Eye on the prize
This is the second in a three-part series looking at the phenomenon of men and boys on Jamaica’s streets.
HE approaches one vehicle after another only to be shunned by motorists with no interest in having their windscreens cleaned in exchange for a few coins. But he persists, focused on the need to earn his lunch and transportation money for school the next day.
He’s called “Oney” and he’s 11 years old. The place is Liguanea in St Andrew, and the time is 7:30 pm.
The Sunday Observer approaches, indicating an interest in having a conversation with him. He agrees, forming a group of three boys willing to share their stories of life on the hustle in Kingston’s streets.
“Have you made your lunch money yet?” the Sunday Observer asks of the 11-year-old.
“Mi a gwaan look, Miss,” he responds, his windscreen wiper and bottle of soapy water in hand.
Oney adds that he feels compelled to be on the streets in order to help his struggling mother.
“Sometime mi cyaan bother fi see her go out a road and cyaan rest, so, then mi come out pon di road. When mi mek a change, mi haffi give her fi cook,” reveals the boy, who up to about two weeks ago was wearing a cast.
He’d broken his arm after falling from an ackee tree.
“I was picking ackee for mi mother,” says the youth, who acquired his alias from the fall and who occasionally sells chocolates to boost his earnings.
But while he can make up to $3,000 between the sale of chocolates and wiping windscreens on weekends, it is not something he enjoys doing.
“Mi feel bad. Sometime mi feel shame. Mi cyaan bother fi people and girl a look pon mi,” Oney tells the Sunday Observer candidly.
His experiences mirror closely those of other youths on the streets – youths with whom he shares a bond of friendship.
“Disney”, 14, also struggles with feelings of shame.
“Sometime mi feel a way still, fi see how much people a look pon mi,” notes the grade eight student, as he keeps an eye on a game of “sinker” being played by a group of older street youths nearby.
“Sometime mi feel shame, Miss,” adds Disney who has been wiping windscreens for the past three years.
Like Oney, he is on the streets to raise money for lunch and transportation to school, thereby relieving the burden on his mother.
“(I am on the streets) fi buy food and help mi guh school,” he tells the Sunday Observer.
But there are days when things are slow and hunger comes knocking. Those days lead to stealing.
“Sometime when mi guh in a store and mi see where mi can tek up a biscuit or anything, mi tek it,” admits the 14-year-old, sounding older than his years.
Disney adds that his mother does not want him ‘hustling’ on the streets, but says things are hard.
“More time she tell mi fi come off the road because di streets nuh nice. But mi have to support her suh she don’t have to stress out herself,” says the youth, who has three sisters and two brothers.
His older brother, Disney says, also wipes windscreens for a living. And there are days, he adds, when they have long conversations about helping their mother.
“Mi woulda a really like come out (of school) and a work fi my own and nuh haffi a steal,” says the teen, looking into the distance. “Mi feel like mi want get rich fi help her (my mother), but mi nuh see how mi can get rich.”
His interest now rests with learning a trade while improving on his reading skills.
“Ratty”, 13, faces a similar situation to that of Disney and Oney, who lives in his neighbourhood.
“I want to become a lawyer to solve crime and thing,” the 13-year-old happily declares to the Sunday Observer, smiling.
And why not a policeman?
“Sometime dem kill people down a wi yard and throw gun on dem,” he says matter-of-factly.
Unlike Oney and Disney, his mother is dead – a fact he regrets.
“Mi mother woulda mek mi study every single day,” he said, noting that were she alive he would not have time to be on the streets.
His mother, Ratty says, died three years ago of cancer.
“A just through mi father nuh have anything,” Ratty adds, further explaining his presence on the streets to eke out a living.
Still, he is hopeful that he will be able to stop wiping windscreens sooner than later.
“Mi father seh mi soon stop,” he tells the Sunday Observer.
Until then, he endures the discomfort of being on the streets hustling for coins.
“Mi feel a way. Every minute the people curse mi,” he admits, his voice lowered.
But he is compelled to return to the streets each day. The streets offer not only lunch money, but a chance to make ever more friends and have a little fun.
“Like mi come up here (Liguanea) and have fun and mek sure seh mi have mi lunch money,” Ratty says. The boys’ stories seem to reflect the findings of the 2002 review, Adolescent Male Survivability in Jamaica.
Undertaken by anthropologist Herbert Gayle, the work notes, among other things, that adolescent boys were more likely:
. to be on the street and out of school;
. not to receive support from parents, relatives, educators, agency personnel; and
. to be below the radar, unseen, unnoticed, unattended.
In addition, it revealed that unemployed male youth are more likely than females forced to join the labour force below the radar, that is, the hustlers and jugglers.
