Hee-Haw

Last weekend I traveled to Negril to volunteer at the annual Donkey Race organized by the Negril Rotary Club. Funds generated from the event went to support early childhood education in the community so I was more than excited to give my time to help out with the event.

I ended up helping at the face painting booth with a rasta guy: just me, him and fifty pikni crowded around the tent. Face painting was a free event so there was just a huge line of kids, one after the other. I painted tiger faces, flowers, butterflies, lots and lots of Spidermen and other super heroes, and even a few American flags. It was funny to have little kids ask me to paint American flags, I was like, “Are you sure you don’t want a Jamaican flag?” … “No miss, I want the one with stars.”

At the beginning of the day the donkeys were dressed up in silly costumes and paraded around the track. I didn’t catch any pictures of it cause I already had my hands full with face painting but it was pretty cute to see donkeys in wigs and lamp shades for hats. After the parade the real fun started. The donkeys would race in groups of three and people could place bets on the winner.

In addition to the donkey races and face painting for the kids, there was a bar for the big kids, plenty of food vendors, carnival games the kids could play to win prizes, a ferris wheel, and a giant Disney Princess bounce-a-bout that I really wanted to jump in but never got the chance. Hehe.

So after a long day of face painting and watching donkeys I took a dip in the ocean, got a few drinks at the bar with other PCVs at the donkey race and then headed back to the beach to see a beautiful Negril sunset. A great ending to a long but extremely fun day.