Last week when the Sunday Observer visited the ‘Hot Spot’ communities of Kingston where peace is prevailing after long periods of ‘war’, residents declared, almost in unison, that the peace, due in large part to a sustained police presence, seemed to be holding. But it was easy to pre-empt what was coming next.

“A waan yuh write seh de yout dem need some skills training, jobs, sup’m fi do a day time,” pleaded a middle-aged female resident of Jacques Road, a winding street off Mountain View Avenue in east St Andrew, jagged with potholes and dotted with burnt-out houses and zinc fences smeared with political graffiti.

She is gravely concerned for the fate of her 14-year-old son, she explained, because he hasn’t been to school since last year March, when his close friend was gunned down in the community. Moreover, she added, since his father was murdered in the community’s most recent flare-up, in September last year, her son began displaying a disturbing trend.

“All him deh pon now is how him a go kill dem back and how him going to get a gun and duss out the bwoy who kill him daddy. Every day. Is like him caan think of nothing else,” the woman said.

She’s convinced that a life of crime may not be too far off, that is unless she can get those thoughts out of his head.

“Him need counselling, and is not him one,” she said. “What we need is a school for boys like him, in them teens who maybe stop go school and now need to learn a trade or can go back and get some education.”

In August Town the sentiments are the same.

“Yes, the war done, but now the young man dem have nothing, no job to occupy them, nowhere to go to a morning. And if they did, you know, they wouldn’t find time to pick up no gun,” a greying lady in the community of Jungle 12 said.

A young man in a white Toyota motorcar added his piece: “Now the peace take hold, we need a major upgrade of infrastructure. The street light dem out here stay a way, and we need water, phone and light to string up,” he said. “And cable too,” he added as an after-thought.

In McIntyre Villa, an East Kingston community popularly known as ‘Dunkirk’, the plea was the same.

“Yes, things quiet down now, but for the people to enjoy the little peace, we want them to come fix the street lights that people can walk free a night time,” one resident standing at the corner of Bray and Black streets told the Sunday Observer.

At first glance, Dunkirk looks eerily like footage from Iraq, Palestine or some other active war zone. An omnipresent slow-moving stream of grey-ish water on the roadside fills the air with its souring aroma. Almost every building has paint peeling off, and there is garbage in piles along the road, scattered over open spaces or blowing in the wind.

Squalor hovers everywhere, and one wonders what the little children with runny noses and distended stomachs are laughing at as they play nearly-naked on the dusty streets. But it’s still Jamaica.

“Look round you. Street light want to fix, open lot waan bush out, dem need to deal with the sewage water a run in the road, and we wouldn’t mind if dem sen’ round a garbage truck to collect more regularly so that the rubbish nuh pile up,” chimed in another resident, gesturing with a Guinness bottle in one hand and a large ganja spliff in the other.

It’s not that nothing is being done to meet the social needs of these residents. In Jacques Road, a community activist who gave his name only as Sam, spoke optimistically and glowingly about the Positive Vibes Youth Club and its first fundraiser, a drive to clean up verges and bush out areas, to paint sidewalks and to beautify the community.

Also, he said, there was a move afoot to help community residents on both sides of Mountain View Avenue to start and operate small businesses such as shops and bars on the main road, because “no man nah have fi him ting a run on the main and want no violence cramp up him thing”.

In August Town, various community initiatives are taking root, and in Jones Town homework centres and youth groups have restarted. But the pace needs to quicken if it is to take root fast. The social scene in these inner-city communities teeming with the urban poor has not changed simply because the often tentative peace is prevailing.

In every area visited, groups of five or six youths languish on street corners under low-hanging clouds of ganja smoke, teenaged mothers with ghostly bleached faces watch over wailing babies as they gossip, and the elderly gaze around as if in a daze. Everywhere money is in painfully short supply. Day in day out it’s the same; nowhere to go, not much to do, no steady income being generated.

“Is really that feeling, like nobody – government, high society, police – nobody don’t business with you. Like we nuh really matter. Like seh we a nuh smaddy too. Like we too dunce fi learn a trade and go a work everyday an earn money. Like dem woulda prefer we disappear… a dat more time and the idleness cause people fi catch up over the slightest,” says an articulate man in August Town, his voice rising with frustration.

“Bwoy, dis a someting we want the new woman prime minister Portia fi deal wid. Right away, as she siddung in the seat. We a try, you know. God know. But we need certain basic things,” remarks another woman in Dunkirk. Then she sucks her teeth and shakes her head.

“Me nuh know. Me really a hope seh Portia a deal wid it still,” she adds with a sigh.