leave the island, you are destined to live the same life forever.
I was at my mechanic recently, I sat in the waiting room talking to an old timer who just returned from his annual holiday to Jamaica. He was complaining how some thieves had stolen several of his cows and mutilated one pregnant cow, leaving the body there to rot out.
Also, things are expensive for the locals. He asked me how much do I think a maid earns working in a tourist hotel? I was shocked how little they make, considering how much revenue these hotels make.
I realize Jamaica isn't the only country in the world that suffers like this.
It really can be a shock to the system when you realize just how cash poor so many parts of the world really are. In Jamaica, this shock is doubled when you start to compare the lack of cash with the relatively high cost of living.
I only recently discovered that the minimum wage in Jamaica was set to go up this year. Last year, it was $5600 per 40 hour work week.
That's
Jamaican dollars. On the current exchange rate we're talking about $46 US Dollars for a 40 hour work week. This is a minimum wage in Jamaica.
What's the increase? Next week, the minimum is set to rise to a whopping $6200 per 40 hour work week ($51 US).
It is incredible to think about. I mean, there aren't that many highly educated folks in Jamaica who'd be commanding dramatically higher wages, and the unemployment rate is high. That means that, for the typical Jamaican, a weekly salary in this range or not too far off it is pretty much a norm. This is daily life. That's what people have to live on - a few hundred bucks a month.
Even folks who manage decent service industry jobs (ex: a desk greeter working at Norman Manley for Air Jamaica) is only pulling $200-300 US every week. Graduates straight out of the University of the West Indies aren't getting much more than $9000US annually to start, and they're at the very top of the food chain among young Jamaicans in the job market.
There was a high school soccer tournament that drove this point home even further. In Jamaica, high school soccer (referred to as "schoolboy football") is a very big deal. Jamaicans treat it the same way Americans treat college football - same hype, frenzy, tradition, and rabid support. The FLOW Super Cup was the biggest tournament in Jamaican schoolboy football this year, and its final was massive. It featured the two best teams on the island with one led by what was widely considerd the nation's best high school player. All of corporate Jamaica went all-in sponsoring the Super Cup. During the Super Cup final, hype was at an all-time high. Jamaican twitter was buzzing. The National Stadium was
filled to capacity (it was maybe half full the night before when the senior national team played in a World Cup Qualifier). Usain Bolt was there for half-time interviews, and every notable Jamaican celebrity on the island was present at the game. It was a real spectacle - the Jamaican Super Bowl.
I'm sitting here thinking "Man, this is a pretty huge tournament. Must be a lot of prize money at stake." There were indeed prizes. What did the winner of this massive spectacle take home at the end of the day?
$1,000,000. That's
Jamaican dollars.
This is $8254 US Dollars.
That's it. The biggest event in Jamaican sports, and that's the prize.
And make no mistake, it was a prize. Jamaican announcers and fans were talking about this like it was a gamechanging sum of money. The principal of the winning school was interviewed and seemed aghast as to what to do with it all, saying she'd have discussions since the sum could be put to such good use.
And you know what? That
is a gamechanging sum of money in Jamaica. That's more than the vast majority of Jamaicans make in a single year. It's a fortune to them. With the minimum wage as low as it is, you could employ a decent number of folks for a good while on just that small sum alone.
And here's the thing about Jamaica: it isn't like Thailand or the Philippines where everything is dirt cheap. Shit is expensive in Jamaica - you're not going to find any nice, modern $40,000 luxury condos here. Something like that in Jamaica is $200k minimum. Jamaica's cost of living is only about 25% lower than the USA according to Numbeo. Food can be had pretty cheap, but everything else is up there. You can live like a Shah in Thailand with $24k a year, but in Jamaica? No way.
All of this is what helped me to understand where the "eat a food" (read: hustler) mentality and the criminality associated with it comes from in Jamaica. How do you survive in an environment that is so cash poor and yet requires so much just for you to live? I found myself wondering how people were gassing their cars (gas is pricier there than it is here) and making rent.
I even started to notice things about the cars on the road that I'd never notice before. Cars that are plain and unremarkable here in the USA are status symbols in Jamaica because they cost so damn much. A 2015 Honda Accord costs $600US to buy in Jamaica. A Volkswagen Tiguan will run around the same range. A simple little Audi A3 (basic entry-level luxury car here in the states)? Nearly $1000US a month. Now every time I see a car like this, I think "who the hell is affording this?" I know who, of course (Jamaica's small elite isn't hard to identify and yes, income inequality is extreme on the island - "uptown Jamaica" has all the real wealth), but it is still amazing to see the contrast. We wouldn't blink twice at the sight of a new A3 in the American Northeast, but in Jamaica you have to be among society's very elite to even think of affording one. Imagine having to aspire to be at the very pinnacle of your society (almost literally the 0.1%) in order to have any hope of buying a frikkin entry level Audi!
Every single dollar counts in this place. It takes all of those dollars and every cent you've got just to survive. How the hell do people live like that?
The answer: they don't. They either hustle (legally or, often, illegally) to get above those circumstances or they do whatever it takes to get the hell off the island (and I mean
whatever it takes).
This is the kind of stuff that has me counting my blessings every day. At the same time, it is also kind of inspiring in a weird way. It helps to know that I can eventually make a difference with what, to me, won't be a whole ton of money to give. I don't need to be Bill Gates to have a big impact on a lot of lives - a few thousand down on the island can get a lot done.
It's a crazy world out there.