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They Moved to Jamaica at 8 and 9 — Now They're Competing for Jamaica Internationally · Babes, how did you get here

• 0:00
  Welcome to a Life Elsewhere, a podcast exploring what it really means to start over in a new country.
• 0:05
  I am April Jackson and in each episode I speak with someone who has packed up their things for
• 0:10
  a life somewhere else. Today I'm speaking with two teenagers, Alexandra and Scarlett,
• 0:15
  moved to Jamaica from Canada 10 years ago at the age of 8 and 9 without a choice.
• 0:20
  We'll be talking about what it's like growing up between cultures, how they've adapted,
• 0:24
  and how living abroad as kids has shaped who they are now. This is a story about resilience
• 0:29
  and finding yourself in a world where you're not quite sure where you belong.
• 0:35
  Ali, how old are you? I am 19. In Scarlett, how old are you?
• 0:39
  Seventeen. When did you guys move to Jamaica? I moved to Jamaica from December 8th of 2015
• 0:44
  so coming up to 10 years ago now. And then when you heard you were moving to Jamaica,
• 0:50
  can you tell me how you felt about it? I would say very unknown, uncertain. It's like,
• 0:59
  oh, we're moving and I'm like, okay, we're moving. I've been here before twice, but
• 1:05
  it just felt like we were missing contacts. I wasn't excited and I wasn't disappointed.
• 1:09
  I was very neutral about it. Okay. Yep. And yourself then?
• 1:16
  Well, I was like, go with the flow. Cool. And when you'd come on holiday before,
• 1:22
  you said two times? Did you like it? What did you have an impression?
• 1:27
  I think I wish I could see. I can't speak for it. I can speak for myself. I like this,
• 1:32
  but I don't think I've found anything more accurate. Cool.
• 1:37
  Beaches. Cool. Nice weather. Cool. What about this? Did you stay in a hotel when you came?
• 1:44
  Yeah, we were in an all-inclusive. The first time we stayed at all-inclusive the second time.
• 1:49
  We were at all-inclusive a couple days and then I think we came to Kingston for a couple days.
• 1:52
  Okay. And then when you heard your parents just sat you down and said,
• 1:58
  I think I walked into the dining room for breakfast and my mom said, you're moving to Jamaica
• 2:03
  and I said, okay. Okay. I don't actually remember being told when I went to Jamaica.
• 2:11
  I don't remember being told when we went to Jamaica honestly. It's a death memory for some reason.
• 2:15
  Oh no, is that because it was traumatising? I don't think so. I'd rather remember, yes.
• 2:21
  Okay. I moved here from from England when I was around eight and so I wonder, did you guys feel
• 2:28
  that you were losing your friends? No? There is one friend that I missed for a little bit.
• 2:34
  I, what I missed more than friends were my access to some extra collectors. Okay.
• 2:39
  I played a lot of soccer, slash football, and they knew where you were.
• 2:43
  Sure. I did a lot of musical theatre because well-time piano teachers. So those were experiences
• 2:49
  that I missed very much. Cool. And for you, Scarlett, didn't miss anything.
• 2:55
  Think I missed dumpling. You missed what? The dumplings we used to go to like this Chinese restaurant.
• 3:02
  Oh, okay. I like dumplings. Oh man. You couldn't find any dumplings here?
• 3:07
  Jamaica, I think when we moved here it was so much more limited,
• 3:11
  a little rise than like now. Sure. But even then it was like a thing. I feel like Jade
• 3:15
  Garden had dumpling ten years ago. Maybe just on Sunday. They did them something.
• 3:19
  I think so. But then also in Montreal, their restaurants are exclusively dumplings.
• 3:23
  Okay. And it's like the entire menu. You have like 45 options of different kinds of dumplings.
• 3:28
  Okay. We don't have. We couldn't compete with that. No.
• 3:34
  We're dropping new episodes every single week. So make sure you subscribe. You don't want to
• 3:38
  miss this, babes, and leave a comment and tell me what do you want to hear out of my next conversation.
• 3:43
  Your support really helps this community grow. And if you know someone who's quietly
• 3:48
  been thinking, should they take that next big leap? Babes, send them the podcast.
• 3:52
  When you came, do you remember starting at Mona? Did you? Yes. Okay. Tell me about it.
• 3:57
  Okay. So we moved here in December 19th. December 9th, we want to monoprept.
• 4:03
  To sit in and touch here and see if we were going to, you know, be on Facebook.
• 4:10
  Right. So the first, it was, this is going to sound a little bad, but just follow me.
• 4:16
  Sure. It's like the code scarlet. It's like we were just in beaver.
• 4:21
  Because we were the first white people. A lot of these kids had seen.
• 4:25
  So I've been told at least. And the flocking and everyone kept trying to touch us.
• 4:29
  Everyone kept trying to touch our hair. We were not able to like walk to the back.
