'Showa man'

"Yow, showa man!"

What the hell?

He was looking in my general direction but surely could not be speaking to me.

"Yardie! Yuh nuh hear mi a shout yuh, the man a athlete to or wah?"

Now, I can certainly understand why I'd be mistaken for an athlete; they don't call us the 'fittest team' for nothing, but it didn't register why I was being called a 'showa man'.

"Oh di man a reporter. Weh you work, JBC?"

His sharp Jamaican accent didn't suggest it, but he must have left Jamaica a long time ago to be talking about JBC.

Still, why did he call me a 'showa man'?

Turns out I was wearing a green armband, which was given to journalists at the JOA-PUMA press conference the other day.

It was solid green, but before we get crazy and start clinging to tired conspiracies, it was never meant to depict the Jamaican flag … so mi nuh wah hear say the JOA took the black and gold out of the flag.

COLOURFUL CONVERSATION

It led to a rather colourful conversation; rather colourful language at times, with the man who only identified himself as 'Danny'.

Danny was one of several Jamaicans that I've met over the past two days, and we are not hard people to pick out of a crowd, enuh. Brightest coloured hair, sharp accent, animated discourse - you know, the usual stuff.

I met a security guard at one of the checkpoints at the entrance of the Main Press Centre.

Larry, who hails from Waterhouse, still wore the gold tooth he said he got in the '80s.

"Dem things used to run road, young blood. You ain't saying nothing without a little sparkle in your mouth 'ain't it' (or however that is spelt)?"

"Yow, Larry, stop dem bredda deh from the other newspaper. Don't mek dem come through," we all laughed.

Jamaicans seem to be creeping out of the crevices more by the minute, but with track-and-field action starting and some would even say, with the Olympic Games really starting now, it shouldn't be a surprise.

Before I go I must say a big thank you to all the folks, who tweeted and emailed various suggestions and directions to good barber shops here.

I appreciate it, because I stepped inside one today and had to run out like a bat from hell (LOL! Got that one from my 'second' mother, Morine Denton). The place seemed in more ways than one to be more of a hair salon and less of a barber shop!