FAYLESHIA McNUFF (not her real name) was trembling. She had, just minutes earlier, been held up by a knife-wielding robber drawn by her costume-jewel necklace he thought was gold. When she told him it wasn't real gold, he threatened to "kill one a you one a these days".
She is from an inner-city community in the Corporate Area of Kingston and St. Andrew which has been under the gun for the last three months over a row about cocaine and guns.
Such a hold-up could not have happened to her in her "ghetto", but that day, she had strayed too far east going to visit a relative.
These days she is running scared but for different reasons. The cocaine-gun war in her community has crippled it and is slowly ruining most of the residents, some of whom have moved out. She, like most other citizens, have nothing to do with the war, but it has been taking its toll on them in the meanest ways imaginable. They can't work, they can't "hustle", they can't walk on the streets, for fear of getting shot. And some, like Fayleshia and her family, are starving.
Fayleshia was born at the Victoria Jubilee Hospital, Kingston, 27 years ago. As she tells it, she has lived in the same inner-city community all her life. Growing up there "was nice because my mother was in foreign (read USA) and I had every little thing to my comfort. But it stopped when I was 15 years old."
Q: Why?
A: My mother got 35 years in a general penitentiary in America for drug trafficking and my father wasn't there for me. My grandmother fed me and clothed me and on leaving the all-age-school I was attending, I didn't get the opportunity to go to any more school".
So she upped her age to land a job in a Kingston Free Zone garment factory. From her $300-a-week job, she saved to go to evening classes in office procedure, commerce, typing and English at Kingston Technical High School. She didn't take the exam though, as she could not afford the exam fee and she had nobody to help her with it.
Pregnant
"I got pregnant then, at 16-17, and my father put me out (of his house). The youth I got pregnant for was my age; he was afraid to tell his parents. My mother was in prison, my great-grandmother was afraid of my father so even if she wanted me to stay in the house, she had to hear what my father said. So I had to stay at my girlfriend's house.
"I went to (pre-natal) clinic twice and they sent me to KPH to take an ultrasound test but I didn't have the money. One night I felt something funny between my legs, I was afraid to look. I knocked up my granny, my father opened the door, saw it was me and shut it back.
"A neighbour took me to Jubilee (maternity hospital); they said it was an emergency. I didn't know anything until the next day. I woke up with a plaster on my belly and was told it was a Caesarean section... The baby died. I was in hospital for two months. "When I came out, my father still said he did not want me in the house, but because it was my granny's yard, she put me in a room, bought a little bed without mattress for me and let me stay there..."
When Fayleshia could again help herself she went back to the garment factory, where she became a quality controller, inspecting pockets.
A girl owed her some money, they had a fight over it, "I stabbed her, she locked me up ... and I went to Fort Augusta (women's prison) where I was on remand for three months and two weeks ... I was offered bail but my father said he wouldn't bail me... The girl said she would compromise the case... the money came from my mother in foreign and I come out".
"When I came out, I came out to nowhere. But I had a friend who said I used to share things with her when we were small. She lived with her grandmother and there were two old people from England living there too. She said I should pretend that I didn't know her and that I wanted a helper's work there and I did that. But whenever her mother came there I had to hide from her.
Christmas market
"One day her mother saw me and cussed but the lady said, 'No, people need a second chance, and she kept me because she liked me. I was there for about five months.
"One day I was walking on the road and I saw this man who I knew. When I was nine he took me and all of the kids my age in my community where he used to live too, with his kids my age, to Christmas market. He said he liked me but it came funny to me because I had known him that long.
Eventually we got into a relationship, I told him my problems and he rented a room for me and bought me a bed and those things.
"But ... he was like a druggist... something happened and he had to run away to foreign... but he went to jail there ... I couldn't manage the rent so I had to move out. But the greatest part of it was that he sent me to a hairdressing school for six months. I completed the course and had my certificate".
Her father still didn't want her at his house, but by then she was a qualified hairdresser, and she had a lot of friends who became her customers. She rented a little shop where she did hairdressing.
She met a man and went to live with him. She became pregnant for him. "I am a person who don't like anybody lay down any rules for me and I don't like anybody neglect me".
Q: What do you mean by neglect?