• 4:32
  This is so funny. You're telling this to a black person where this is like what happens all the time.
• 4:36
  Exactly. Exactly. It's, oh my god, your hair. Can I touch you?
• 4:40
  It's so pretty. It's the exact same thing.
• 4:42
  Sure.
• 4:43
  Even though there's, cause of the white watching it.
• 4:44
  Anyway, it's a fuller. But so I was very like, oh my god.
• 4:49
  And then the facilities in schools themselves are different because
• 4:51
  in Canada, schools are like closed buildings. Okay.
• 4:54
  As opposed to here, schools are like open and you have like shutters and like grills kind of.
• 4:59
  Sure. So it's the school itself is just set up differently.
• 5:03
  But I say we're all as excited. Yeah.
• 5:05
  Yeah. Was it easy to make friends?
• 5:09
  It was, it wasn't more difficult for me to make friends here than it was in Canada.
• 5:13
  Okay.
• 5:13
  I never made friends very easily to say.
• 5:16
  So I'd say it was relatively the same.
• 5:18
  Cool. And then in terms of the education, I appreciate you are young.
• 5:21
  But did you feel that it was more work here?
• 5:24
  Did you feel it was less work?
• 5:26
  So was it more work?
• 5:28
  Yes. Did I mind it at all?
• 5:30
  No. I joined quiz when I moved here in grade four.
• 5:32
  Junior school challenge quiz.
• 5:34
  Okay. So it's like junior jeopardy.
• 5:36
  They have one for elementary schools and they have one for high school.
• 5:38
  For me, it was like a master of cost and learning to make us so quickly.
• 5:41
  Cause all of a sudden, I need to learn all of all of our social studies.
• 5:45
  Where is this river located?
• 5:46
  Who's our minister of this?
• 5:48
  Who's our shadow minister of that current affairs?
• 5:50
  Our politics, our history, all of that.
• 5:52
  And then you have to memorize your path to a proverbs too.
• 5:55
  Like chicken, marie, hawk, denier.
• 5:56
  You have to know how to complete all of those.
• 5:58
  So it was in every single day you go to quiz training.
• 6:02
  Oh, really?
• 6:02
  So yes, I get there at like 6.45 in the morning.
• 6:07
  And then I'd go there at lunch and then I'd go there after school as well.
• 6:10
  Cause Mona does really well in quiz.
• 6:12
  Okay.
• 6:13
  You had to keep that legacy.
• 6:15
  Yeah. It really is like little kid jeopardy.
• 6:18
  Right.
• 6:18
  So I learned a lot there.
• 6:21
  And that was really easy.
• 6:22
  Cause that followed my grade 4, grade 5, grade 6, g-sack.
• 6:25
  Okay.
• 6:26
  By the time I'm in grade 6, getting ready to sit g-sack.
• 6:29
  You know everything.
• 6:30
  I've put it in the hours already.
• 6:32
  Before we continue, make sure that you join our community by clicking the link below.
• 6:37
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• 6:40
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• 6:44
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• 6:48
  Why represent Jamaica, right, when I go abroad to compete?
• 6:52
  Oh, really?
• 6:53
  Yeah.
• 6:54
  Okay.
• 6:54
  So I wear the Jamaican flag.
• 6:56
  I wear the tracksuits.
• 6:57
  And this is horse riding.
• 6:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 6:59
  Cool.
• 7:00
  So technically, when we do go abroad, I'm representing this country.
• 7:04
  I don't actually belong to.
• 7:06
  Okay.
• 7:07
  Right.
• 7:07
  So it's, it's all because it's like, are you Jamaican?
• 7:11
  Sure.
• 7:11
  Or are you just like subbing in?
• 7:13
  And did you, could you have represented Canada?
• 7:18
  It's more competitive to represent that country because it's so much bigger.
• 7:22
  Sure.
• 7:23
  And Jamaica, it's so much smaller, so it's less competitive.
• 7:26
  Is that why you chose to represent Jamaica?
• 7:28
  Well, well, Canada has never come up to me and been like, let's, let's go.
• 7:33
  If they did?
• 7:35
  You want to give me money? I'll do it.
• 7:40
  First of all, if I ever have a child and she wants to go down the art route,
• 7:44
  I'd be worried for her just in general.
• 7:46
  I think it's just a harder space to navigate rather than a traditional way.
• 7:49
  It is!
• 7:50
  And I am so grateful I have my parents support.
• 7:53
  I think part of it is because I have managed to live in Jamaica.
• 7:57
  I've managed to start working decently steadily.
• 8:00
  I've been teaching piano privately for the last almost two years.
• 8:05
  I've picked up stage managing jobs.
• 8:07
  I've picked up PA work.
• 8:09
  So I'm in the summer I'm putting on a children's performing arts camp that I fix.
• 8:14
  That's about it.
