Amina Blackwood Meeks, Contributor
WHAT do you see when you go to the market?
See that? I am assuming that you go to the market. Which market?
Oh, sorry. Once upon a time that could only mean the variety of markets revered in so many of our folk songs as in, 'Come we go dung a Solas market' or 'Carry me ackee go a Linstead market'.
Then there are those markets which still bear the names of old plantations like Papine and Constant Spring markets.
Now that we are no longer swearing allegiance to the Queen, maybe she no longer wants to participate in any buying and selling with us, or should that be of us, and she may shortly petition that the Coronation be revoked.
No not hers, the name of the market in downtown Kingston which commemorates the affair. Now there's a thought.
That was once upon a time, though. Today "market" could mean anything... mostly it seems to mean money market.
I wonder how much I could buy $10 million for in the money market. Now there's another thought. You think I would be allowed to haggle down the price? Tell them something like, "No man, dat too expensive" or "Me look like me have money to you?" How about, "Me can get it cheaper roun de corner".
Actually, I rather doubt that such behaviour would be countenanced in the money market where money is no object. Only people who have money go to the money market.
Kind of odd, isn't it? At the other kind of market you go to get what you don't have. You give them the money and they give you what you need. A kind of quid pro quo, which is to say, if you don't have the quid you can't procure nothing. Which is how the haggling comes in.
Haggling is an essential ingredient in the Jamaican market of the traditional kind. It's a game in which not many people expect to pay the first price quoted. There is an expectation to get everything dirt cheap and no matter how low the price, the buyer seems set to demonstrate that the item is available at a cheaper price just around the corner.
An astute vendor will simply treat that with quiet disdain, a silence that says "You could walk till yu foot drop, you have not a chance as a snowball in hell of getting the item for one cent less anywhere in this market".
It always amazes me that no matter how early you get to the market, the prices are fixed. But some people will try.
Aesthetic experience
The other thing that astonishes me about the market is that no matter how early I get there, the place is an absolute aesthetic experience.
Everything is always so beautifully arranged by type and size and colour, you wonder if the vendors stayed up all night to achieve this veritable display of pride. In many ways they have.
By the time you get to the market, let's say 5:30 a.m. on Thursday morning the vendors have already endured quite a trek.
Have you ever been returning to Kingston from Manchester or St. Mary or Portland or Ocho Rios late on a Wednesday night into Thursday morning, cursing at the truck ahead of you which refuses to allow you to overtake it even though it doesn't seem able to go any faster?
Think again, it really cannot go any faster. At least not then, maybe Sunday evening when it is doing the return trip. But Wednesday into Thursday morning the weight of everything it is carrying, slows it down a bit - the fruits and vegetables - everything you need for your Saturday soup and Sunday rice and peas.
Piled up to the topmost crossbar on the darned slow-moving truck. Meticulously packed, neatly and carefully covered over so there will be not one bruise on the ripe bananas or pumpkin whenever you arrive to haggle over the price.
Take another look now at the truck. Scrutinise it. See some round things bobbing up and down under the covers, turning around sometimes. Do you suppose those could be the heads of your market vendors?
Battling the elements to get food on your table. It's been a long battle. Against drought, against 'Lili' and all her generations before her, against barely-there farm roads, inadequate transportation, poor conditions in the market, people who negotiate the ackees to death in Linstead market.
Bringing food
They probably started to pack and prepare the food for the journey since Wednesday evening at least. Some of them would be farmers and some would have bought it from the farmers.
And now here you are dressed to the nines in the faded name-brand jeans that can only be worn to the market these days, wrangling about the price of cabbage.
Think of it as your contribution to food security. Our farmers deserve to be rewarded so that they could at least demonstrate to their children how profitable and honourable working the ground could be.
That way more of their off-springs might want to try it. Contributing to the creation of a well-fed world might just become one of their priorities.
And in the process they might just be able to present themselves in the money market to negotiate accessing the resources needed for sustainable agricultural practices.
"An den yu teck out yu long, long tread bag fe go buy banana..."
