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+--- Thread: Search Mi Heart has explosion (/showthread.php?tid=100516)
Search Mi Heart has explosion - Sharleen - 08-22-2014
Most of you are aware of this place and I know some of you have stayed there, some with not too good of an experience. I can't remember the name of the poster who seemed to have a scary experience in this town and got turned off of JA. This article is from http://www.jamaicaobserver.com late on Friday night:
‘Search Mi Heart’ guest house goes up in smoke
DRAPERS, Portland — The four-bedroom 'Search Mi Heart' guest house (pictured here) was early yesterday morning destroyed by fire.
Italian visitor, Jeuseppe Sorrente, said he and the other occupants managed to grab their clothing and travel documents and rushed to safety after hearing an explosion.
"I was sleeping there and my girlfriend smelled smoke after which we heard a big boom and saw smoke coming into the room under the door so we opened the door and ran away, taking our bags," said Sorrente, who as well as his spouse, was among the four guests at the facility.
"... It is the fourth day of our holiday and we are lucky to be alive," said Sorrente, who said new arrangements would now have to be made to complete their stay. "The first think we took were our passports and clothes," he said.
The three other occupants, obviously shaken, declined to speak to our reporter.
RE: Search Mi Heart has explosion - jeannieweenie - 08-25-2014
Hey Sharlene!
I was the one that stayed there and did not have a good experience. Others here have visited and/or stayed and loved it (the owners were there looking after them during their stay). I won't say that the guest house itself was bad, it was a great place. The neighborhood was sketchy, felt very unsafe, the tension in the area was, well, tense. I felt VERY unsafe in the neighborhood. In after dark and make sure you're locked in your house. I remember a man banging on the gates to the veranda one night about midnight, no one but us were home. We stayed hidden inside until he left.
I've done some FB stalking and pieced together a few things and this is only my opinion but, it sounds like this might not have been an accident. I read some posts saying that they got what they deserved. They were always complaining about the loud music and now they/she will have learned to keep her mouth shut. I don't know if this is just local people talking trash or if they really mean it but I wouldn't mess around in that part...or any part in JA, being a foreigner.
I feel sad that this happened. I feel sad if this was indeed an act of retribution. I keep thinking...people were inside! They are lucky they escaped! Seriously, you are LOCKED IN THE HOUSE! If you couldn't find your keys in time, you're burnt up or dead of smoke inhalation. I read that it was ruled a lighting strike but my gut tells me different and who's gonna say otherwise? Scary stuff!!
RE: Search Mi Heart has explosion - Sharleen - 08-25-2014
yes I read all your posts after you got back from there, I just couldn't remember your name. I think Culture kept the place under control but once he went to Italy things deteriorated. I for one would never want to stay in a place that felt a need to "gate totally" once it got dark.
I think you and your husband reached there in the cusp of downhillness of that place, if this is a bonafide word. I did feel bad that you both got sort of turned off to Jamaica forever by your experiences there. I can totally understand for sure.
One thing I like about places like Negril and Port Antonia and Treasure Beach.. and this may sound REALLY weird, but there are a lot of tourists there, white tourists, and this gives you a little bit of anonimity (spellig probably wrong). Believe me, I sometimes stay in places where I am the only white woman and tourist type person for miles and miles. I sometimes stay in places where they haven't even seen a white person. From time to time I have been fairly scared and feeling fairly "at risk" as far as my safety.
I have been up in places in the John Crowe Mountains where some of the residents have never seen a white person. They want to touch my long hair, they stare at me like I am an aparition or something. I have been placed in a persons dead parents house for safekeeping and then when I rest on a bed see a spider the size of a man's hand up in the corner of the ceiling and there is no indoor bathroom and when I go outside to try and find a place to pee there is an absolutely maniac dog out there. Who has been waiting to bite me for hours.
Anyways, I always felt really bad about you and your husbands experience at Search Mi' Heart and Drapers that it lead you both to stop loving Jamaica and not wanting to ever go there again, really and truly.
