Yo. Yo yo yo. Cousin Leroy here in the Bronx, third-floor walk-up on Burnside, kettle on, NY1 muted in the background, scrolling the Gleaner on my phone before my shift at the warehouse.

Let me tell you, things looking GOOD back home.

THE PRIME MINISTER WAS LITERALLY IN MY BOROUGH

Holness was in New York last week. New York! He was at the Recover Better Conference at the Consulate General, talking to “diaspora investors and developers and financial professionals and community leaders from across the New York metropolitan area.”

Now look. I am, technically, in the New York metropolitan area. I am, technically, Jamaican diaspora. I’m the demographic. Did I get an invite? No. Did anyone from Hatfield Senior School Old Students Association reach out? No. Did my second cousin who works in customer service at JetBlue and considers herself “well-connected in the diaspora business community” forward me anything? No.

But the Prime Minister was here. In my city. Talking about a US$6.7 billion reconstruction package. Six. Point. Seven. BILLION. Out of which I assume some portion is, somehow, eventually, theoretically going to make its way to my mother in Mandeville. Whose roof, I am told, is “still leaking but not in the same place as before.”

I am very excited about this $6.7 billion. I have already mentally allocated it. Mom gets a new roof. The road from May Pen to Mandeville gets repaired. The air conditioner at Norman Manley Airport gets fixed. The patty shop at Half Way Tree that closed during Hurricane Melissa gets to reopen. There may be enough left over for the Reggae Girlz to get new uniforms.

This is going to be amazing. I can feel it.

THE ROOFS PROGRAMME IS WORKING. APPARENTLY.

So I called my mother on Saturday. I said, “Mom, the Prime Minister was in New York talking about the ROOFS Programme. Did you get your roof fixed yet?”

She said, “Leroy, what roof?”

I said, “Your roof. The one from Hurricane Melissa.”

She said, “Leroy, I told you. The roof is fine. The leak moved. The new spot is over the bathroom. We catch it in a bucket.”

I said, “Mom, the Government has TEN BILLION DOLLARS for roofs. JAMAICAN dollars, but still. You should sign up.”

She said, “Leroy, I went to sign up. They asked for my bank account number. I don’t have a bank account. They asked for my NIDS. I don’t have a NIDS yet. They asked for my proof of address. I have lived in this house for forty-three years, what proof do I need? They said, come back when you have NIDS. I said, when will NIDS be available? They said, soon. I said, soon when? They said, soon.”

So Mom is fine. The bucket is fine. The Prime Minister is fine. Everyone is fine. The system is working. I can feel it working.

THE CASINOS ARE COMING

So Friday the Senate passed the Casino Gaming Regulations. Sixteen years after the Act, but who is counting. Now Jamaica can have proper casinos. PROPER ones. Not the little ones at the hotels in Mo Bay where the slots all run on the same software from 2008 and the dealer is also the manager.

This is going to be huge. Tourism gets a boost. Jobs get created. Tax revenue goes up. The country competes properly with the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic for the cruise-ship-passenger-with-credit-card demographic.

I am already planning my next trip home. I am going to take my Bronx friends. I am going to bring them to a Jamaican casino. They are going to love it. I will, of course, lose money. They will, of course, lose more money. We will all return to the Bronx, broke, happy, and full of jerk chicken. This is how the system works.

The fact that the regulations took sixteen years to arrive does not bother me. Sixteen years is nothing in geological time. In Caribbean time, sixteen years is roughly normal. The ferry to Tobago took twelve years to procure. The Caymanas Bus Park took, I think, twenty. The casinos are early.

MURDERS ARE WAY DOWN

This is the genuinely good news. Lowest January murder count since 2001. THIRTY-THREE murders in the whole month, which sounds like a lot if you’re an American, but I want my American friends to understand that for Jamaica this is a celebration. We are talking about a country where January 2025 was 74 murders, and January 2024 was higher than that.

Plan Secure Jamaica is working. Holness has been pushing this since 2016. Whatever the JCF is doing — and I have my opinions about the JCF, every Jamaican does — it is, on this metric, working. The trend has been improving for three years.

