In the eastern part of the island where the sun rises, from the craggy coast and sandy inlets, the rise of the Blue Mountains comes in a rush if one is soaring like a bird, to the west. From its descent to the western part of the island, it forms a rib which dips and rises and never settles until it eases ever so gently and throws you comfortably flat on your back on a hot powdery-white, sandy beach in sinful Negril with a cold Red Stripe in your warm hands.

When the rains come, they wreak a quiet vengeance on the island, which is usually in a state of drought. Long before the rainwater seeps into the limestone core towards the darkness of huge underground lakes and spaces, it takes away part of the topsoil and makes farming for the poor hillside man just a little bit more difficult each year.

Along parts of the hilly roadside network, land slippages make driving difficult, but most importantly, when it pours, hundreds of millions of gallons of the precious gift run off our roadways into gullies and rivers which empty into the salty blue Caribbean Sea.

Drought is upon us and the only thing we are certain of is that we will be there again after the rains come.

The Mona Reservoir was built in the mid-1940s to hold 809 million gallons — water and silt. At one time in the 1970s it was desilted and the mud was left piled by the sides. Heavy rains came and the mud returned to its ‘home’.

Jamaica’s best urban planners are working overseas, where it seems our best brains reside. When the Mona Reservoir was built, the island’s population — under 1.4 million — was not yet being subjected to the great urban drift which occurred during the 1950s.

Many sections of the island are now realising that water is much more important than white rum. When work was being done on the Yallahs system during the 1980s, there were many detractors, and when Norman Manley envisioned what Negril, one great swamp, could be in his time, his idea did not escape ridicule.

The fact is, just as how many Jamaicans love Jamaica with their mouths or mostly when we win an international football match, in almost the same anti-social approach of throwing trash through car windows or heaping garbage in our gullies, many of our political leaders, who can only see the next vote, the next election, the next win, only do the least to win the most.

Because of that approach drought is upon us, and we are bawling again. If one has a large tank that is running dry, to top it up with 1,000 gallons of (hopefully) clean water will set one back anywhere between $9,000 and $13,000. Just imagine how the poor must be faring.

Dr Garth Baker, easily one of Jamaica’s most accomplished mathematicians, is firmly of the view that we have to use the technology at our disposal to map out our water resources and properly prepare for easier capture of rainwater.

The head of the Caribbean Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (CIMS), in one of his proposals, stated, “In response to the need for more effective control of Jamaica’s water resources as well as conservation and protection of watersheds, wetlands, coastal zones and other vulnerable ecosystems, it is proposed that mathematical modelling and computer simulation methods be developed to support and extend the already existing infrastructure for water resources management.”

According to Dr Baker, the idea must begin with identifying specific pilot projects amenable to the type of project proposed. He further proposes that this be implemented by local experts and researchers from the Water Resources Authority in collaboration with CIMS, and overseas universities and research institutions.

He is also advocating for the activities to be based at a selected university in Jamaica and accompanied by appropriate research-driven education in the form of post-graduate degree programmes in Hydroinformatics.

What Baker is sensibly suggesting is a two-pronged approach of making the pilot project the beginning of a research-based programme while ensuring that we keep close to home soil, in the beginning anyway, the people with the skills needed to drive its further development.

We could in time be a centre where expertise in water management/hydroinformatics is continuously developed and sourced.

This is the sort of forward thinking that our political leaders must adopt. Any word on this, Dr Chang, Dr Tufton?

Will the puzzle be unravelled?

The JLP administration is under pressure to explain itself, its mother, Dudus and why birds fly. If it is honest enough to itself it will admit that it was the one with the paint brush and the pan of green paint. If it allows itself much time to think it will come to another of the early conclusions that it had mapped out the four corners of the room but after painting the floor, with not much assistance from others, it was the one who painted himself into the corner across from the only door in the room.

The matter of attorney-at-law Harold Brady — former JLP politician and no enemy to the present regime — the American law firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips and a contract which was or wasn’t — reminds me of the maze at Hope Gardens when I was a little child.

I just could never find my way out, until good behaviour gave way to vandalism, and a hole appeared to create a shortcut to discovery and an escape from the maze. It was no fun after that.

As far as I know Brady is a specialist in company law and he has needed skills in the telecoms side of it.

I am not going to defend the Government because I am certain it has its lawyers poring over the puzzle that is the present matter. The Opposition PNP has attempted to make a link between the Dudus extradition issue and contracts which it alluded to were entered into for the purpose of seeking foreign legal assistance in the extradition proceedings. Let us for a moment buy the PNP’s piece of the puzzle.

