Robert Lalah, Staff Reporter
The deacon leading the way through the bushes.
The woman said that the giant crater was caused by some sort of demonic force. Her forehead crinkled as she frowned and she looked at me with eyes that said, "why would anyone want to go there?"
Now this didn't sit well with me, especially standing there on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The sun was going down and it transformed the sky into a haunting red. It was like the sky was bleeding. A drop of rain fell on my nose. I started to regret this trip.
The giant crater that the woman was talking about is known as God's Well and it's at the border of Manchester and Clarendon. It's been around for as long as anyone can remember and from what we heard, stories about the origins of the giant sinkhole range from academic to just plain silly.
Residents of communities nearby say that divers from around the world have visited the giant hole and no matter how hard they tried, they have never been able to reach the bottom of it.
"A di devil watchglass! Him sit down pan him chair an look out pan we!" said one frightened looking old man when we asked him about the hole. "Do, nuh badda go deh so!" A chilling warning indeed.
But with all these tales circulating about the enigmatic crater, I just had to see it for myself. So, I called on photographer Norman Grindley and we headed off to find the 'devil's watchglass'.
When we got to Clarendon, we weren't exactly sure where to go next. So we stopped in a community called Milk River to ask for directions. A short, fair-skinned woman was sitting behind the counter at a grocery shop. We asked her about God's Well. A quizzical look came to her face and she
started to explain that the hole was cursed and that nobody should go there alone. "A white man and his wife went there and never came back out alive. Take my advice and stay far from that place!" she whispered.
Wobbling knees
I won't lie. This did make my knees wobble a bit, but press on we did. The woman pointed us in the general direction of God's Well and bid us goodbye. Somehow it seemed that she thought we would never return.
We were on a completely deserted road with nothing but bushes on either side. No sign of life. Soon enough though, we came across three men walking along the road. They wore water boots and carried machettes.
We stopped to ask directions.
"God Well? A deh so you a go? It inna one bush you know!" said the shortest of the three. His front teeth were missing and he smelled of rum. He wobbled a bit as he approached my window. One of the other men, a husky fellow wearing a pair of very dark sunglasses, grabbed the spirited fellow by the shirt collar and pulled him back. "It deh up di road! Just go up likkle and go round likkle bit and you see one big tree beside one next tree. You can't miss it," he said.
The third man who also smelled of rum chimed in. "It inna di bush! Don't go there! You want mi fi carry you?" He leaned in and poked his head through the window. We sped off and left him in a cloud of dust.
A bit further down the road we came across a man riding a bicycle. Praying for better luck, we asked him about God's Well. He looked us up and down and then said we had just passed it.
"You not going to find it by yourself. Follow me and I will show you," he said and turned his bicycle around.
He rode about a quarter mile back in the direction he was coming from and signalled for us to park by the side of the road.
The man walked over to us and stuck out his hand. He gave his name as the deacon. I took a step back.
"We have to walk about five minutes that way," he said, pointing into the bushes. I could hardly fugure out how we were going to make it. There didn't even seem to be a track to follow. But before I could say anything, the deacon was off.
"Watch di macca tree! If dat ketch you, you goose cook!" the deacon shouted. He was now about a hundred yards ahead of us. We walked over fallen trees and rocks and passed over a few dead birds before we finally got to the giant crater.
Stagnant, murky water
"Mind you drop over inna it!" the deacon shouted. The hole was huge and went hundreds of feet right down. Stagnant, murky water was settled at the bottom of it and the remains of a few dead animals floated on top. The spot looked like a huge meteor had crashed right through the earth. It was like a bad dream.
"Bwoy mi nuh like it you know," the deacon said. "Mi nuh like come here but sometime some tourist come here and ask mi fi show dem. Mi just carry dem and run lef dem. Mi nuh inna it massa." The deacon had a worried look on his face.
He said that a few years ago, a married couple from the United States visited the spot. Being adventure lovers, they decided to dive into the spooky looking water to see if they could make it to the bottom of the hole. The deacon said this was something that many people have done, yet no one has ever been able to find the end of the crater.
"The woman drown inna one cave below di water and the husband almost dead too. Dem say di place a crosses so mi always tell people nuh fi try go too close," said the deacon.
There was a small crocodile wading through the water. We asked the deacon about it. "Yes man, is long time him deh yah. Mi know him bout five years now and him nah get no bigger. A so mi know the place curse," he said.
By now the sun was setting and I sensed that the deacon was getting ready to run for the hills. There was no way I was going to be left alone in that place, so when a rotten tree branch fell into the bushes and caused a slight noise, we all gave each other a quick glance and were off immediately without a word spoken.
The last I saw of the deacon, he was pedalling his bicycle like crazy up a steep hill with sweat running down his forehead.
Please e-mail comments to robert.lalah@gleanerjm.com
