Island Time

This past week I took a little break from Haiti and spent a week in Jamaica. I decided that for my own sanity I would take a small break every now and then and try to tour the Caribbean a little. My girlfriend Sarah and I enjoyed a week at the Jewel Run Away Bay Resort in Run Away Bay Jamaica. The vacation was awesome. It was a true “vacation” in that I wasn’t there to do anything but enjoy myself. I did get to experience a decent amount of Jamaican culture, but I also got to spend some quality time on the beach doing nothing. Fortunately though, these two activities are many times one in the same.

I couldn’t help but compare Jamaica to Haiti, and I came away with mixed feelings about Haiti’s development. Jamaica is not a developed country like the US or Great Britain, and has some of the classic signs of underdevelopment that I’ve seen in Haiti- there were farm animals roaming around, there was significant pollution in the areas not maintained by the resorts, the homes seemed to be pretty small, and the “nicer” homes (the ones made of concrete rather than wood and mud) were all protected by walls mounted with razor wire.

That said, overall Jamaica seemed to be in a much better place than Haiti. The water was potable, we could walk around with out feeling threatened, and the overall sense of chaos that seems to define urban in Haiti was absent. Now to be honest I did spend a decent amount of my time at the resort, so I didn’t get to immerse myself in rural Jamaica or urban Jamaica the way I have been able to in Haiti, but from the few excursions I took into Ocho Rios and Runaway Bay (the two towns near by), I experienced life as I could never imagine experiencing in Haiti.

One day Sarah and I went out to see some botanical gardens and climb a waterfall. We were on our way by 8:00 AM, and we drove to an old Jamaican estate. The drive wasn’t through a congested urban area filled with motorcycles, hawkers, and cows going in every which direction like L’estere or Gonaives. Driving through Ocho Rios was kind of like driving through down town Baltimore; its not a place I’d like to be wander around after dark, and it wasn’t especially well kept, but it was perfectly peaceful to drive through and the general atmosphere was pretty orderly. The Jamaican estate we visited was beautifully kept, and there were more species of plants and animals there than most anything I’ve seen in North America. The air was clean, the water was drinkable, and the scenery was picturesque. After that we did a little shopping, and then climbed up the Dunns River Falls. 

Haiti has these beautiful estates, and there are a few places where we can walk around with out getting harassed, but nothing like what I saw in Jamaica. The falls in Jamaica were a little under a thousand feet high, the water was perfectly clean, and the natural limestone was still intact. The beach I went to in Haiti was clean, and I am sure there are some fresh water rivers that are relatively clean, but the pristine quality of Dunn’s river falls, the natural lime stone and the naturally cleaned water, is something I couldn’t imagine in finding in Haiti. Haitian cities have canals filled with trash, all empting into the other waterways. When we went and got lunch we were able to eat outside and enjoy the scenery, which could only happen in a few select places in Haiti. Of the Haitian restaurants that I’ve eaten at, most are totally indoors. I’ve never been to a Haitian restaurant that has been right on a sidewalk or right outside in a city, the outside is just too chaotic.

The most stunning environmental difference between Haitian and Jamaica was the lush greenery in Jamaica. The term “Mountains Beyond Mountians” can be applied to Jamaican and Haitian landscape, but Haiti’s mountains are brown and yellow, covered with scrub grass, while Jamaica’s mountains looked like something out of a rainforest adventure magazine. There were palms trees everywhere, and all types of different species of plants life bursting forth from the ground. Recently there have been a few brush fires around the mission, and I couldn’t imagine any brush fires in Jamaica, everything is too green.

Haiti and Jamaica have very different histories shaping their current situations. Haiti was a French colony while Jamaica was a British colony. Though both super powers held both colonies as slave colonies, the British were much kinder to their slaves and gave their slaves a greater sense of dignity than the French. The French were known for excessive brutality against their slaves, and thus gave their slaves more reason to revolt, causing Haiti to declare independence through acts of war in 1804, while Jamaica was granted independence by Great Britain in 1962. Jamaica was also under British rule when Great Britain started to strengthen public practices like the enforcement of property rights, rule of law, and the break up of government sanctioned monopolies. These practices promoted economic growth for the entire population rather than a select ruling majority. Haiti on the other hand, had no such practices, and broke off from France before France could institute such practices. Implementing things like property rights is extremely difficult, and is something Haiti has struggled to do ever since the revolution.*

After seeing what Jamaica had to offer, I can more clearly see Haiti’s path toward development. If Haiti’s cities can figure out a way to manage traffic so that it was a little less chaotic, or figure out a way to build more permanent buildings rather than shacks, maybe Haiti’s cities could be a little safer. This would not only make the people in those cities more prosperous, but might also bring in new industries, like tourism. Yet there were also parts of Jamaica that Haiti may never see. The lush forests that covered Jamaica are totally absent on Haiti’s mountainous landscape. The deforestation is not only an eye sore, but it makes rural development extremely difficult. How can Haiti’s small farms protect themselves from mudslides if there is nothing to anchor the soil?

I was really glad to visit Jamaica, not only did I get something to contrast with what I see in Haiti, but I had a wonderful and relaxing time with my great girlfriend. 

*This is a topic for another blog post, but these types of good public institutions and practices, commonly known as “inclusive institutions”, are the roots of economic development. There are many ways inclusive institutions can be implemented, but implementing them is extremely difficult. The fact that Haiti doesn’t enforce property rights, have a steady rule or law, or embrace inclusive institutions is not a slight on Haiti as much as it is a general observation. Haiti didn’t implement inclusive institutions because it rebelled from France, the issue of inclusive institutions in Haiti and France is much more complicated. I don’t mean to imply that Haiti could not implement inclusive institutions without France’s help. I believe that Haiti is currently on the path to more inclusive institutions despite all of the current set backs, but it is still a far way off. Most nations don’t have inclusive institutions. Jamaica, in some ways, got a lucky break in by being a colony of Great Britain while Britain began to promote inclusive institutions, because Britain could help Jamaica also develop inclusive institutions.