There are just SO many good and true and nice Jamaicans in that country, please don't give up on it. I think you just made a bad choice as far as where you stayed and at just the right time to be bullied. I did read and re-read your report, I could totally imagine it! Sometimes you just really really have to watch out who you even talk to, because they are just waiting and watching for you to get there and then if you talk to them, they WANT your money, they think they deserve it or something. Anyways, you both seem like a really nice couple, I am sorry for what happened to you both in Drapers, it sound like a kind of dangerous situation.
Sometimes during Christmastime when the more "safer" places are all booked up, I stay at some, most probably unsafe places where even the security guards are "scared to death". One thing I would like to say to anyone going regularly, bring your favorite security guard a LOUD whistle. I usually get to JA on December 27th, it's packed to the gils, hard to find a place to stay. I would usually have good luck with Ocean Edge, the owner, now in Toronto I believe, showed a GREAT interest in my idea of whistles for the security guards... just to alert the people.
Some of the places I have stayed (now I like to go to some of the better known artists shows at night)... any how, I have gotten back to where I was staying and the security was no where to be seen and the security dog wanted to kill me!!)
I have a kind of hard time sleeping, I put ropes up with cowbells before my entrance, put a chair against the door, etc. I have always been okay though...
One time... now this other poster, can't remember who, noted how she put this amount of money and that amount of money in her pockets and bra, etc. Okay, so one time I took my daughters the the Lighthouse just out of boredom. We got there and there was I presumed was a total crackhead there trying to shake me down. My girls were like six and ten or something. Keep in mind I lived just up from the Lighthouse all during the 1970's, Raymond Baker lived just before the Lighthouse (where Caves are now), then Gladstone's fatherMr. Barrett ran the Lighthouse.. Anyways, I didn't feel like I needed to pay off a crackhead to enter the property.
So he was so freaking annoying that I figured it was worth it to pay him $5 US or something to JUST GO AWAY. I pulled out the hidden money in my bra which was probably something like US $2,000 in my bra. I picked the wrong side!!! I thought I was in the side with Jamaican $$.
I don't know what to think about Jamaica anymore... other than I absolutely LOVE a good amount of people there. Their smiling faces, their work integrity, their love and support for their family life... their ability to remember and (I feel) respect for the tourists who come year after year.
RE: Search Mi Heart has explosion - Schuttzie - 08-26-2014
What a shame! I'm so glad they all got out safely. We actually toured the property one year but didn't stay there. I believe it was Culture who showed us around. We had seen him down on Winnifred Beach attending to his guests (a couple) and seemed a bit too overly attentive, laying blankets out and running for the food and drinks. But we decided to tour the property and didn't get a good vibe from him. We certainly didn't want him hovering over us during our stay.
RE: Search Mi Heart has explosion - jeannieweenie - 08-26-2014
Thanks for sharing Sharlene and Schuttzie. I am going back to JA in Feb. Staying in Treasure Beach with people I know I can trust. People that have kept in contact with me even though it's been 3-4 years since I've seen them, people that have never asked me for anything, people that support me and still welcome me even though Matt and I are not together anymore. Like you said, there are TONS of good people and safe places. I will be going back so don't worry. I'll be sure to make a trip report when I return. I've learned a lot in my few trips to JA and although I felt jaded, I can't stay away. You all know the feeling.
You know...I thought Antigua and Montserrat were amazing. Montserrat was amazing and no trouble there at all...but Antigua...I didn't go on the last trip because Matt and I had recently separated but he and our friends still went. Matt was accosted in an alley behind a restaurant when leaving. He was robbed of about $300usd. The police were chatting with the robbers as they walked away. Bad things/corruption happens everywhere.
RE: Search Mi Heart has explosion - Sharleen - 08-26-2014
I will be in Treasure Beach in February too, maybe we could meet for dinner one night.
RE: Search Mi Heart has explosion - jeannieweenie - 08-27-2014
That'd be fabulous Sharlene! Send me a message and we'll definitely have to meet up!
RE: Search Mi Heart has explosion - kylake - 08-27-2014
Quote: jeannieweenie wrote: Bad things/corruption happens everywhere.For sure and look forward to your report after the TB vacation!