Wednesday, February 24, 2016

A trip to Aldear; Whitehouse, Jamaica - Day 2

We got up, dressed and sat down for breakfast outside. We sat together at the table with Linda and planned out our week.  Linda’s friends and helpers, Troy and Paulus, came over along with Miss Sadie and Miss Johnson, all of whom we had met briefly on our last visit here.

While we were eating breakfast, my American cell phone rang and it was Jeff Citrin, whose mother has the property in Spring Garden that we had come to see on our last trip.  But I couldn’t answer the phone with all the talking and commotion.  So, I thought that we could just call him back later.

We started unpacking all of the shoes that we had brought along.  Bruce took the very flat tire off the car and put it in the back of Linda’s pickup truck to take in to town to have it fixed.  Then we headed to town to get a Jamaican phone activated so that we could communicate.  Linda wanted to stop to pick up a bunch of grocery bags to separate the pairs of shoes and to mark the sizes on so that it would be easier to give them away.

We pulled in to a tiny little shack on the side of the road.  Bruce and I had no idea where we were. But Troy hopped out of the truck, grabbed the tire from the back, and started to walk up to the little building.  Oh!  So, that’s where we are?

A man came out and took the tire off the rim. In a matter of minutes he grabbed a hammer, pounded the heck out of the rim until it was round again, put the rubber back on, filled it up, bounced it a few times, and said “$500".  That would be $500 Jamaican dollars, which equals about $5 US.  Bruce pulled out his wallet.  No problem, mon!  (Never in the United States would you see such a thing, I promise you.)

Then we headed back toward the grocery store so that Linda could get bags.  We had brought along an old cell phone from home in the hopes that we could have it unlocked and could use it in Jamaica. Troy told us that he knew a guy called “the cell phone doctor”.  Uh huh.  So, we followed Troy up the stairs of the two story shopping center, around the corner, into an almost completely empty store, rang the bell and waited.  A skinny young kid with sagging pants emerged from the back room through the curtains. Troy handed him our phone, a few words were exchanged, “the doctor” disappeared into the back again, came out a few minutes later and off we went, with a working local phone.  Alrighty then.  I’m not sure all of that is totally legal, but some things are so much easier in Jamaica.

We found Linda outside at the truck and went back to her house where everyone else was still hanging around.  All our Jamaican friends chose a pair or two of shoes and we packed up what was left.  We loaded all the remaining shoes up in Linda’s truck and waited around until after lunch.  For lunch we had the chicken in brown sauce that they prepared for us for the night before but that we were too tired to eat.  It was wonderful.  Then we all got in the truck and took off toward the very impoverished little mountain village of Aldear.





We headed up the winding mountain roads and approached the village.  Linda parked just at the edge of Aldear.  As Bruce and I got out of the truck, people started to gather around.  One of the old ladies from the village started praying. Linda motioned us over and introduced us to a girl named Shaunette. One of the girls from our Monday night bible study had taken a liking to her when they were here and had sent some stuff along with us especially for her.  Linda asked us to go back through the village to Shaunette’s house and ask her mother if she could stay with Linda for the week.  So off we went over the rocks and through the shanties.  There was trash laying around everywhere, dogs and cats running around, pigs loosely tied up and chickens wandering here and there.  On the way to Shaunette’s house, it started to pour down rain.  It was a warm rain, and it kept the dust and the smell down, so I didn’t really mind.


We climbed up and down over the sharp rocks for about 10 minutes until Shaunette stopped.  There was a rickety stairway leading up to what was apparently her house.  We carefully walked up the
broken steps to the little shanty high up on stilts.  Shaunette went in through the open door and emerged, seconds later, holding a little baby.  She said it was her brother, Alex.  He was alone in the house and she said he had been asleep on the bed.  He immediately started crying.  “Do you know why he’s crying?” she asked.  “He’s hungry. We all are hungry.”  I felt bad that we hadn’t brought any food along, but I handed her the bag of gifts that we had for her.  She invited us in.

The small little home was just two rooms.  One room had a dirty double bed mattress a small makeshift dresser.  There was a couple of pictures thumb-tacked to one of the bare wooden walls and a television set was mounted next to the bed.  The second room looked to be a kitchen with a plywood counter top, a few small cabinets, and a single bed mattress pushed up against the wall.  The house was very bare.  There were no chairs, no couches, no place to sit other than the beds.  There were no curtains on the open windows, no pictures on the walls. There is no bathroom in the house.  The community bathroom with three stalls is just about at the bottom of the steps of the house.  We could see down on top of it from the front porch: several stalls, one with the door broken off, another with the toilet toppled over and disconnected, and a third over flowing and swarming with flies. 

As Shaunette stood next to the double bed and unpacked the Walmart bag that we had given her, she told us a little bit about her family.  She lives in this house with her mom and dad, her three siblings, and baby Alex.  All of the kids sleep in the this bed and mom and dad sleep in the other room on the single bed.  They take turns taking care of the baby.  She told us that she sometimes goes to school, when both mom and dad work, they can afford to send her, and someone else is there to take care of the baby.

She carefully took out each thing from the bag: two t-shirts, a pair of shorts, flip-flops, sunglasses, a simple necklace, and a small plaque. She looked at it, tried it on and modeled it for a picture, and then thanked us very sincerely for bringing it.  I noticed how polite and clean she was, despite her circumstances.  I couldn’t help but wonder how I would be if I grew up here like this.  

We stayed at Shaunette’s house for quite a while hoping that her mother would come home.  I watched the rain pouring down outside through the open window.  In the back of the house were two large blue barrels catching the rain water.  Since there isn’t running water up here on the mountain, that’s what they use to drink, wash clothes, bathe. Across the rocks to the next shanty were two very fat pigs burying their snouts in the dirt, searching for something.

Shaunette’s mother never came home.  The rain slowed down a little and we decided that it was time to leave and go back.  She was going to leave the baby there but I was afraid that he would fall out of the house or something since it was so high up on stilts.  So, I took him from her and we started off toward where the others were with the truck.

When we got back to the edge of the village where the others were, the people of Aldear were all
crowded around, there was a lot of yelling and grabbing of the shoes and other things that we had brought.  It seems that a riot had broken out over the shoes while we were gone and our friends were watching for us to come back so that they could get out of there.  We tried to get back in to the truck to leave.  People were pushing and shoving, hitting and shouting.  Arms and hands were everywhere, trying to pull on the windows and open the doors. We finally got everyone that we came with back in to the truck.  We tried to pull out but they were pushing and thumping on the truck, trying to get the doors and windows open.  Troy and Paulus jumped out, gently moved people out of the way, and climbed back in to the bed of the truck. Villagers were chasing after the truck shouting.  It was a mess.

Once we finally got away from all the people, the truck was silent.  Emotions were high among us. To break the tension, Miss Johnson started singing.  I quietly hummed along.  Everyone started to calm down.  It was a long, bumpy, quiet and hot ride home.

When we got back to Linda’s house, Bruce and I walked over to the beach and watched the sunset over the water.  The heat, the rain, the excitement, the people, the poverty.  So many emotions. That was enough for one day.  Bedtime came early for us that night.

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