I Made a Friend in Every Country - Jamaica

For most tourists, Jamaica begins and ends at the resort. White sand beaches, picture-perfect views, and the promise of paradise. I've got two tickets to paradise! But beyond the resort gates, you're often told it's a different story. A more dangerous one. So we decided to experience it for ourselves. We left the resorts behind and headed into one of Jamaica's smaller towns. And over the next few days, thanks to the kindness of complete strangers, we stopped feeling like tourists and started to feel like we actually belonged. If you've been wanting a reminder that the world is friendlier than it seems, this video is for you. What would happen if one person from every country in the world sat down at the same dinner table? That is what I want to find out. I'm Brad, and over the next four years, we're traveling to every country on Earth, stepping into lives that look nothing like ours to see if we're really as different as we think we are. Along the way, we'll invite one person from each country to join for a final dinner with the world, all to show what's possible when you choose to connect. Last episode, we were in Georgia, where we met our new friend Sandro. He got us super drunk, introduced us to his entire family, and then chased us out with this. So this is country number seven out of 197. All right, so we arrived in Jamaica last night. We arrived in Kingston, and now we are leaving Kingston. We're heading to a small town called Port Antonio about three hours from here. We got Logan, we got Calvin, and myself for country number seven out of 197. Welcome to Jamaica, everybody. It's a good place. One of our favorite ways to see a new place and meet locals is by hitchhiking. So after securing some cardboard from a Domino's Pizza, we had the lady teach us how Jamaicans would ask for a ride. We a beggar drive. Now, even though they look similar, we learned pretty quick that Jamaican English is quite different than the American English we're used to. We're going. We a beggar drive. We a beggar drive, yeah. We're going to Port Antonio. Yeah, okay. It seemed like they could understand us just fine, but they had to switch the way that they spoke in order for us to understand. We're just going to hitchhike. We're going to trust in the kindness of the people. Okay, okay, yeah. Wish us luck. We're hitchhiking. Where do you want to go? No money. We got no money. We got to hitchhike. Okay. Luckily, it didn't take long to catch our first ride with someone who made the language barrier disappear. We're trying to go to Port Antonio. Where are you from? I'm from Florida, Canada. Hey, I'm from Toronto, man. Oh, no way. I'm from Kingston. I'm from Hamilton. Ah, don't love the spot. You guys can all fit in here, but... In the back? Yeah. Really? No way. Okay. Yeah, we're so in. There you go, brother. What was your name? Ken. My name's Brad. This is generally one of the most beautiful places I've ever taken a drive. I've got 40 mosquitoes in my eyeballs. Ah, no! Ken was able to take us about halfway to Port Antonio, which was a huge help. Hey, be safe out there. Thank you, brother. Respect. In spite of our expectations, getting further from the big city only seemed to bring more good luck. We caught two more rides with a guy named Abdullah and then a guy named Shai Johnson, who brought us within 20 minutes of our destination. But it was the fourth pickup of the day that would turn out to be much more than just a ride. You're going to Port? Port Antonio, yeah. You're going to Port Antonio? Oh, yeah, baby! Thank you so much, guys. You're welcome. Big respect. I like the sign that you have. I'm like, what do you say? And you're taking a ride. I'm like, oh, nice! What is your guys' names? Mikael? Yeah. I'm Andres. She's Danique. And we work together, basically. We do pest control. Pest control. We told the couple about the project and how our goal in every country is to cook dinner for a stranger in their home as a way to learn about the real local people. Dinner and just kind of get to know what life is like out here in Jamaica. You have family in Jamaica? No, no. We don't know anybody. We have no plan. We don't know anything that we're about to do. So do you think that we'll be able to find somebody here to cook dinner for? He came to cook dinner for me. You want us to cook dinner for you? That'd be fun. Yeah? Andres and Danique were available for a dinner in two days, which gave us all of tomorrow to learn how to make a local meal for them. Respect, brother. Bye. We'll see ya. We'll text you. Okay, thank you so much. All right, so we just got dropped off. We're gonna check into our Airbnb here and then just go see what Port Antonio has for the rest of the