• 8:15
  It's going to be my production debut.
• 8:18
  So I think, and then I also last summer I worked in New York at a theater camp there
• 8:24
  and I've done some music directly.
• 8:26
  So I think part of the, is I'm already managing to do this and I'm already picking up work
• 8:32
  and I already have people who I am now meeting and they're like, oh, you know,
• 8:36
  someone, my friend was looking for someone to do this and I thought, hey, maybe you could do that.
• 8:39
  So I'm sending them your contact and I'm like, thank you.
• 8:43
  Do you think that being able to pick up work and have a connection is easier here than it would
• 8:47
  have been if you had, you know, mainstream like city, Canadian life to compete with?
• 8:52
  In a way, I kind of see like it's easier for me to make up because in Canada, right,
• 8:59
  I started teaching piano privately at 17 years old.
• 9:01
  Okay.
• 9:03
  There are too many qualified way more qualified people than, you know, who have their masters
• 9:07
  in piano performance.
• 9:08
  So how on earth am I supposed to compete with that?
• 9:12
  I can't compete with that.
• 9:12
  Obviously, I would charge less because I don't have a doctorate.
• 9:15
  Sure.
• 9:16
  So, you know, someone who's looking for a cheaper alternative,
• 9:19
  but in Jamaica, we lack access to quality music educators.
• 9:24
  So for me, I've managed to build, you know,
• 9:26
  in lovely studio children that I absolutely adore.
• 9:29
  It's the reason, like, when I wake up, I'm like, oh, we've got to teach you a class today.
• 9:33
  So I'm doing after the second class.
• 9:36
  I'm putting on a rich title for them this weekend.
• 9:38
  So that is far easier.
• 9:40
  So automatically, even if any of us had any desire to just, like, run away and
• 9:45
  ever come back, that's not happening.
• 9:46
  You have to be able to just want to hear.
• 9:49
  I think the food, yeah, sure, but I will come into visit.
• 9:53
  So I see I'm not going to die.
• 9:54
  And then Lord knows there are many Jamaicans in Ontario.
• 9:59
  Oh, really?
• 10:00
  Oh, yes.
• 10:00
  I knew Toronto those nodes.
• 10:02
  Look, it's Toronto's a city in Ontario.
• 10:04
  So overall, these five problems.
• 10:06
  So I am sure I will find Caribbean food there.
• 10:08
  I am not doubting that.
• 10:11
  I think that energy is a vibe.
• 10:13
  And really more so the people that I know here, because I have people here that are near
• 10:17
  and dear to my heart.
• 10:19
  I'm also going to honestly miss the kids that I'm teaching.
• 10:22
  Yeah, I have to like are basically coming up for our last classes.
• 10:26
  And I'm going to miss the oven.
• 10:29
  Anyway, yeah.
• 10:30
  A lot of times you would see some quick five questions.
• 10:34
  Tasty or juicy?
• 10:36
  Juicy party.
• 10:36
  Any day.
• 10:37
  Really?
• 10:38
  Do you say the same way?
• 10:39
  Juicy party.
• 10:40
  You've never had a juicy beef patty?
• 10:42
  Is that the other one?
• 10:42
  No.
• 10:43
  Or tasty?
• 10:43
  You've never had a party.
• 10:44
  What are you guys doing?
• 10:46
  Well, listen, have a reason.
• 10:48
  Tell me.
• 10:49
  I went to Monoprop and there was maggots in it.
• 10:51
  And I said I will never eat a patty.
• 10:54
  There were maggots in the patty?
• 10:55
  Yes.
• 10:56
  That's a really valid reason.
• 11:00
  However,
• 11:01
  however, I would hope we have to get you a Devonhose patty.
• 11:04
  Fair enough if you don't want.
• 11:05
  I'll have ice cream.
• 11:07
  No, but the patty's at Devonhose.
• 11:09
  You know, I swore to my eight year old self.
• 11:11
  No, but they don't look the same.
• 11:13
  Does that help?
• 11:14
  No.
• 11:14
  Okay, um, I'm not going to the patty.
• 11:16
  My dad doesn't eat chicken.
• 11:18
  And he won't tell me why,
• 11:19
  but we suspect he had a similar experience.
• 11:23
  And we put it like it's a myth because he won't talk about it.
• 11:26
  So I understand.
• 11:27
  Okay, but you didn't have maggots in your patty.
• 11:29
  No, I've never seen a maggot.
• 11:30
  A new, a new choose.
• 11:32
  Juicy.
• 11:32
  Why do you choose juicy patty?
• 11:34
  I just love a juicy beef patty.
• 11:36
  You don't find the middle is too minzy, minzy?
• 11:39
  No, not our fat when they're warm and I bite into them.
• 11:42
  And it's like the middle is almost like juicing, like squeezing out, you know?
• 11:48
  It's delicious.
