Commentary

Jamaica's 'eighth wonder' of the world

I AM SURE that by now most Jamaicans are well aware that the world's eighth wonder and many other world wonders, are located on this our great rock.

The eighth wonder that I am talking about is Pum Pum Rock, located along the river course of the Rio Cobre through the Bog Walk Gorge in St. Catherine.

I was telling P last week just how amazed I am at the attention that the rock affectionately called 'Pum Rock' attracts along the gorge. On any given week you are bound to see people pulling over and gaping at this natural wonder of a rock that bears a striking resemblance to a woman's vagina.

All kinds of people stop and look, from local tourists to foreign tourists, to church groups going on excursions, 'Pum Rock' is indeed a sight to behold. They all stop and chuckle. Tourists take pictures. And the people who made the road were kind enough to have a large enough lay away on the side of the road to accommodate the many gawkers who 'need' to see the rock.

For the record, years ago there was a piece of rock on the other side of the road that never got such high regard - let's be serious, that rock a replica of the male sex organ, could not have been that complex to form, even by natural standards. Then the male form of the rock had to be gradually chipped away as it posed a hazard to passing trucks

Yet 'Pum Rock' remains untouched, proving Shabba right again - 'it caan done'. Well, just imagine thousands of years of flood rains and the 'Pum Rock' is still there.

Sexual perversion

But as I spoke to P I thought what a strange set of people we are. I bet you a 10-mile stretch of Jamaican road without a pothole, if someone had carved that rock and placed it somewhere on show there would have been such a hullabaloo. The artist would have been accused of being a pervert, the work would have been described as obscene and degrading to women, and there would have been calls to ban it - cover it from sight. It would have been the sole cause of rapes and child abuse and the creation of every other sick sexual perversion that surfaced in the island.

Hey, since the artist was God - there is some healthy respect there we suppose. No one is calling for the shunning and destruction of the good old 'Pum Rock.' In fact I remember once way back in the day, some idle person went across the river and painted 'Pum Rock' red!

Hmm. There is an idea for the Jamaica Tourist Board.

Aren't we though, a country of strange standards. That sex object rock, 'Pum Rock' is not much different from my beloved statues in Emancipation Park, now is it? But somehow, someway people don't seem to be that offended. Strange.

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