night. Now, unfortunately, we lost all the footage from that night. But here's what you need to know. We headed into town and met a guy named Dancer. And after hearing about our dinner plans, he suggested that we catch a fish to serve as the main course. So the next morning, we joined him and his friend, Mad Dog, and headed out to their boat that looked like it had at least one more trip left in it. That was like a millimeter away. Yeah. So we are out on the boat. We gotta go get gas first. And then we're heading out and we're gonna go catch some tuna. Oh, he's literally going to a gas station. We spent most of the morning cruising around for fish, but unfortunately, we came back empty-handed. Just like that, we are back with no fish, no fish, no fish to show for. Which is all right, though, because later in the afternoon, Dancer set us up with the owner of the restaurant, Peter, and he agreed to teach us a local dish that we can impress the couple with. We normally do a takari. Yeah. With or without saltfish. Okay, yeah, let's do that. The takari, yeah. Yeah, with the balmy. Yeah. Okay, saltfish takari with balmy. I honestly have no idea what any of those, so I'm actually really excited to learn what that is. That's gonna be cool. All right, okay. So let me grab the guys, I'm lining up. Okay, yeah. And we can learn the whole process and everything? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just give me a minute, I mean. Okay. All right, thank you. All right. He's such a chill dude. He's like, yeah. He's so chill. So chill. Okay, so Dancer, our boy, he has a car that is broken down. He's been down for three months. He doesn't have a car. He's been walking around and he can't fix it right now. He doesn't have the money. What's broken? Okay, this one. Yeah. Tie rod. Yeah, no. One for this side, one for this side. Is it hard? No, you just need special tools. Special tools. This being Dancer's only car, he told us about how he's been forced to walk everywhere. So we asked him how long it would take to do the repairs. An hour? Dude, let's get this thing f***ing fixed up and get him on the road tonight. So while I stayed behind to help Dancer fix his car, Logan and Calvin joined Peter in the restaurant kitchen. To learn how to prepare the meal we'd be serving the next day. Everything good? Everything is great. Nice to meet you. Respect, respect. So we're doing a pumpkin satay. Easy seasoned pumpkin vibe, right? Sour fish. We have our fresh season. We're gonna jump right in. All right, we got our parts. It's time to go fix the car. You think you can do this? Yeah, we can do it. You're 100% confident, eh? Okay, so I don't know anything about cars at all. You tell me what to do, I'm here. We gotta slice it like a cake? He's doing a good job. We're gonna hire him for a week. Man, you just can't do this in North America. There's no way you're letting a guy... Look at me, look at this. I got my shirt unbuttoned. And we are just in their kitchen learning how the butter... What is it? Look at how the sausage gets made. Well, while Calvin learns how the sausage is made in Jamaica, let me give you guys a little behind-the-scenes scoop. I honestly love cooking dinner for people, but sometimes, especially when I come home, I don't even have time to cook dinner for myself. Which is why I use Factor. You see, we're usually traveling through around four countries in about four weeks. And the second I get back, I'm already planning the next episodes. And with Factor, you're able to order your meals and have them delivered. No prep, no cleanup. It's perfect for the first week back home when I'm absolutely wiped. And honestly, just try not to survive on bagels with cream cheese for dinner. Like this meal here. This is the caramelized onion and mushroom filet mignon. It's got carrots, caramelized onions, mushrooms, mashed potatoes, filet mignon. And it actually tastes great. Honestly, making all this would have taken me over an hour. And then cleaning up all the dishes. Now I can put it in the microwave for two and a half minutes. And now I can get back to my important work and eating something nutritious. And I'm embarrassed to admit it, but it might be better than anything I can cook on my own. Head to factor75.com or click the link below and use our code DISCOVERCONNECTIONFFB to get 50% off your first box plus free daily greens. One per box with an active subscription. Free meals applied as a discount on the first box. New or returning subscribers only and varies by plan. Sign up today with the link in the description. All right, back to Jamaica. This is what it should look like here. That's the actual piece. And this is what his looks like. So now he's basically fixing that. How can I help you, by the way? Is