Heather Robinson
LAST WEEK'S rape and murder of two little girls in Townhead in Westmoreland brought tears to the eyes of many Jamaicans. I grew up as a child in Westmoreland spending the first eleven years of my life in Grange Hill, Negril and Little London. The only memory that I have of a child dying is that of a boy who was killed in a motor vehicle accident as he crossed the main road near the Little London Primary School where we were both students.
There are too many children in Jamaica now who know children who have died either from natural causes or as a result of criminal activity. This was unfamiliar to Jamaicans growing up in the fifties, sixties and seventies.
As a six-year-old attending the Grange Hill Primary School, I would wait on the older students who were taking the Third Jamaica Local Examination. These older students provided me with the necessary protection from the 'tek away man' and the 'black heart man'. The story told to children like myself was that these two men would take you away and cut out your heart. There was never any mention of sexual abuse. In fact I am quite positive that as a child in Grange Hill, I had absolutely no knowledge of human sexual activity. We understood how chickens were hatched from eggs, and how dogs and pigs gave birth, but had no information on men doing things to little girls.
In retrospect now, I believe the stories about 'tek away' and black heart men were told to us to keep us in line and as a threat of possible punishment. In fact I can still hear my father's voice as he responded to such talk by saying 'damn rubbish'. Also since cars were such a rarity in those days, the threat of a man coming to take you away was so far-fetched, that if anything else it made sure you were careful when walking on the road.
The second thing that we were afraid of was 'duppy'. As a form of amusement and entertainment there were many stories that were told about duppies, as in those days there was no television to watch 24/7 and Radio Jamaica and Redifussion was our only radio station. So children had to find ways of amusing themselves and apart from stories being told, books were our only other recourse.
TRANSPARENT BEINGS
My only encounter with a 'duppy' took place early one morning - about four or five o'clock - when members of my family and I walked to 'Bottom' or the Negril Square to take the Blue Danube bus to Little London. There were two transparent beings, about ten feet tall and very, very meagre. I watched them walk in front of us. But I never said a word to a soul especially my father, who would have admonished me with his 'damn rubbish' remark.
As a child in Negril, one of my biggest fears was the left-hand crab. This particular crab was harder to catch and seemed smarter than all other crabs. Memory tells me as well that this left-hand crab, has a smaller big claw than the regular crab and also bit harder. But when one could pick, choose and refuse crabs in your own backyard, there was never any real need to run down the left-hand crab.
COWITCH
Two other things that we feared as children were the 'cowitch' bush and guineps. 'Cowitch' is a bush that provides the most uncomfortable irritation to the skin, through simple contact, and you therefore avoided it. My mother hated guineps for two reasons. Firstly the seed can choke you to death, and secondly it produces a terrible stain on clothing. She passed this fear to us and so one avoided the fruit as a child.
Our days of being children have passed three and four decades. The fears that children have in Jamaica today are far different from our youth. We need to work together to restore Jamaica to the place where the things that our children fear are insignificant and pose no real threat to their lives. And in the meantime we must do all things to protect our children from those who seek to harm and hurt them, even as we pray that the murderers of the children will be brought to justice and that their families, friends and communities will find comfort in our belief in Jesus Christ.
Heather Robinson is a life underwriter and former member of Parliament.
