May 23 marks a public holiday in Jamaica, that really isn't much of a holiday... this holiday is labour day. Now I saw that labour day isn't much of a holiday because while normally holidays are days of rest and relaxation on the mind, in Jamaica labour day is primarily for the people to well... do labour. I guess we take the labour part in the name a bit seriously. Normally on labour day we get out and either get work done to our own households, finish some projects we didnt get around to doing, or if all is fine at home then people will go out and take part in community building projects. Maybe plant a few trees in the community, or paint a prep school or even something like painting a pedestrian crossing in the road. All these things are activities which your normally hear happening on labour day. However this labour day was not such a day, no instead on this particular labour day Jamaica found itself mostly on lock down thanks to one man...

Ok maybe I put that wrong, it wasn't really one man that caused it, but it is for the capture of one man, the man they call Prezzi. Melba has been properly keeping track of the weeks events but I feel like I needed to feel some form of normalcy in my life before I even attempted to write about what happened.

From Sunday the 23rd the PM gave notice that the parishes of Kingston and St. Andrew were under a limited state of emergency. As to what exactly this meant and what was to come frmo this, nobody is still not sure as there has been no official statement saying that the state of emergency means a) or b). So we have basically had to work off the events of the previous times when a state of emergency is declared.

However it was quite clear to everybody in Jamaica who has access to a radio or TV (which should be just about everybody), that something serious was going down. The Soldiers and Police went into Tivoli Gardens and neighbouring neighbourhoods to attempt to completely flush out Prezzi, and they were met with heavy resistance. They responded with of course their own force (the use of which may just have been excessive depending on how one looks at it), but from reports there were bombs flung into houses, and multiple people were shot. People will also remember reports (which were promptly denied, as if we are that stupid), of a plane circling kingston, this plane was obviously not Jamaican and it made repeated passes, but I guess everybody chose to ignore its existence.

**Taken from OGNR (Facebook)

I should also add that a facebook group was created called "On the Ground News Reports" which has really done a good job chronicling the activities that were taking place, in the eyes of the public. There were no professional journalists involved here, no CVM, or TVJ, just some concerned citizens who had cameras and cell phones and were willing to go out and get the news.

Either way, the violence continued for quite some time and spread away from just the Tivoli Gardens area to Red Hills road and to Spanish town. And throughout all of this students sitting examinations still had to sit their examinations, and nobody had (or actually still has) no idea where exactly the Prezzi is. He has seemingly been missing in action for quite some time even though there have been numerous rumours spread as to his location and his escape.

**Children ducking for cover while doing exams

All in all though, this labour day was a holiday that Jamaicans would very soon like to forget. The many deaths which accumulated, the state of emergency, the literal fear that alot of Jamaicans found themselves feeling...

Thinking about this I may have to change my original statement that there was no labour, instead it would be more accurate to state that Jamaicans minds laboured over the numerous happenings and possibilities of this day. Truly one of many more sad days to  come for Jamaica.