If we buy it, would it make good sense to use Brady, as they said, as a conduit to this end? Why not a good criminal lawyer? What real assistance could he give in representing the Government’s side to those who the PNP say were being recruited to assist in the proceedings? Is Jamaica that short of good criminal lawyers?

But the Government has said its piece.

Let us accept that in-between a damn lie and the gospel truth, the expansive belly of public opinion is what easily fits in the middle. Based on rumours associated with the Dudus extradition request and rumours of who he was or is supposed to be associated with, one person told me at a bar I stopped at, that a cousin of a friend knew somebody (who purports to know Dudus) who drank there, so it must mean that I am associated with him.

Somebody knows somebody who knows somebody and, as a result, someone is going to fill that expansive belly that sucks in misinformation.

Sometimes I feel as if I am in that Hope Gardens maze again.

There is no ‘Typical Jamaican’

We, myself included, have all been guilty of assuming that somehow there is someone called the ‘typical Jamaican’.

It would be good if we could move away from the stereotyped caricature of a human being as seen by former Singapore leader Lee Kwan Yew. In an excerpt from page 364 (Chapter 22: Inside the Commonwealth Club) of his book, From Third World To First, he said:

“At Kingston, Jamaica, in April 1975, Prime Minister Michael Manley, a light-skinned West Indian, presided with panache and spoke with great eloquence. But I found his views quixotic. He advocated a ‘redistribution of the world’s wealth’. His country was a well-endowed island with several mountains in the centre, where coffee and other subtropical crops were grown. They had beautiful holiday resorts built by Americans as winter homes. Theirs was a relaxed culture. The people were full of song and dance, spoke eloquently, danced vigorously, and drank copiously. Hard work they left behind with slavery.”

I find it not only odd but extremely embarrassing that in the 1960s Jamaica was poised to take off economically, ahead of other named countries, yet close to 50 years later, in the Caribbean region, Jamaica is rated 21st of 24 selected countries in terms of our GNP per capita. Plus, we are still dancing. In the streets and, for the last 20 years at least, in government.

I never spit in the streets, urinate against light posts and I find that I cannot throw even a chewing gum wrapper on the floor. It goes into my pocket and is only discarded when I reach home. Many Jamaicans do that too, just as too high a percentage of us have no civic pride. Which of us is the typical Jamaican?

I actually hate watching a game of dominoes. Does that mean I am not a ‘typical’ Jamaican?

If, however, I am on the streets of New York and I should hear someone say, “Mi ago guh inna di supermarket fi buy one dozen hegg,” I am tempted to say that is a typical Jamaican.

There are some of us who know absolutely nothing about how other people across the social divide eat, sleep, wake, laugh and bear pain. I am not making reference to getting into one’s neighbour’s living room. I am instead talking about the difference in social understanding that is the distance between here and the moon.

The typical Jamaican is very untypically so. Too many uptowners believe that all it takes to be ‘roots’ is attendance at Passa Passa. To the newly rich ‘downtowner’ it takes more than the purchase of a shih-tzu to make ones introduction to uptown.

We are typically different but at times, depending on the situation — especially if we live abroad — we are proud to call ourselves the typical Jamaican.

Laugh and live longer

In last Sunday’s column, in one of the segments titled, “Top-class Jamaican products and the Commoner”, I made mention of certain Jamaican products that I considered exceptional in quality. As a result some companies have responded by offering me free samples of their products.

One company sent me five cases of their product while another sent me a sizeable array of stuff I never even wrote about. One company which I never mentioned in the column called and asked me to sample their main product.

Had I known that this would have happened I would have written about Cialis and Viagra. In typical Jamaican macho fashion I would not have required more than what could easily have fitted in the trunk of my small car. Additionally, I could have utilised the column to write about Mercedes-Benz and maybe a developer building townhouses in Cherry Gardens. Not being a greedy man, I would not have required more than one of each.

With apologies to the late, great American comedian Groucho Marx, in the near future whenever the Miss Jamaica World contest comes around I will be writing favourable things about the most beautiful girls among the finalists.

Last week, the following political joke made the rounds:

A woman in a hot air balloon realised she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground, elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.”

The balloonist rolled her eyes and said to the man, “You must be Bruce Golding.”

“I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help to me.”

At which point the man smiled and said, “Ah, you must be Portia Simpson Miller.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?”

“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you are going. You’ve risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it’s my fault.”

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