Today I worked with Iris and her camera crew on documenting what people love about Falmouth. It's a kind of daunting task, trying to figure out how to capture the complexity of the remarkable spirits of this community. We formulated some questions, and today we went out to interview a shop owner and see where it went.
The first shop owner was a Chinese Jamaican, born in Jamaica. She told us about going to Europe and then coming back to Jamaica, because her family was here. She was a city girl. She mentioned that Jamaica had a discipline problem, that people were rowdy. She spoke of her church as a place of solace. When the interview was done she refered us to another shop owner in the area.
The shop owner was a native Falmouth resident also, but she'd lived here her enitre life, and was able to tell us about the changes. She said the town used to be quiet, that the town had gotten louder with the addition of the port. I found it interesting that both women mentioned the rowdiness in the town, and both mentioned their churches as places they loved, as places of solace.
I felt like today I was able to see a tiny piece of the puzzle that is the topography of happiness and contentment in Falmouth, and how it has changed over the ages. It's hard to come into the interviews without seeing what we want to see, but listening to the complex pride and frustration native Falmouth residents feel for their town helped me to keep an open mind, and widened my perspective. It will take a lot more to get a complete picture, but each bit of new information contributes to the story, and I can't stop wanting to know more.
It's also interesting, if I am reading this right, that each woman sees the church differently... one sees it as a peace-maker and he other as a peace-challenger. As someone reading these posts and obviously not there, it's beautiful to glimpse into what you all are experiencing and how you are unpacking it. Thank you!
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