Craft Market and Music Festival
By Alyssa Nichol
Thursday we had the opportunity to go to Ocho Rios and wander around the tourist marketplace. This was a very interesting experience since we were able to observe various methods of how the locals sell their merchandise. The locals know their consumers well and are very assertive (bordering on aggressive) when it comes to promoting their products. Some students were able to haggle the prices of products with the vendors while other students found this to be an intimidating environment and were not as comfortable doing so.
The month of February is Black History Month and Ocho Rios hosted a music festival to celebrate the occasion. The host was a local radio station (Irie FM) which played a variety of Jamaican music. There were also a variety of food booths with traditional Jamaican food being served. We arrived at the park roughly halfway through the festival to find that there was a moderate amount of locals scattered mostly around the outside of the square. The locals danced freely and mostly hung out, enjoying the music and overall calming vibes of the festival. We observed how the locals interacted with one another and joined in with the festivities, dancing along to the music and trying the local food.
Alyssa Nichol is a 3rd year student in the School of Nursing at Nipissing University. Alyssa is working with Team Organic Farming for this expedition.
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| On the way to Ocho Rios |
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| Mahogany Beach |
Thursday we had the opportunity to go to Ocho Rios and wander around the tourist marketplace. This was a very interesting experience since we were able to observe various methods of how the locals sell their merchandise. The locals know their consumers well and are very assertive (bordering on aggressive) when it comes to promoting their products. Some students were able to haggle the prices of products with the vendors while other students found this to be an intimidating environment and were not as comfortable doing so.
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| Enjoying the calming vibes at the festival |
The month of February is Black History Month and Ocho Rios hosted a music festival to celebrate the occasion. The host was a local radio station (Irie FM) which played a variety of Jamaican music. There were also a variety of food booths with traditional Jamaican food being served. We arrived at the park roughly halfway through the festival to find that there was a moderate amount of locals scattered mostly around the outside of the square. The locals danced freely and mostly hung out, enjoying the music and overall calming vibes of the festival. We observed how the locals interacted with one another and joined in with the festivities, dancing along to the music and trying the local food.
Alyssa Nichol is a 3rd year student in the School of Nursing at Nipissing University. Alyssa is working with Team Organic Farming for this expedition.
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