The five of us, retired professionals
have been truly enjoying ourselves and continue to be amazed at daily changes
that take place here. Our sick helper lives in Uptown Galry, a settlement sandwiched
by two Kingston 6 universities and manned by women or de gal dem. We went to
visit her in the informal community where they don’t pay for water, light nor
land, where the 200 or so residents give their one address as Main Street and go
to the nearby post office to collect their mail. They become angry when they’re called
squatters or garrison dwellers and show how they’ll fight if anybody or
government try to move them off the land on which they claim to have lived for
decades.
As we came off the bus, a young man
grabbed Freida’s shoulder bag. Hollering and screaming we gave chase. The young
man, hampered by his dropped-crutch pants, ran into Uptown Galry and women
caught him, gave us back the bag, beat him up and handed him, half-dead, to the
police.
‘Im is new roun’ ‘ere. Di ooman dem
‘ave very strick rules an’ regilashans. Im run inna di wrang yaad’.
We later passed a yard where the
mother loudly warned her daughter, for the last time, that no boy is coming into her house if he had
no subjects. The young lady did not answer and the mother marched outside where
the nervous looking young man waited by the side of the house.
‘Yu have subjects?’
‘No, Mam’.
‘Den where yu going? De girls dem in
here have subjects. My daughter ‘ave 9. Yu ave to leave. Don’t come back till
yu get subject’.
The shamefaced fellow walked to the
bus stop, pulled out his smart phone and planned to meet the girl. We chuckled
for even those who ‘occupied’ other peoples land had rules to be upheld.
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