(12-04-2019, 05:14 PM)Tammy Wrote: Not sure why you can't respond and Sel is pretty busy so we will figure it out as soon as possible.
What is going on??? The fact is it doesn't matter if a tourist was killed, murder is murder to me. Yes there was a drive-by shooting at Corner Bar last year and luckily no one died but tourist was there. Also, there was a drive-by shooting on the bridge last year that left one Jamaican dead and several children traumatized. Motorbike, Sunday morning, 10 AM. It happens and it does no one any good to act like Negril is still the same place it was 10 years ago. Is Negril still safe for tourists? Sure I guess but personally, for me I don't think it's that safe after dark. I'm not cut out for all the death whether it's tourists or locals. It affects me deeply. If two people were murdered three lanes over from me I would be very upset trust me. I live in a town of less than 3000 and we don't have murder here and if it happened it would rock my world. That is the way Negril used to be and that's why I fell in love with Jamaica. The all inclusives have finally won as far as I can tell.
And that's it, in my opinion. It's the all inclusive hotels at the root of the problems, in an indirect way. They just want to come in and build it up, extract as much money off shore as possible, pay as little as possible, and pack in as many guests as possible. Tourists start coming in masses, locals suffer because infrastructure isn't planned for the expansions. Resentment builds toward "rich" tourists. More people from out of town come in to get their piece. Drugs (not talking herb here) become a core part of the black market economy, and root of lots of violence. All the while more people are coming, staying in their luxury villas or whatever shiny new AI their travel agent is pushing. More resentment, and things just keep building. Local rude boy types, shottas, whatever, have their own little game of king of the hill going on all the time. Government corruption makes everything worse, not to mention that and their old masters back in the states brought in all the guns in the first place...
I love Jamaica, but it's a sketchy, sketchy place lately. We've been hitting other islands the past several years, just seeing what else we like. Next JA trip will likely be St Thomas parish somewhere, maybe PA.
Sorry I'm just rambling stream of consciousness style. But that's how I see it, at least.