Glenda Simms
IN EDUCATIONAL circles some parents have been known to advocate for Back to Basics (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic) when their children appear to be having learning problems in public schools.
This concept of going back to basics has become very relevant in the post-Ivan period in Jamaica.
In the September 14, 2004 edition of The Gleaner, Hurricane Ivan was described by writer Devon Dick as the hurricane that seemed to stay for eternity.
Indeed, the Friday night of September 10, 2004 was a very long night. Those Jamaicans who are accustomed to sleeping in communities with loud
boom-box music on weekends were perhaps the most fortunate. They should have been able to sleep through the raging winds and the torrential downpour that accompanied Ivan. Others, like myself, might have napped between the sounds of wind and rain. And countless others attest to the fact that they couldn't sleep a wink.
Of course, sleepless nights were not the most dramatic impact of Ivan. After the storm thousands of Jamaicans were left to cope without water, electricity, the use of cellular phones and the absence of communication via rural landlines, and other conveniences of the lifestyle that each household had come to take for granted.
This natural disaster had the impact of not only disrupting the national developmental agenda; it also forced most Jamaicans to return to some very basic practices which many of them had either forgotten or had grown to devalue over time.
For instance, the disappearance of water flowing freely through the taps forced many of us to think more carefully about how to maintain basic hygiene with a small amount of water and also how to recycle the same small amounts to accomplish other water-dependent tasks within the household.
Urban folks who had no back-up generators and who depended on electricity for services such as cooking and ironing of clothes, learnt very quickly to find a coal pot, even if it took two days to locate a source of coal. Others learnt without hesitation, to run to their neighbours who use gas stoves in order to get a cooked meal or a cup of tea.
Still others learnt to like sardines for breakfast, sardines for lunch and sardines at supper time, and many self-respecting, normally well-dressed men and women learnt to recycle used items of clothing. Gone for a brief period in time was our freedom of choice varieties of cooked items, crisp fresh vegetables, smooth skinned fruits and smoothly pressed shirts and skirts.
In a real sense though, human beings are resilient and we have all found ways to endure the basics while the electrical, water and telephone systems
re-established themselves.
NEW RELATIONSHIPS
What we need to think about are the other basics that we were forced to identify during the aftermath of Ivan. Many of us had to establish new relationships with the neighbours that we had to come to ignore the ones we thought we could do without.
In our moments of helplessness and sometimes hopelessness we started to depend on each other. We reached out across the divides of caste, religion and gender. We sought help from strangers. We shared food, clothing and shelter, and we prayed together, while some of us mourned for the dead.
Indeed, for a brief period in time many of us faced the fact that we are indeed vulnerable and essentially interdependent.
These basic responses are important to our social and psychological well-being.
Far too often we forget the basic realities of the human condition. We sometimes forget the little things that should be normal ways of interacting with everyone that we meet along life's journey.
It should not take natural disasters for us to respond with love, charity, compassion and respect. These values should be part of our basic human relations "toolkit".
Unfortunately for all of us, even in the face of a natural crisis, many folks dug deep into their basic toolkit of greed, criminality and just plain
bad-mindedness. These are the ones who looted, murdered, raped and jacked up prices of basic consumer goods.
COPING AND RECONSTRUCTING
This band of our citizens make a mockery of the many courageous acts and the numerous instances in which ordinary and not-so-ordinary Jamaicans rallied to assist in their country's efforts at coping and reconstructing.
But in the final analysis we have no choice but to keep positive and do whatever we can to put the day to day lives of all citizens back on track.
One activity that will have to become a basic of the rural parishes is that of tree planting. When I ventured out to the hillsides of St. Elizabeth after the ravages of Ivan, I was struck by the fact that every tree either lost limbs or were ripped in two, and every fruit tree in sight was uprooted.
In one community a ninety-two-year-old woman could not get over the fact that the avocado tree under which her Uncle Tom's navel string was buried was uprooted and will never produce any fruits again. She shook her head in disbelief because Uncle Tom's pear tree survived many storms before and after her birth.
Ivan was indeed a terrible storm.
* Dr. Glenda P. Simms is the Executive Director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs. You can send your comments to infocus@gleanerjm.com
