Cousin Leroy here, checking in from the Bronx. Just got off a double shift. Let me catch up.

BUNNY SHAW DID WHAT AGAIN

Four-zero. Hat-trick. Against Antigua. I been saying for years — Bunny Shaw is the greatest thing to come out of Jamaica since the jerk seasoning patent got complicated. My coworker Derek was arguing with me about women’s football last week and I just sent him the scoreline this morning. No caption. He understood.

THE FIRE IN SPANISH TOWN

I heard about this from my aunt on Friday night. A young girl, 14 years old, Gabriella Wright, gone in a house fire. Her brother barely made it out. This hit hard. My mother’s family is in that area. I don’t know what to say. You just hold the family in your heart and you hope someone looks after them because the system won’t.

BARTLETT WENT TO MARYLAND TO GIVE OUT PLAQUES

So the Tourism Minister personally flew to Laurel, Maryland, to hand out certificates to travel agents. Laurel, Maryland. I live forty-five minutes from Laurel. I could have saved the government the flight. I have opinions about Jamaica’s marketing strategy and I give them out for free. Bartlett said they are “shaping dreams.” With all due respect, Minister, some of those agents have not updated their Jamaica photos since 2019. The dreams have a timestamp problem.

71 ROAD DEATHS

Seventy-one dead on the road since January. I called my cousin back home and told him to stop overtaking on the hill near his house. He laughed. He does it every morning. I’m not flying down there to attend anything, I’ll say that.

THE SOLDIER THING

A JDF soldier charged with killing his girlfriend. She was a young woman named Tanzanya Dunkley. This should not be a footnote. This should be a full conversation about what happens inside these institutions when nobody is watching. But it’s remanded to May and the news cycle has moved on.

GHANA-JAMAICA FESTIVAL IN DECEMBER

Diaspora and cultural ties between Ghana and Jamaica. December 4-5 in Ghana. I’m already pricing flights. My boss is not going to like it but I have been here three years without a real vacation and if Bunny Shaw can score a hat-trick, I can take ten days in Accra.

Cousin Leroy is a satirical diaspora voice covering Jamaica from New York. He is not a real cousin.