Sitting here in this yuppy suburban moonscape staring at what few stars manage to shine through, my thoughts, as they often do, drift back to Jamaica, and the memories of the 600 plus nights I spent there. The silence here is deafening. No crickets, no people, no sounds of any kind reach my chilly ears. It’s vaguely unsettling.
I often remark that Jamaica has to be the loudest place on earth. Not a single waking moment, or a sleeping one for that matter, escaped the tropical din. Noise was life. Neighbors arguing across the street, taxis zooming by blaring the latest dubbed nonsense, snarling dogs tearing each other apart in the streets… this was the soundtrack of being. Let me take you on an audial journey through a typical day.
The enemy is among us
Your day starts just before sunrise with the ghastly cries of God’s most despicable creation: the rooster. If an animal could make a compelling case for its own extinction, it would be the rooster. Little more than a strutting sack of chicken sperm, this bird is the pinnacle of utter uselessness, irritation, and fail. The developed world holds a few stellar misconceptions about roosters. Firstly, they do not crow only in the morning. The rooster spits its venom randomly at all hours. One usually sets off others. You can hear the cries echoing through the valley, a chain reaction of hellish screams that makes sleep a sad memory. And it’s not a pleasant “Cock-a-doodle-doo,” it’s an ugly shriek from the depths of hell. When you watch them, it looks entirely involuntary and unpleasant, like the bird is vomiting up some toxic discharge. In my first house up on Longill, my host mother had 9 of them, and they were all sick, the result being a ghastly cacophony of croaks and gurgles. They infest every corner of the island, and you will never escape their input.
After the roosters come the pigs screeching for their morning feast. The trees explode with the chatter of tropical songbirds. You hear the first cars whiz around the bend. All along the street, doors open and the ladies of the town begin their sweeping, brushing the ravages of night from verandas and driveways and storefronts. You can hear Ms. Jackie frying bacon and the kids next door yelling at the breakfast table. People start leaving for work, the traffic increases as taxis take off on their rounds, cranking sound systems and revving battered engines. Your town awakens.
The migration of schoolchildren in their bicolored uniforms begins: yellow and blue for St. Mary’s, blue and white for Bohwah High, and the occasional gray and white for the Queen’s Academy in Town, while all the little primary school kids sport the ubiquitous khakis and blue checkered shirts. You shuffle onto your veranda sipping a cup of steaming instant coffee and the scene on the street looks like a Renaissance Fair. The kids are laughing and roughhousing, sucking on bagjuice and scarfing down spice buns, blithely dropping the plastic wrappers on the street and in your yard. Seeing you the giggling increases, fervent intrigues in hushed patwa, the boys looking tough or giving you the upwards nod, the girls laughing and covering their mouths, the boldest ones calling out your name and demanding to see your cat.
The parade goes on for a half hour or so as the taxi traffic increases. Massive dump trucks and work vehicles appear, either heading to the hills for lumber or to the river for sand. The cement block “factory” fires up its gas-powered pressing machine as shirtless men shovel sand and mix into the clamoring mechanical beast. You stand at the side of the road and flag a passing taxi– if you’re lucky you snag the front seat– and your commute begins.
I’ve burned plenty of words describing island public transit. If it’s not raining, the windows are always open. The rushing wind and the clatter of the rear exhaust are joined with whatever music the driver has going, either a CD or a radio. Most CD’s are home made and sold on the street. They are often compilations of popular music from America and indigenous tunes, mixed around by the deejay, almost always containing the arbitrary array of nonsensical sound effects dubbed over songs, and often, the deejay’s own poignant commentary. Island radio, like television, is dominated by three stations that play a similar lineup of reggae, dancehall, and American hip-hop. Some shows feature old rocksteady, ska, and mento tunes. On Sundays, you get the best in contemporary gospel. The radio also has healthy doses of news, contests, and inane banter. You spend the 25 minute ride grooving on tunes or engaged in conversation.
Hope you brought your ackee fi sell
The taxi drops you off in a slightly larger town than the one you started in, the din of construction and traffic growing in intensity. A short ride in another taxi brings you to a relatively urban landscape of narrow roads bordered with concrete block structures and choked with hundreds of people. A large country town such as Linstid or Yewrton is an organism in its own right. The latter is the home of the region’s largest mining complex while the former hosts a legendary market that spews into the surrounding streets as hundreds of vendors, higglers, and shoppers gather to do business. On a busy market day, the sidewalks are packed and you are presented with obstacles of all sorts on your make your way to your office on the outskirts of town. Music and chatter pours from every bar. Goats and dogs roam the gutters. Cars lurch forward and break as the crowd flows around them. The typical driver uses his horn far more than his turn signal.
The office is about the quietest place you’ve been. The radios are still on, but they are kept at a reasonable level. There are the regular sounds of tractors and vehicles operating out back, but for the most part, now is the time to recover from the commute, browse the paper, and chat with colleagues. However, the office environment does not appeal to you. Your work is in the bush. You hitch a ride with an extension officer and follow him or her into the unknown. Your day is spent in and out of farms, classrooms, and community meetings. Lunch is at a little roadside shack with the old timers where the tunes of Barrington Levy compete with the loud crack of slamming dominoes in the next room. If you’re lucky you can catch a ride with a coworker to Bahwah and hop a taxi before school lets out and you have to fight the crowds for an open seat.
The afternoon sees the same procession of schoolkids and townspeople amble home. The bars start hopping and the churches may fire up for certain denominations. As the sun sets the evening newscast pours forth from every television. In the square, Biggy starts showing movies outside his shop. Laughter and dominoes soon follow.
Typical advertisement for a street party
Fast forward a few hours, and you’re getting ready to sleep. You’re exhausted after a long day and feeling especially gnarly since the water isn’t running and you’re bedding down, again, for the fourth night in a row without a shower when you hear a vehicle come to a halt outside. More voices and the sounds of heavy things being moved. You unbolt the door and cautiously go out to investigate. Cooly and his crew are unloading a truckload of refrigerator-sized speakers into his yard. The local deejay is hooking up his soundboard. A crowd is slowly forming around the neighboring bar. Block party tonight, throbbing bass and hotta fire lyrics till dawn.
So much for that sleeping thing. Somewhere on the hillside, a rooster crows.
