- Winston Sill photos'Dear Girl' arranges boiled crab in a pan, while corn on the cob roasts on the coals.
Avia Ustanny, Staff Reporter
JAMAICANS, long before the Kentucky Fried Chickens and McDonaldses came, mastered the art of the drive-through.
On your way through the traffic-choked roads of the capital city, you could be offered everything from machete-sized knives (to do what?) to the delicacy of boiled crab and roasted corn. Ceramics and roses are also on sale.
At the same time as the woman at the head of the line yields to the temptation to buy clothes pins (only $20!) an orchestra of horns begin and road rage blips off the charts.
Come with us on a buying spree, with the first stop at 'Dear Girl' who sells crabs ($60 to $120) and roasted corn ($40 each) on National Heroes Circle in downtown Kingston. She gave us the low down on her part of the tradition.
Having occupied the same spot for more than 40 years has given the 'right of tenancy' to her (and the more than one dozen vendors, when they are all out in full force).
"I sold crab, my mother sold crab, my grandmother sold crab, right here. The customers love it.
"We and MPM have it out. They allow us to stay here. But, they say we can't build anything here, we have to stay here in the sun and the rain," said 'Dear Girl'.
Regulars have been missing for some time, however. The business has seen its best days. Still, 'Dear Girl' uses the proceeds to send her children to school (six of them, aged 2 to 21).
We journey north to Lady Musgrave Road where there is a seller who looks as if she has not spent all her life in the sun and the rain. She is 35-year-old Carol.
In tailored white cotton blouse and jeans, she looks like a moonlighting professional. And our hunch proves right.
Selling warm, fresh, soft Joe Tex bread ($50 and $100) from the back of a white van parked on the sidewalk, Carol works in an office during the day and sells bread on consignment from the bakery on Friday evenings.
Loaves are not the only thing sold. Corn bread and sweet rolls, as well as buns can be had from her van. But the famous, traditional alligator bread is not there. "If you want that we will bring it for you next week.
"The pay cannot stretch. You know you have to do something on the side to make up," said Carol, who is married with children.
"This is not to support the family, but to save enough to buy my own van," she said.
Further up the road, 42-year-old 'Billings' sells mangoes, artistically arranged, from the back of his blue van.
"I come twice a day. I come and go," he said. "I also sell in the market (Coronation)... Everything from vegetables to pine. I am from St. Elizabeth.
"Things are getting worse and worse. Soon I think I will leave (the words he actually used were "run away") and join my wife abroad."
Cynthia Hutchinson, located also along Lady Musgrave Road is less morose. Maybe it's the prettiness of what she has to sell -- straw hats and coconut bags -- that keeps her cheerful. She beams as she explains that she 'dresses' the hats herself. The bags, tiny but very attractive, are gilded with fabric, tiger print, leather and other exotic trims.
The hats can be worn to watch cricket, or to attend a luncheon, and cost between $450 and $750. According to Cynthia: "These take time to do. I also spend time to do anything special that people might ask for.
"People do stop, some of them young, some old."
As we make a right about run and head for the major intersection of Waterloo and Hope Roads, the stamping ground of the pragmatic and romantic alike, we see sellers of roses and purveyors of car dusters.
Both, apparently, do a thriving business, stumbling over each other and the odd windscreen washer at the lights.
We pass teenagers with clumps of blood-red apples and guineps in plastic bags.
Driving past Devon House and onto South Avenue, a fishy smell fills the air. There are Indian women lining the sidewalk with bags of juicy, fat shrimps.
On this day, they are not looking happy.
The business of selling shrimps, apparently, is getting a beating from the imported variety now available in the supermarkets.
The young, middle-aged Indian women resemble each other. It is a family affair, with members of the extended family from Cockburn Pen buying shrimps fresh from fishermen on the Portmore Causeway or at Old Harbour Bay.
"Sometimes all we make is taxi fare and ice money. Lots of times we have to sell back the shrimps for the same $150 a pound that we bought it for, so that we can come back with fresh shrimps the next day," one explained.
As we inch along in the Friday evening traffic along South Avenue, heading towards Constant Spring Road, we spot an emporium of straw baskets and mats. Also at the entrance to the Lane Plaza exit is a fruit man selling from the back of a van, who stays put until midnight. A few feet away, glazed pottery sit on the hot concrete in a straight line.
On Constant Spring Road, there is something new. Near the new, massive headquarters of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, is an array of garden furniture. Where would I put a large stone urn? On my window sill perhaps?
Above the Inland Revenue Centre, we find clay in all its natural glory. Orchid pots, Spanish jars and water urns rest cheek to jowl. Prices range from $400 to $1,000.
Richard, the vendor, was quick to point out that he had sold only two small pots since sunrise.
"The sun is about to set, but we cannot make his day any better. Our pockets are empty. We head home."