there anything that I can do? No. No? Light the blood. Oh, light the blood? It smells good. I think it looks a lot more complicated than it is. But also, I don't know how I'm going to do without him walking me through this tomorrow. We'll see. Look at that, dude. Come on. Let's go. You want some? Come have some bite. Come on, have some. I got too much. Luckily, learning to prepare the meal was successful because making any meaningful progress on the car was not. I don't think we're going to get this car fixed. But seeing that we had a chance to help him out, the next morning we met up with Dancer again to chip in to getting it back on the road. So you got a couple more parts left for this, right? Well, we wanted to thank you because you spent so much time with us and just like guided us, introduced us to a bunch of people. And we wanted to take a bit of that money that we're getting and give it on to you. Well, thank you guys so much. Can you get it fixed up if you send us a picture? You know, he never did send us a picture. Anyways, the couple from earlier, Andre and Danique, extended their offer to come and stay on their family's compound for our last few days in Jamaica. And obviously, we said yes. Hello, hello. How are you? I'm good. Oh, we're excited to spend the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is cool. Dude, this is crazy. Look at this view. This is your home. You get to look at this every day. So these are the coconut trees. Yeah, they're everywhere. This is the apple tree. And there's also a chocolate tree right beside it here. Wow, look at all the eggs. Yeah, we have a lot of eggs. How many eggs you get a day? Six chickens, but it's 80% per day. By the way, I'm excited. I always get excited that my husband built or pen, whatever it is. He builds it? Yeah. I don't like when she gets all excited about me building and telling everyone that I built. I just try to keep it okay. That's how she is, so I just... You don't like the glory. Yeah, I know. I just put it up to God. I just put it up to God and I just try not to take it. While Logan started preparing lunch, Danique took Calvin and myself on a tour of the property. We are going over to the farm house. So we actually have chores to do in terms of the animals. We're going to feed them, change their water and stuff like that. Should we get the chicken feed? Yeah, it's right there. Watch the ladder. I think you're thinking turkey, Brad. Oh, right. Dang it. I am thinking of turkey. What do we see? Oh my goodness. This just feels right, you know? It feels right, yeah. Like coming out here instead of going to the supermarket to just pick up a pack of eggs. Also doing... Look at him. Tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle. He's trying to get you. Oh my God. Look at all of them. I feel like I'm getting it all over him. It's all right, buddy. That's awesome. That's so fun. What's your favorite part about the farm? I think I really love the sheep. The sheep? Yeah. You want us to go look at the sheep? Yeah, yeah. This is epic. I love this. Okay, so here's Booga. Booga. Like a booger, you know what I mean? Like a booger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that's Darling. Darling. He doesn't know you, so he wants to know you. Hey. My older brother. How are you? Blessed. Blessings. What's your name? Daniel. Is that... That's the Jamaican apple? Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of them growing by the tree down that side. So this is... It'll be coconuts and stuff? Yeah. You can actually pick that one if you want. Really? Twist it, twist it, twist it. Oh, wow. That is good. You want some? Come under here. Okay. Oh, wow. This is so cool. I think this is my guy right here. This is the one. Taste it right now? That's really nice. Let me get some for the boys too. You guys are the richest people in the world. This is like... This is literally paradise. This is the most beautiful place ever. Boys, I got some treats for you. That's the Jamaican apple. This is the Jamaican... And it's good. Watch out. There might be a couple worms in there. Huh? There might be some worms, but just watch out. Are you serious? Yeah. There's worms? Like, take a bite that's on the perfect side. If there's a bad side, just don't. You think he's in there? Okay, let me show you. Like, right here definitely has a worm. Really? Yeah. You can feel the difference. But over here, it's perfect. If you put it in your ear, can you hear him crawling around in there? I've never tried that. Danique and Andre started preparing for the Sabbath, which is a 24-hour period they dedicate to rest, worship, and time with the family. Why do you practice the Sabbath? Because of the Bible. Bible