Now of course I want to be careful here, because Jamaica has a history of murder rates dropping for six months and then jumping back up the moment the JCF takes its eye off the ball. And summer is coming. Summer is when Jamaica’s murder rate finds out if the trend is real. So we will see.

But for now? Lowest in 25 years. Take the win. I am taking the win.

JAMAICA BEAT GUYANA IN FOOTBALL

The Reggae Girlz beat Guyana 2-0 on Saturday in the W Qualifier. Now look. Guyana doesn’t really have a women’s football tradition the way Jamaica does. The Girlz are building toward the World Cup. The Guyana side is building toward, I think, the next stage of just having a coordinated roster.

This was a workmanlike win. The Girlz did what they were supposed to do. Did anyone watch it on TV in the Bronx? I tried. Caribbean Vision was showing IPL cricket. I switched to ESPN+. ESPN+ wanted me to upgrade to a tier I do not pay for. By the time I figured out a stream, the second goal had already happened.

But the Girlz won. That’s what matters. We are on track for the next World Cup. We will get to the World Cup. We will not embarrass ourselves at the World Cup. This is the year.

THE PRIME MINISTER IS TALKING TO INDIA ABOUT DIGITAL PAYMENTS

This is interesting. Holness said Jamaica is in talks with several countries — including India — about a unified platform for digital payments. India has UPI, which is honestly a very impressive system. UPI handles billions of transactions a month, costs basically nothing, works across every Indian bank.

If Jamaica can get something like UPI, that would be transformative. Mom could send me money without going to Western Union. I could send money home without paying eight percent in fees to MoneyGram. Patty shops could accept digital payment without paying point-of-sale fees that eat their margin.

This is the future. I am all in on this future. The fact that Holness mentioned it in passing and it’s not getting headlines tells me Jamaica isn’t quite ready to move on it yet. But the conversation is happening. The conversation is the precondition for the action. I will accept the conversation. For now.

TWO REGGAE BOYZ MIGHT BE GOING TO THE EPL

Joel Latibeaudiere and Ephron Mason-Clark are in conversations that may, possibly, sometime, perhaps, see them playing in the Premier League next season. EPL! I would lose my mind. Jamaican boys in the EPL is the dream. Imagine Saturday morning, my buddies and I at the sports bar on Fordham, Liverpool versus whoever, and a Reggae Boy comes off the bench and scores. That is the kind of moment that adds two years to your life.

Caribbean transfer rumours, however, are 95% just rumours. We have been hearing about Caribbean players “in talks with European clubs” since I was a teenager. Sometimes the talks become contracts. Sometimes the talks become a brief loan to a third-tier Belgian team. Sometimes the talks just become tweets.

I’m not getting my hopes up. But I am also not NOT getting my hopes up. That’s the Caribbean transfer-window stance. Cautious optimism that gradually becomes optimism.

THE CARNIVAL CHARGES

OK so I see Jhaedee “Jaii Frais” Richards is in trouble. And Jahvel “Jahvy Ambassador” Morrison. Both connected to carnival party shootings.

Look. I love Jamaican carnival. I have been twice. It is one of the great parties on Earth. But every year there’s a story like this — somebody got shot, somebody got charged, somebody got into something they shouldn’t have. Carnival is a pressure release for the country, and pressure releases occasionally include actual pressure that escapes in unintended ways.

Both gentlemen have podcast careers. Both have audiences. Both will, presumably, mount defenses. The legal process will play out. The carnival, next year, will happen again, and there will likely be another story like this.

That’s the news from home this morning, my people. Jamaica is recovering. The casinos are coming. The murder rate is down. The Reggae Girlz are winning. The Prime Minister was IN MY CITY and didn’t call me, but I’ll forgive him because he’s busy. Mom’s roof is still leaking, but the bucket works.

Everything is fine. Everything is great. The reconstruction is on. The future is bright.

Bronx out.

— Cousin Leroy