A: I had baby the 9th of April. He came and he never even ask, 'How you feel?' He just played with the baby. After we got deeper in the relationship, he didn't give me any money to spend; he just bought what he wanted for the baby. Then for two, three days I didn't see him. Me not into them foolishness, so me just stop talk to him. Me and his sisters then kicked off so I moved back to my father's house".
When the baby was six weeks old she went to work at another garment factory. "I save my money, then I stopped working and started selling some household items like plastic bath pans and clothes baskets to make ends meet for me and my great-grandmother.
"My father had money, still, but he is not a family man. his mother died when he was born and my granny took care of him but he doesn't check for her.
"Sometimes when you are selling pans and so, it is sort of stiff. So I got a sweetie stall. My father start not having any money nothin' naw gwaan fi him. He used to send my little sister to a prep school; my granny couldn't manage and her (the child's) mother said him should look work. Him not going to look work 'cause him like the easy life, so I have to take up the responsibility for my little sister by clothing her and sending her to school... She was eight or nine years old...
Common Entrance
"She passed her (Common Entrance) exam for a well-known Kingston high school; my father still don't have any money, so I had to walk and sell to buy her graduation frock and shoes. Around that time her mother was burnt out (in a tenement yard fire) so she never have anything either.
" My little son (now five and a half years old) got asthma bad bad on me and was admitted to hospital. That took all my money in hospital fees. His father was in foreign (USA) at that time and all he sent was so-so clothes. All now, is still so-so clothes him send -- no money. Even though it is name-brand that I would want for my son and couldn't buy it, I still feel he could send even US$100, and he has been there four years now.
"It happens now that I get mash up and money start to gwaan for my father. I beg him a money being as how he saw that I helped out his pickney. Him no give me no money. So he came from foreign with his money and I take US$500 to start a business and him put me out again. I have to rent a little room for myself. When you are paying rent and water and light (bill) it is not easy.
"Well I got involved with a next youth and got pregnant. Him go foreign and him get four shot and dead. The baby (now 21 months old) was born with cardiac disease. All now (her birth) is not registered. I paid $3,000 for the Caesarean section, and $800 to book into the hospital. When I was coming out of the hospital I got a bill for $10,560. They said that if the bill is not paid, your baby can't get the birth paper. So food stamps and all that, her name is not on it. When I carry her to clinic, I have to put just 'Baby X'. I was told that it will cost $2,300 for a late-entry birth certificate.
But the foregoing have been the least of Fayleshia problems.
The War
"I got a little help recently to start a hairdressing shop and I feel my dreams come true. 'The war' (in her inner-city community) is three months now ... and I can't take it because it is preventing me from having any money."
As she explained it, the war has stopped virtually all economic activities in the community. Shops and bars and other self-help businesses, such as her hairdressing shop, are closed and those which are open, offer very limited service.
"Nothing naw gwaan with the hairdressing shop, me can't go road to hustle (beg) anything...
"Middle day them fire shot; evening them fire shot; morning them fire shot. My baby is a heart patient. Last week Wednesday night them fire shot and I have to carry her to Children's Hospital. The doctor says it is a trauma. She hear the shot and she hold on to you tight and she not letting you go. If you hold her and you put her down to sleep by you put her down she jump up and scream. If she even hear clappers she scream.
"My little son, if I am not there and my granny wants something at the shop, she can't send him because he says he is not going because gunshot a go fire. When I am carrying him to school he make sure and tell you you have to come for him because he is afraid of the gunmen... he sees the gunman passing... and he is afraid of them. He is lonely and he can't manage it. Through the gunshots and the war I can't get any money and the cable (TV) was his comfort and the cable cut off. To put it back on the cable bandoolo is five bills ($500) but if I have five bills I have to look food for the three of them (two children and her great-grandmother). Every morning I have to give him $60 for school...
"My granny is 88 years old this month and she have a constant headache from the war. Is a good thing Dr. Foster only charge $100 to see her.
"The war affect everybody in the community because even the shop not selling. So it is hard for you who used to get trust (credit) get trust there. Bars close, shop close. The war affect the man who cook on the roadside and sell $30-food chicken and rice and him have eight pickney to send to school."
Without food
As Fayleshia tells it, she, her great-grandmother and her two children often go without food.