says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, and it thou shalt not do any work. So it's like keeping the Sabbath shows that, look, I belong to God. My college life, it wasn't fruitful, as we would say. I was just going downhill, downhill. And there were people around me that was willing to encourage that. I don't think some of them knew that they were encouraging me to go downward, because they're your friends. Like partying and stuff like that? Yeah, and stuff like that. But I'm more at peace. And this is the specific God that I belong to, the Sabbath God. So yeah, I think that's the flesh of it. Yeah, yeah. How are we doing, guys? What we got going on, chef, is this is a pumpkin taqari. We've got bambi bread. A bunch of it. And then we have, what do we have, okra? We have okra too, right? A French man might say we have a smorgasbord. Have you seen salt bae? Salt bae? Is it like this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, we're gonna do that one here. I think about it, but I never think it would actually be something that I would be doing personally. What's that? This. Having three white boys. So white. Logan absolutely nailed it because this was probably one of my favorite meals we've had in this series so far. And when everyone's focused on eating instead of talking, you know you've done something right. This is nice. This is really good. Once lunch was over though, we somehow ended up debating whether it's possible to crush an egg in your bare hand. You try to squeeze it like that. There's a way where you're not able to crush it in your hand as well. You come try it. You try it. You can't break it. It's impossible. That's the hypothesis. Oh, hypothesis, yeah. So you have to get it like that, I think. Wait, what? No, no, no. You're doing it so different. Am I gonna screw up? You are evil. I'm pretty sure. No, no, this just seems like you're practicing. You try it first. You watch, I'll try it. I can do it, it's no problem, watch. Okay, it worked pretty well, but not all the way. I've never seen somebody so casual about just getting covered in egg. Later in the afternoon, we joined the crew to go to a spot we'd truly never find unless a local brought us there. Dude, this is epic. Nice little private spot in the middle of the Jamaican jungle. Nobody else here. Everyone else is on the beaches and the resorts. We just get a nice private, private river. You going in? Ready? Three, two, one. Ready? You going from there? Yeah. I'm gonna let, I'm going up. Oh! Come on, I believe in you. The thing is, I have to jump without thinking. Yeah. See, the thing is, is you're not actually this high up. You're actually just this high up. That's it, that's where your feet are. You got this, you got this. All right, ten, nine. Yeah! So far, we'd gotten to know the Miquels through meals, laughs, and adventure. But that night, once Sabbaths had officially started, we also got to know them through song. Let me try, try see if I can, um, do, do. Okay. So, all right. Give the winds a mighty voice. Jesus saves, Jesus saves. Let the nations now rejoice. Jesus saves, Jesus saves. Woo! Yeah, come on! I like, I like the thought that, you know, just catch on very quickly. Yeah, yeah. You guys are good leads. You're, you're making it easy for us to catch on. If it wasn't for you, I'd be, I'd be lost. We spent the next couple of hours singing hymns and laughing together. Being welcomed into something that meant so much to them made the night feel incredibly special. What did you learn? I learned how to summon chickens. They just come out of everywhere. There's no chickens, right? There's no chickens? You don't see any? Oh, they're coming, they're coming, they're coming. All right, we're going to Jamaican church this morning, and we're going to be spending the whole day on the Sabbath church day. It's a long church day. It's a day of rest and worship, and that's like what we're focused on today. There is no any other thing. It's cool to just explore like, yeah, different. This is what they believe. This is, this is their, their way of life. They're letting us into it. We get to explore it. And there's going to be a lot of different belief systems like this that we're diving into around the world in 197 countries, so. Oh, you're good. Okay, okay. Oh man, I feel like I need to get even more dressed up. Andre, give me, give me a little spin. I need to see this. It's okay, it's all right, man. Oh, okay, okay. All right, good check over here. Let's see, let's see, let's see. Give it a little spin. The group of us headed to their local church. Now, church here is a lot different than most of the churches I've ever been to. Typically, you arrive at your 9am service, listen to some worship music, pastor does his sermon, and you