“Where do you belong? In the hustle and bustle of a big city or amongst friendly faces in a small town? For this week’s challenge, show us your place in the world….Where’s your safe space? Where do you go when you need to feel inspired or cheered up?”
Yard is where I belong….Jamaica…right here…home.
Looking north…
…south…
…east…
…west…
Weekly Photo Challenge – Place in the World
“What kinds of images and emotions do corners evoke in you? In this week’s challenge, share a photo that plays on any of the word’s many meanings.”
Friday night. Matilda’s Corner in Liguanea, at the intersection of Hope Road and Old Hope Road. “Who was Matilda and why is this her corner?” you ask. I don’t think anyone really knows.
Saturday morning. The corner of King Street and South Parade, just across from St William Grant Park in downtown Kingston. St William Grant, OD (1894 -1977), important labour leader and activist.
Weekly Photo Challenge – Corner
“For this challenge, interpret the theme “bridge.” You can go the same route as I did and capture any type or style of bridge where you are, or go deeper and take a snapshot of something or someone that acts as a bridge in your life: a link, a connection, a mediator.”
This week, I have gone for the most obvious, most literal interpretation of the topic. Here is a picture of this bridge I saw while on vacation in London last year…
X marks the spot! Right here on the map. Jamaica. 18.1096° N, 77.2975° W. I don’t know what terminology our island’s first inhabitants, the Tainos, used to locate us on the map. The winds, sea currents and stars that would have been part of the guiding elements.
And then, with the arrival of Europeans, Jamaica became located on their maps. A Wikipedia page has pictures of a few of those early maps:
Benedetto Bordone, 1528
Tomaso Porcacchi, 1572
Old Maps Online also has links to pictures of a variety of maps of Jamaica, such as this one:
Colin Liddell, 1895
By the way, CaribbeanExams.com has a nice, simple series of maps showing how the parishes of Jamaica have changed over the centuries:
And every school child in Jamaica has had the task of learning the names of the parishes and their capitals…
These days, we can also access Jamaica via satellite maps online, as I did this morning:
And on Google Maps as well:
Finally, while you should have no difficulty locating Jamaica on this blank map of the Caribbean, how many other countries could you correctly identify? Click here to see how well you did.
