Zia MianFOR AN analyst, every occurrence has a reason. It is his job to discover that reason and analyse the consequences thereof. By profession, all my working life, I have been an analyst. When I saw a penny on the street I walk on every morning, I was curious to discover the cause for its presence there. Not being Sherlock Holmes, the presence of this penny at that spot was not 'elementary' to me.
After Hurricane Gilbert, half of the street was washed away, making it impassable for through traffic, and the remaining street, by default, became a cul-de-sac. This street, among many others that I do not know about, has remained ignored and disowned by any and all the authorities. For example, after Hurricane Ivan, when a part of the street caved in and retention walls fell into the gullies, the responsibility buck was passed around. Neither the KSAC nor the National Works Agency wanted to take the ownership of this street or the responsibility for re-building the retention walls. They sure gave lip service, but did not contribute a single cent to repair the damage. Ultimately, private owners reconstructed the retention walls and fixed the street. So much for our tax dollars working for us!
Since then, another part of the retention wall and street, owing to sheer neglect by the National Water Commission (NWC), have fallen into the gully. Residents have covered the spot with a tarpaulin to protect it against rains. However, it is unlikely that this section of the street would survive a heavy rain. The NWC, as usual, continues to ignore all the pleas to fix this damage, which was caused by a leaking pipe that had been reported to the NWC many times, but remained unrepaired. I am sure that this damage would not get repaired until NWC gets a maintenance and repairs project in place perhaps to be financed by some multilateral agency. However, by such time it would no more be a repair job, but a major construction job that the project may not consider financing.
BREAK IN MAIN PIPE
Just last week, there was another break in the main pipe and the water was gushing down the street. I personally called the NWC many times to report this break and so did many other residents. It took someone to coax the high ups to get the attention. The NWC took more than four days to repair a pipe break and stop gross wastage of water and energy that is used to pump this water. Have you ever hear the NWC complaining of its high system losses? Let the readers of this column note that present water losses on the NWC system are over 66 per cent. This means that for every 100 litres of water pumped and sent out, only 34 litres get billed. While the break has been repaired, the NWC filled the hole they had dug with loose dirt. This, with a moderate rain, can become a devastating cavity.
Let me get back to my little penny. The only traffic that now passes through this street consists of a few residents, their visitors or the workers. So I could only postulate.
My first thought was, did the five-year-old kid, whom his mom and dad, every morning, walk up and down the hill to a school at Matilda's Corner, drop this penny? Or was it one of the grocery packers at the supermarket who emphatically refuse to accept the red money as tip, throw the funny money while picking mangoes off the trees on this little street? Or was it the lady who, during the season, frequents the street to collect the pods of stinky toes that she perhaps sells to school kids?
One thing I am sure of was that the two-year-old sister of the kid, who walks along him to the school, did not drop this penny. Her casual dress does not support a pocket. However, she definitely did drop a string of tiny bright orange beads that I found on my return, over the other side of the street. The string was similar to the pretty beads that I had one day noticed adorning her head.
Thinking of the five-year-old walking every day to and from school four kilometres each way put me to wonder how the kid must feel by the time he gets to school, all sweaty and tired. How effective his learning could be? It reminded me of my own childhood when I lived in a little town where I was lucky to access a high school at a walking distance. Every day many rural kids travelled as far as 15 miles on dirt trails to get to the school. They left homes at four in the morning. They carried not only their books, but breakfast and lunch as well. By the time they returned home, it was too late and they were too tired to attend to their home work. Their inability to complete assignments enraged some of the teachers. The situation was too unbearable for them to outweigh the love for learning. After a few months of sustained efforts many lost the will to learn and just dropped out of school. The nation lost many bright kids to a lack of social infrastructure.
PROMISES PROMISES
In Jamaica, we talk of educating our children. Political directorates promise education. Promises do not deliver education. It is the class rooms, the teachers, opportunities and resources to access well equipped schools that educate children. For long there has been a dire need for basic school bussing system that, among others, would ease the traffic jams, as well as reduce gasolene consumption, that are caused by parents transporting their kids to and from schools. Has anyone done the benefit and cost analysis of introducing a school bussing system?
For days, every time I walked by, I checked if both the penny and the pretty string of beads were still there. One day both had disappeared. I panicked and asked myself what could have happened to them? The hurricane season was not here. Then it occurred to me that I had become too accustomed to the piling garbage on the street sides that shifts like sand dunes in a desert and I had failed to realise that these dunes could easily hide the tiny precious beads and the little penny.
This little street is raided by some non-caring citizens who sneakily drop off their garbage on the side or toss it into the bushes lining the street. The milk or juice boxes and plastic bottles get flattened by passing traffic. I doubt the claims made by many manufacturers that these items are made from bio-degradable materials. Believe you me, these flattened containers and bottles lie around from the end of a hurricane season to the beginning of the next, until they get washed into the gullies, choking them and causing flooding.
Then there is a section of the street that gets plastered with falling mangoes and their seeds. While they make slimy, stinking paste, for a short while they do provide filling for some potholes that make our street an envy of the moon surface. We could shoot a sci-fi here and no one would be any wiser.
While I have re-found the penny a bit farther than where I had originally seen it, I am yet to find the hidden pretty string of beads. I am sure that they have not been lost as our street is never swept. Even our garbage pick-up operates at the whims of collection personal. Some times it is regular, the other times for weeks we have to bear the stink and the rage of cats and dogs that swarm the piled-up, uncollected garbage. The last two weeks have seen such a spell.
When the dunes of garbage shift again, I am positive I will find the beads. At least something would still be pretty on this little garbage littered street.
Zia Mian, retired senior World Bank official, is an international consultant on energy and information technology. Send your comments to mian_zia@hotmail.com.
