Travelling from Jamaica to the USA is as much a mental journey as a physical one. Whatever else it may be, America is a smoothly functioning society that minimizes life’s daily frictions. In Jamaica on the other hand,  matters rarely go as they are supposed to. It may be too harsh to say people here try to be difficult. But too often Jamaicans’ careless attitudes towards those they are supposed to help creates unneeded irritations.

In the course of a recent business trip to Miami I stopped at a Montego Bay airport bookshop to get a popular Jamaican book for a friend. Not seeing it, I asked a clerk for help. After a desultory look and without checking with anyone else, she lackadaisically announced that they had none. I jokingly chided her for running out of such a popular book. With an air of botheration, she firmly explained that “You can’t expect us to have everything!” Not her fault they were out of stock perhaps, but she could have been far more pleasant and helpful.

Now running a bit late I hurried to the customs hall to get my laptop computer registered so I would not be charged duty on my return. In most countries laptops are accepted business tools and require no travel documentation. But the Jamaican government still insists on trying to extract tax dollars from these tools of productivity. “Only GCT” they say, but this is $300 US on a $2,000 computer. So I had to waste ten minutes walking to the customs hall, and of course another ten minutes walking back. (If government officials were serious about making Jamaica computer literate and improving our national productivity, computers would be completely tax free like books.)

The official at the first desk in the customs office was leisurely chatting on the phone. So I went to another who was reading the newspaper and asked if she could help. Without looking up she wordlessly pointed to the  official on the phone, who had still not acknowledged my presence. After a few minutes I politely asked her for assistance. “Can’t you see I’m busy?” she retorted. After talking another five minutes she hung up and gave me a form to fill out, which I did and handed back. She was filling out her section when her phone rang. Whereupon she began an animated conversation on an obviously personal matters.

After five minutes I quietly mentioned that my flight was now boarding and could she possibly finish up with my form. “It’s not my fault you are leaving this for the last minute! You should have come here earlier!” she snapped and continued talking. Eventually she deigned to fill out the two required lines and stamped the document, all of which took ten seconds at most. I  ran to my gate, and as I reached out of breath I heard the final boarding call being made. So as they say, no cup no bruck and no coffee no throw away. But I couldn’t help shaking my head in frustration as I sat down. The poor service and aggravation I had just experienced was completely unnecessary.  (My crankiness was exacerbated by the loud promotional ads playing on the airplane TV screens which prevented me from reading or sleeping. Patriot though I am, if Air Jamaica continues to be so inconsiderate to its passengers as to blare unwanted noise at them, I will switch airlines.) 

On landing in America everything went like clockwork as usual and I was in a taxi in ten minutes. Why can’t be like this in Jamaica? Why is everything at home always such a hassle? Looking out of my car window I was struck again at how buildings and highways that in Jamaica would be major projects are in the US routine affairs.

America really is the land of plenty. It is the richest, most powerful, and most culturally dominant country in history. Through movies, television and now the internet it has exported its vision around the globe. Its dreams and aspirations have become the world’s. No nation has been able to resist the siren lure of America’s consumer culture.

Here the free market gospel acclaims the invisible hand and self-interest is all. Those who stumble in the race are simply swept away and locked out of sight. America claims to be the land of the free. Yet is has the world’s highest per capita rate of incarceration, over 700 per 100,000. The USA has only five percent of the world’s population, but over twenty five percent of its prisoners. (Jamaica’s rate of about 130 per 100,000 is fairly average. The rate for American blacks is an incredible 3,500 per 100,000, by far the highest for any group of people in the world.)

Yet unpleasant as it may be to contemplate, this devil take the hindmost system is unquestionably the most successful wealth creating machine ever known. What were once thought of as prerequisites of the rich are in the US now available to almost everyone. Who has not on occasion looked upon America’s almost countless riches and said to himself that surely this is the greatest society ever created by man and maybe the greatest that ever can be created by man?

I was reminded once more of this seemingly endless abundance while eating lunch at the gigantic Sawgrass Shopping Mall. I ate at a decidedly middle class cafe, but the meal served was more than enough for two and more flavourful than I would get for twice the price in Jamaica. Compared to any third world country the lifestyle available to the average American is simply astonishing. No wonder immigrants keep risking their lives to come here.

Yet the faces of the shoppers buzzing to and fro were tense and occupied. Despite all the bustling activity something was missing here. And then it occurred. There was much noise and chatter, but where was the laughter? In Jamaica one would never be among so many people for so long without hearing some raucous outburst of hilarity. And though listening carefully, I heard little prolonged jocularity for the rest of my trip. Except of course the forced canned laughter and herd like guffaws of television sit-coms and stand up comedy shows. But there is a world of difference between laughing at people and laughing with them.

Which is not say Americans never laugh and Jamaicans are continually in stitches. And these are only one man’s personal observations. Yet as I boarded the returning lovebird a week later, I felt glad to be going home, despite all the aggravations and depressing poverty that awaited me. Everything is quicker, easier and cheaper in America. But can a country with so little time for natural laughter be truly happy? As Mahatma Ghandi said, there is more to life than going faster.