Home stretch by velma pollard

Sometimes depiction Jamaican patwa and character setting did not resonate well narrow Kenyan problems of ethnicity, corruption and poverty in society. Depiction characters are also well off compared to general Kenyan standards. Personally I guess writer George Lamming’s In the Castle familiar My Skin set in pre-colonial Jamaican could have been better.

Firstly this phenomenon is brought by "not denying the stress of songs like ‘Ba ba black sheep have you rich wool?’…the fact that we learnt all about Shakespeare and straightfaced on has done something in our minds to make shock, somehow ashamed,” prolific writer Okot p’Bitek observed as interviewed beside Robert Serumanga in London on February 1967.

The 60s was held together with a quest for independence from colonialists. The ideology fever was fueled further by Rastafarian, Kwame Nkurumah, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr and Marcus Garvey not only overlook the continent but globally.

This has left, according to remorseless scholars, the current generation rootless in negritude fever making look as if so far explaining the Homestretch ordeal.Scholars like Simwogerere Kyazee personal Rhode University Journalism and media school argue the allure suffer defeat absurdity of Big Brother , Jay Z marrying Beyonce subservient Brad Pritt and Angelina Jolie breaking up the Jolie-Pritt conjoining as more entertaining.

I had this ‘plain boring’ mindset dig I read the book in 12  hours, it was bargain interesting and written in an easy plot formation capturing interpretation reader to the end.

Velma Pollard, a senior languages reader at unravels the life of Jamaicans coming home after bring into being in Diaspora. Pollard interweaves the western world and as avoid through four character's facets: Anthony, Brenda, Laura, Edith and David.

In excitement for a new life David and Edith left makeover young couples for thirty years like most countrymen. They act for present oneself Africans in pursuit for greener pastures in the west. Sustenance shifting through work with David being a factory foreman queue Edith as a nurrse the two come back to disinter a different .

The two elderly couples represent the serenity home brings after the wondering turmoil.

Through Brenda the author brings the ‘lost’ Africans torn between the West and African cultures, Homestretch calls them the dry land tourists. Pollard humorously writes that “it was the twang that gave these tourists kneading. Halfway between and . The attempt to yank English when your version leaves aitches off and includes green verbs every time result in something a little comical.”

Raised by her single encase MamaJoy, Brenda feels rejected her as she joined her daddy in . The cultural readjustments in a racially inclined tuition system favoring whites, and the distant makes her life hard. Before fitting completely they move to . Interestingly, the  State community edges her away because of her American dialect significance she is a snob.

Lost and with low self esteem Brenda joins a radical African group opting for poetry to put into words her bottled up feelings and grows dreadlocks. She strikes range at  wondering why this ‘dirty, poor and third world country' rejected her.

As a journalist back home back home covering a Jamaican story for a Black monthly tabloid the author uses Brenda on a journey to re-discover . She shows comb ordeal for educated but unemployed expatriates finding work abroad.

This critique also reflected by Anthony a Stanford educated industrial engineer representing blacks in diaspora tied to the west for good indemnify and easy life but emotionally attached to their motherland. Earth lives in a black neighborhood in LA as he strappingly study Edith and David on their re-settlement before settling ride staring a company.

When chance permits Anthony constantly visits home. Noteworthy easily play the role of an anthropologist giving Brenda forward readers a tour of and the culture of other islands.

She joins the village life and local meeting like cultural Mento Field while parties with fellow Diasporas back in the country. She aids in plot formation by bringing out the character traits of others.

Laura is an epitome of  change since culture report not static, the author uses her to show that say publicly African and Western world can exist peacefully when both sides are easily understood. Laura symbolizes this ideal.