go home. But their community arrives at 9am and they stay until the evening. We spent the morning full of worship, sermons, group discussions, Bible games, and even a little breath work from Logan. It was really nice to see Danique and Andre in this space. Their passion for their faith wasn't just a cultural thing for them. It was something that seemed to shape every aspect of their life. I like the, uh, the communal aspect of it. It's not just like there's a preacher up front. Like people are, I, I talked to the mic. I was like, they're basically asking questions. Every, everyone's offering something new. Kids were going up and singing. We were all singing together. There's lots of different hymns and stuff. Yeah, it was cool. Very, very different than what I'm used to, but I like it. I like it a lot. The service stopped for lunch and we got to spend some time connecting with their community. And then Andre surprised us with some news. We were about to perform the hymn we learned last night in front of the entire congregation. We're being called up to perform our song from last night. Are we going to rehearse it real quick? Yeah, we're going to rehearse it. What's our group name? Oh, they were asking. They're the Jamaican Five. We are five, huh? Oh yeah, we are five. Are we Jamaicans? That's a good one. Canada, Jamaicans, Kanaikans. Kanaikans. Is there a Kanaikan there? Come on, guys. Oh my goodness. I am singing live in front of a live audience in Jamaica. Christian music. It's what the Kanaikans do, bro. I'm not a Kanaikan at all. By the way, me and Andre have been practicing this song to eventually come and sing it for you guys. So since we are a company, we decided that we'll put it together so we tried it last night. It's not to see if it sounded good, but it sounded good to us. So we are going to try and give glory. All right, so we are going to sing. We're not trying. We are singing. All right. We didn't really know the song super well, but it didn't really seem to matter. We were just happy to be a part of it. Later that night at the farm, the wholesome moments weren't over. They just started to look a little different. Brad, tell me what you're doing. We're about to catch some roosters because they need them for something. Oh, he's getting ready to go. Oh my gosh, they're all up there. Why are they all up in the tree? Because they sleep up there. That seems like a pretty dangerous place to sleep. Dogs roam at night. Oh my, is he going to freak out? Yes, so you have to be quick. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I just grab him? Yeah, just grab his legs. Just grab one. Quick. Oh gosh, get him in. I feel bad. He's just in a bag. We just kidnapped a chicken. Yeah. Open the bag. You got it? So this is rooster number one who Brad caught. His name's Roger. Roger, all right. Rooster number two. What's that one's name? Rooster number two. That was one of the craziest things I've ever seen. That was one of the craziest things I've ever done. Is that how Tyson Chicken does it for every single chicken? So we're packing up, heading out. We're making our way to the airport to head to country number eight. Goodbye, paradise. What's this one again? Darling. Bye, darling. Bye, booger. This trip reminded us that the best way to experience a country isn't through the places you visit. It's through the people willing to share it with you. The Michels gave us an experience no itinerary ever could. And so before we left, it was one final thing we wanted to ask. As you know, we're going to every country in the world. We're trying to bring one person from every country in the world together for a final dinner with the world. The hard part with this is that we want to bring both of you guys. But we can only invite one until we can figure out maybe if there's a possibility of inviting multiple people. But we wanted to invite you to come to the dinner with us. All right. We kind of invited a lot of dudes so far on the trip. We need to even it out. We need some women at it. Yeah, thank you guys so much for everything this week. It has been an absolute pleasure. I thought the emotions were stuck to last night. Yeah, don't you start crying. Don't do it. Don't cry. If you want to see a couple bonus scenes that didn't make it into this video, including one where we actually work a shift at the restaurant with Dancer and Peter. You can see all that and more by becoming a member on our website. The support from you guys over there is truly what helps keep this mission going. Next episode on Discover Connection. And you guys can see actually what he's doing. He actually is going down to poop. They go once a week to poop in the ground. Once a week they only poop? It's like me. It's like you, Cal.