The BBC’s African Perspective programme is investigating what life is like for some of an estimated 20 million Africans who live in the diaspora.

Nick Davis in Kingston finds out what made some Africans voluntarily make the former slave island of Jamaica their home.

Christopher Columbus landed on the beach at Rio Bueno on Jamaica’s north coast in 1494 and forever changed the history of this island.

The Spanish arrived and brought the Africans with them. They imported slaves throughout their 160-year stay and the practice continued under British rule.

Some of my students sometimes don’t seem very proud to be called African, they associate the place with poverty, starvation — Anthropologist Barry Chevannes, University of the West Indies

Jamaica’s national motto is “Out of many, one people” - a description of the island’s multi-ethnic background.

But with over 90% of the 2.6m population being black, the country looks African.

But does it feel African?

“It looked like home to me when I first arrived. Sometimes I’d make a mistake and speak to people in my Ghanaian language and then I’d suddenly realise, this isn’t a Ghana,” says Sophie Dawes who grew up in what was formerly called the Gold Coast, now Ghana.

‘Jamaica heads, Nigeria tails’

The 74-year-old grandmother met her husband - a well known Jamaican academic and writer, Neville Dawes - when she was at university in Ghana. They eventually moved to the West Indies with their young family more than 40 years ago.

Nigerian Olalekan Abbass — We basically tossed a coin and said where do we go? Jamaica heads, Nigeria tails Nigerian Olalekan Abbass

For Olalekan Abbass who came from Abelkuta in Nigeria’s Ogun state it was a similar story.

He met and married his wife Arlene, who is Jamaican, in London but they had a dilemma.

“We basically tossed a coin and said where do we go? Jamaica heads, Nigeria tails.

It was heads and we came down.”

Jamaicans have a strong connection with Africa.

The look to the motherland started in the years of slavery. Traditions, rituals, religious beliefs and even language were all reinforced by the waves of Africans shipped in to keep the island’s sugar plantations going.

But after emancipation, it was not really until Marcus Garvey during the 1920s and 1930s that an island with wider black consciousness took hold.

He told his supporters to “look to Africa“, and his message and his calls for repatriation were taken up by descendants of African slaves and became the cornerstone of a new religion, Rastafari.

Miles away

“I was in college in America and whilst studying I became friends with a good brother, he would say to me why are you acting Jamaican, but I would say to him, why are you acting like an African?” says Makonnen who came from Guinea Bisseau and is a follower of Rastafari.

Makonnen’s dreadlocks are covered under a wicker hat.

He is always well dressed but this is a special day. He is in a silk shirt.

The face of Ethiopia’s Emperor, Haile Selassie is proudly emblazoned across it.

Today would’ve been the 116th birthday of His Imperial Majesty - the most important date for Rastafarians.

He works as a herbalist and a counsellor out of a health food store in Ocho Rios, a busy resort town on Jamaica’s north coast but he has taken some time off to show me what reminds him most of home.

We head to a little fishing village. As we arrive the boats are heading back from sea. A scene that Makonnen says is repeated thousands of miles away in Africa.

Shared love of food

African and Caribbean people share a love of food

“The whole scenario here is about the fisherman - they go out in these little locally made boats, they bring in the catch and it has been cleaned.

“The way the huts are built, look it’s just like Africa. They cook the sweetest seafood right here and down the road they turn cornmeal into what we call fufu.”

A love of food is something that both African and Caribbean people share. And for the people who have made Jamaica home, many of the dishes are not that foreign.

“The food is very similar to what we eat in Nigeria. There’s a little difference in how it’s prepared but it’s so close; the ingredients are the same. I went to the doctor the other day he said you need to change your diet.

“I said change it to what? Everything they have here is the same as what we eat back home,” says Nigerian Olalaken Abass.

“Nigerians talk about nyam - to eat, and Jamaicans say the same word in Patois [Jamaican creole language] so there’s lot of similarities in how we speak,” says Sophie Dawes

Like wildfire

Jamaicans are slowly identifying with African culture

But despite some of the cultural and historical links between Africa and Jamaica some people do not want to accept the link.

“Some of my students sometimes don’t seem very proud to be called African, they associate the place with poverty, starvation. They often think who’d wanna be an African,” says Barry Chevannes, an anthropologist at the University of the West Indies.

But Olalaken says that the people in Jamaica need to look beyond the poverty, corruption and HIV and Aids headlines to the real Africa.

By doing so, they will be able to more easily embrace their African roots.

“There needs to be a little bit more of an introduction to the real African culture. Recently the Jamaican public have been watching African movies which have caught on like wildfire - they haven’t seen things like this before and slowly they are identifying with African culture.”