• 11:49
  Like I was working somewhere and my supervisor, the producer,
• 11:54
  she had sent me to go pick up like 35 patties in the morning for breakfast
• 11:58
  for everyone to have a craft table.
• 12:00
  And like I got this, and it's like six thirty in the morning.
• 12:03
  I got this warm, warm, warm, warm, fresh.
• 12:08
  So juicy, no patties for you.
• 12:10
  Curry goat or oxail?
• 12:12
  Ooh, those are very good.
• 12:14
  Hmm.
• 12:15
  Curry goat.
• 12:16
  Curry goat.
• 12:17
  Do we like oxail or it's an easy one?
• 12:19
  I don't love both.
• 12:20
  I really prefer chicken.
• 12:22
  What cheese is it?
• 12:23
  Peas, okay.
• 12:23
  Curry goat or oxail?
• 12:25
  No, no, no.
• 12:27
  Curry goat's cheaper.
• 12:29
  That's true, that's a good reason.
• 12:31
  I feel like it's easy.
• 12:32
  You'll get more curry goat than you will on the scale.
• 12:35
  That's true.
• 12:35
  And like when oxail is done well,
• 12:37
  I want to say the oxail.
• 12:39
  But then not everybody can do oxail.
• 12:41
  So it depends, but then a nice curry bowl.
• 12:43
  It's very nice and white.
• 12:44
  So both, both, both.
• 12:46
  Okay, cool.
• 12:47
  Sorry, at Christmas time, or do you have eggnog?
• 12:50
  I've never drank eggnog.
• 12:52
  I think it sounds weird and I can't understand the concept
• 12:56
  of the egg and it kind of sounds disgusting.
• 12:58
  So we're voting sorry?
• 12:59
  Or you don't like sorry either?
• 13:00
  No, we're voting sorry.
• 13:01
  Do you like sorry?
• 13:02
  Oh my goodness.
• 13:03
  I don't care what you're saying.
• 13:04
  You don't like the taste of sorry at all.
• 13:08
  Even rum.
• 13:10
  Just rum.
• 13:11
  It's great.
• 13:11
  Just rum, no sorry.
• 13:13
  We're on a team, kind of girl.
• 13:16
  Rum or red stripe?
• 13:17
  Rum.
• 13:18
  Okay.
• 13:18
  Oh.
• 13:20
  I don't have raw ginger.
• 13:22
  So neither.
• 13:23
  Rum.
• 13:24
  I mean, we've had puzzles on this side for the whole time.
• 13:27
  So you can definitely pass.
• 13:28
  I don't have a melanin in me to be able to.
• 13:31
  To hand them over.
• 13:32
  Overproof J-Rain.
• 13:33
  Yo, it's great.
• 13:34
  It's great.
• 13:35
  I can't eat things.
• 13:37
  That's where I think I got here too old to properly
• 13:40
  and be able to handle that.
• 13:42
  Oh, that's too funny.
• 13:43
  Oh my goodness.
• 13:45
  If you had to sum up your life in a postcard picture,
• 13:48
  what would the picture look like?
• 13:50
  Um, that's a deep question.
• 13:53
  I think a cool thing would be if you had a little white board
• 13:56
  and you had a straw, but I think that would be cute.
• 13:57
  Um, I'm artistically challenged.
• 14:00
  I didn't even think that that was possible,
• 14:01
  but I like, I like very good.
• 14:02
  Um, I have no idea.
• 14:06
  This is a very difficult question.
• 14:07
  This is like a very deep personal question.
• 14:10
  If there was ever a preview to a question,
• 14:12
  I wanted it was this question.
• 14:14
  Um, it's a system of having to know it
• 14:16
  didn't come from chat GPT.
• 14:18
  Oh, that was just sick of the rump things
• 14:25
  and a bottle of rum and split.
• 14:26
  I think maybe, I don't know.
• 14:31
  Maybe like a map of Chimico,
• 14:34
  like the outline of a map, maybe.
• 14:36
  And kind of like scrapbooks,
• 14:39
  mood board, little clips of my life.
• 14:42
  So the piano, my kids,
• 14:44
  teaching a couple of shows that I've watched
• 14:46
  that have absolutely, like,
• 14:48
  destroyed my life in the best way possible.
• 14:50
  To show it.
• 14:51
  Um, telling my family,
• 14:53
  um, books I've read, I don't know.
• 14:56
  I think I look a little bit like my vision board,
• 14:58
  maybe, where it's just like a mishmash of my interest
• 15:01
  and my goals that I want to pursue.
• 15:03
  I mean, we're just having still a romance lift.
• 15:06
  No, no, no, I'm going to be on a horse
• 15:08
  with my couple around my split.
• 15:10
  Amazing.
• 15:11
  But I don't smell so.
• 15:13
  It's just visual representation.
• 15:14
  Exactly.