Hartley Neita

Ask anyone in Jamaica over 60 years of age, and who lived in a rural village during their youth, and they will tell you the same stories that you will hear from another person. It is as if each village was a twin of another, and another, and so on.

For example, each had a village square. Sometimes the square was because two roads crossed it somewhere in the centre, and at other times it was just that the road passing through widened at some point to allow villagers to gather for ceremonial and other moments.

One thing, for sure, every village square had a Chinese grocery shop.

Every Chinese grocery shop then had the same design. The counter circled three sides of the interior of the shop. To the right as you entered was the bar where rum and beer and other spirits were sold. There were rum drinks then which are no more. Like apple money, one, two and three dagger, and Green Seal. Red Stripe beer was always there from the beginning of our time. That section also sold cigarettes, many of which are no longer manufactured - polo, cricket and four aces - all made by J. and B. Machado, Cubans who had emigrated here and took over the tobacco industry.

Then there were the aerated waters, and many of those drinks are no more, like Kelly's pineapple, and cream soda.

Every Imaginable Items

On the centre of the main counter were large bottles which contained sweets like toffees, Busta backbone and mint balls and mint sticks, lollipops, and paradise plums. Glass cases beside these sweets contained bullas, sweet biscuits in rolls, and sugar buns. To one end were the scales to weigh the flour, sugar, salt and saltfish. Behind the counters were shelves with every imaginable items needed by households. Your mother needed cloth to make clothes for her children, this was there. Your father needed exercise books, and slates, slate and lead pencils for his sons and daughters, these were there.

Outside on the piazza were large barrels that had mackerel and shad. There was a drum with kerosene oil, and beside these there were always four men playing dominoes. All day and late into the night.

The Chinese grocer could speak a little English, but his wife who sat in the doorway to where they lived in the back could speak none. All day she sat smiling, with not a word spoken.

Nearby were a blacksmith, a tailor, sometimes a barber and a small carpenter shop. The latter made the coffins for the dead.

A word about the blacksmiths. In earlier times they were an essential part of every community. They made shoes for horses and the iron rims for buggy wheels. They kept Jamaica mobile during the last World War when cars could not obtain gasoline and tyres and were taken off the roads and replaced by buggies. If there was no resident tinsmith in the village, blacksmiths were the ones who soldered cooking pots when they had holes, and made drinking cups from empty condensed milk tins, with a handle, if you please.

The post office or postal agency was near the square. So, too, were the church, the elementary school, and a police station with one corporal and two constables alone. A house nearby had a sign advertising 'Dressmaking Done Here'.

A short distance away was a cricket/football field. Many brilliant cricketers and footballers have been spawned there.

These villages have grown into towns today. There is now a basic school and the elementary school has become an all-age school. Soon there will be a secondary school. There is crime now and a much bigger police station. The blacksmith is a relic of the past. A supermarket has replaced the Chinese grocery shop. There is now a mechanic shop to repair motor cars, and pride of place is taken by a service station.

We have come a long way, baby. I sometimes wonder if it has been a good way.