Overseas J’cans eager to return home
Jamaicans overseas are already making plans to come home. They say they have been dreaming about the day when they would be able to return to their land of birth amid the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They are now one step closer to that reality after Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced that the country’s borders would be opened for Jamaican nationals effective June 1.
Catherine, 43, left Jamaica to work in the United Kingdom in 2010. She told THE STAR that she thought she wouldn’t be able to follow through with her annual visit because of the closed borders.
“I’m very happy about it. I am already planning to come and visit. I have my family in Manchester and I was planning a summer trip long before COVID,” she said.
“I’ve been living in the UK for 10 years, but I have never missed a summer holiday or vacation down in Jamaica. I keep going back to Jamaica … I can’t get enough. I was beginning to get worried because it’s one whole year since I have seen my family in person. With my job, this is the only time I can take a break to come down and see my family.”
A PLEASANT SURPRISE
Holness’ announcement came as a pleasant surprise.
“As I speak, I am packing. I have been waiting for this day. I haven’t booked a flight yet, but I will be doing so before this week runs off.”
Likewise, Brandon Tomlinson, who lives in Florida, is anxious to return to check on his grandmother in Trelawny.
“Me afi bless up BroGad (Holness) fi da move deh,” he said laughing. “I am actually from Trelawny and me come down from time to time fi check up on the folks. My grandmother down there and cousins and everybody. I always miss them, but you know the virus thing makes everybody a little more emotional than usual.”
Tomlinson says he didn’t want this year to pass without him seeing his 92-year-old grandmother who raised him.
“Me did a fret because my grandmother is an elder … and I wasn’t there to be sure if certain things were being done so she could be safe from the virus. My aunts and older people there too, but everything different now,” he said. “I call my granny ‘mommy’ … so you can imagine how stressed I was, not being able to be with her. The coronavirus makes you want to have your eyes on the people you love the most … it’s a wicked thing.”