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After a dazzling show that put China on display to the world and a parade featuring a record number of athlete delegations, the Games of the 29th Olympiad were officially opened Friday with the lighting of the Olympic flame at the Beijing National Stadium.

Chinese President Hu Jintao declared the Games officially open shortly before the spectacular lighting of the flame at the Beijing National Stadium by retired gymnast Li Ning, a six-time medallist at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

Li, whose presence had been kept a closely guarded secret by Olympic organizers, was raised by wires high above the crowd, and circled the stadium with the flame until he reached the cauldron.

It was the highlight of an awe-inspiring opening ceremony launching 16 days of Games competition.

With a production overseen by Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, the ceremony itself incorporated 5,000 years of Chinese history into a 50-minute show, which, coupled with the closing celebration, reportedly cost more than $100 million US….[MORE >>]

Flashback: 1968 Mexico City Olympics

During the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Kenya’s Kipchoge Keino sprinted for a kilometre to the stadium after his taxi was held up in traffic and still won gold (defeating American favorite and world record holder, American Jim Ryun by 20m, the largest winning margin in the history of the event) and a 5000m silver medal. Four years later in 1972, he won the 3000 m steeplechase gold and 1500 m silver at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.

Picture: Kenyan legend, Kipchoge Keino beats favored American Jim Ryun during the 1968 Mexico Olympics. Keino’s form looked good for the high-altitude games of Mexico City, but stomach cramps forced him out of the 10,000m with just two laps to go.

He recovered to win a stunning gold in the 1,500m. Knowing that race favorite, Jim Ryun had a devasting kick in the final hundreds, Keino decided to hit the front early.

On August 27, 1965, Keino lowered the 3000m world record at Helsingborg in Sweden by over 6 seconds to 7:39.6 at his first attempt at the distance. He won two gold medals (1500 & 5000 metres) at the inaugural All-Africa Games. Later in that year he broke the 5000 m world record held by Ron Clarke clocking 13:24.2. At the 1966 Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica he won both the mile and three mile run. In the next Commonwealth Games, Keino won the 1500 m and was third in 5000 m.

Kipchoge (”Kip”) Keino (born January 17, 1940), chairman of the Kenyan Olympic Committee (KOC), retired in 1975 in Kenya. Kip Keino was among the first in a long circle of successful middle and long distance runners to come from Kenya and has helped and inspired many of his fellow countrymen and women to become the athletics force that they are today.

That Africans today so dominate distance running is in part testament to the career of Kipchoge (Kip) Keino. — He was the first black African to break onto the international stage at the beginning of the 1960s, and was a formidable force in the sport for 12 years.

Other athletes would win more golds, but few would win races and hold records at all distances from 1500 meters to 10,000m.

Keino was 24-years-old before he competed at his first Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964 where he finished 10th and fifth in the 1,500m and 5,000m respectively.

Born to run

In the same year he also took a silver in the 5,000m. He had run six races in just eight days despite a gallbladder infection.

But it was at the Munich Games of 1972 that the untrained Nandi tribesman from Kipsano, in the high plains of Kenya, proved he was born to run.

In the steeplechase, with only one win from his previous four competitive attempts at the event and twenty-three others lining up with better personal times, Keino was not even expected to make the final.

Yet, somehow he staved off challenges from his more experienced compatriot, Ben Jipcho, and Finland’s Tapio Kantanen, to win in an Olympic record time of eight minutes 23.6 seconds.

Keino will be remembered for two things: opening up the latent athletic talent of Africa and his disquieting natural ability to conquer all-comers in five distinct events.

   Keino’s win in the 3000m steeplechase, in the Munich Olympics, marked the beginning of Kenyan
   dominance in the event.

When he finally retired after the All Africa Games in Lagos in 1975, he fittingly returned home to a daughter he and his wife had named Milka Olympia Chelagat.

Currently Kip runs a charitable organization for orphans, and is president of the Kenyan Olympic Committee. He is married to Phyllis Keino. One son Martin was a two-time NCAA champion and highly successful pace-setter. Another son, Andrew, a.k.a “Kippy”, is currently competing while attending Villanova University.

He built Kip Keino Primary School located near Eldoret, while Kip Keino Secondary School is under construction and due to open in 2008. Kipchoge Keino Stadium in Eldoret is named after him.

In 1996, he was inducted into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame.

In 2007, he was made an honorary Doctor of Law by the University of Bristol. Earlier, Egerton University in Nakuru, Kenya had awarded him an honorary degree. His name, Kipchoge, is a Nandi language expression for “born near the grain storage shed.”

References:

Jim Ryun vs Kip Keino, London 1967

1968 Olympics 1500m

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