Breakfast sometimes is lime-leaf tea and two slices of bread. One morning recently her son asked what he was going to eat. "Him have to just break into it and know that when I say I don't have it, I just don't have it. Sometimes in the morning I give him tea and egg. Sometimes is just the tea alone. My baby will drink the Lasco. I can go to my friends and beg them some of their dinner, but I have to boil porridge for my granny or give her a cock soup, because my granny not going to eat from people."
If the war wasn't going on she could earn enough to buy chicken back ($20 a lb.), or liver or frankfurters or 10 lb. of "bad rice" for $50..
"So the war affect everybody in the community and nobody can do nothing. No shop can open, no dance can keep. The police coming don't make any sense 'cause the police come tonight and no shot no fire, in the morning as them gone, shot fire. Them come in the morning, at midday shot fire. Them down the road, shot fire on the other road.
"The police not going to pitch any tent (in the community). As far as I see it, we have to just wait till the two side who a fight dead -- kill off who they want to kill, and it will done or police finally get everybody in jail. And that would be worse because if the police take one man off a road the others say somebody is an informer and they have to shoot him. If anybody get shot them say they want 10 man and 10 woman... The war is going on too long now three months. They run through people's yard with guns so you have to be on your Ps and Qs and lock your door and keep your pickney inside.
"And you can't say nothing. All me now, who don't have any extended family or anybody to defend me... when I see them I don't even look at them, but I don't like it, and I can't say anything.
"You can't walk on the road, you cannot sleep. At 7 o'clock the place is a ghost town. If you sleep from 7.00 to say 9.30, you can't sleep after because you have to wonder what is going to happen. I am completely stressed out. Every minute I feel bad. I have to constantly drink ice water...
Goody-goody work
"So it affects everyboy; not just me alone. Is just that some people have goody-goody work or they know how to budget or they have a next helping hand. But them come in early. The food ... for them is not really hard but the war still affect them because nobody can't come to them and they can't out ... People just stand at them gate and get shot. Sometimes many people get grazed... People you could get something from when they come in the community don't come again. Them fraid.
"My housetop is not too right because it is (made of ) Solitex and because the gutterbed want to change, the house leak and the Solitex swell and come down. The other day the soldiers come searching up the house and tear down the Solitex looking to find gun. Is just me and my two pickney and my granny live ... we not hiding any gun. And the ceiling tear down and I don't have the money to fix it. When rain fall, I have to set four different pan. If the war wasn't going on I would go on the road and buy even a piece of damaged solitex and two strip.... So them and them war mash up the community completely.
"I get the hairdresser shop and I feel that is my dream. I have the hairdressing equipment but don't care how I am hungry and don't have any money, I can't sell them because I know that God is there and the war must done one day and when the war done I will still have them because that is my trade. The things are hard to buy and I got them at a cheap rate. So when I am hungry I have to just bend my mind to certain things...
"My sister has four children and she works. But sometimes at night she can't come home to her children because of the gunshots. She has to sleep at her baby father. Her baby sleeps with me, and the other children sleep with another relative. It is rough.
"What she is getting for her pay can't make ends meet. She and I are close but it look like money is going to make the closenesss mash up. I feel that when I did have it I give her... Don't care how little I used to stretch it and give her but now she wouldn't even buy six Lasco for my baby...
"I would like to come out of ... (her community) yes, but I can't put my hat where I can't reach it or maintain it. Better must come but sometimes I can't manage. God know. One morning I wake up and my baby said, 'Hungry, hungry'. And look at her age 21 months. Eyewater drop out of my eye. I was in my bed the other day and told my son (aged five) I was hungry and he brought $3 to me to buy bun and cheese".
Fayleisha says that if her parents had given her a good education, "I couldn't suffer so." She describes her mother, who again is serving time overseas for drug trafficking, as "a clothes person" who would spend hundreds of U.S. dollars on a pair of shoes, and her father who she says is a "druggist", as "a clothes person and a womaniser" who has several children with girls her age".
To her mind, "The government is foolishness; the whole system in Jamaica is foolishness because there is no system for poor people. To me stealing is not crime, to be poor is crime because it is poorness that cause people to do drastic things."
By Lloyd Williams
Senior Associate Editor
