Jamaica is fifty years old today! That’s more candles than you can fit on a birthday cake. It’s also a pitiful score in cricket, but the West Indies is used to that kind of thing by now.

Today the celebration of national pride trumps any kind of argument I usually have about us not reaching our full potential. Today, Jamaica (the country) means more than the people who make it up.

We have come a long way from that first raising of the Jamaican flag in that stadium in Kingston. We have survived hurricanes and politics and multinational corporations. And we have done it all with trademark Jamaican flair. Our roots reach far and deep, our branches stretch to lofty heights and our trunk, though scarred, is strong and sturdy.

Fifty years old might be a baby compared to the movers and shakers of the world, but Jamaicans all over the globe will agree that we likkle but we tallawah.