RODNEY Lee has been selling his world famous Janga soup in Castleton, St Mary, since quitting his mechanic job some 41 years ago and he has no regrets.

The 71-year-old St Mary native, who has procured a living from the spoils of his labour, told the Jamaica Observer North and East that he became tired of working for others.

“One day mi just decide seh mi a go look something to survive from. Mi stop do mechanic work for the Englishman; I was doing it from I was 14. I worked for him for 17 years and mi just get fed up and decide seh mi a leave the work and go back home,” Lee said.

“Mi come home and nuh have nothing fi do so mi just seh ‘cho mi a go start something on the street’. So mi start plant some food and raise some animal —pigs and goats — and mi just start sell on the street until one day I reach this spot. Mi ask Mr Bentley, the managing director for Castleton Gardens, if him can give me a space to sell on the street. Him seh him will talk to mi ’bout it so mi fi come back and carry mi table. Him seh ‘stay right here suh and sell what yuh selling. Keep di place clean and mi nuh want nuh ganja on the compound. When tourist come mi nuh want yuh rush them; make them come to you’,” Lee added.

The soup vendor, known affectionately as ‘Soupy’, said his hustle, though small, was what paid for his first house and he theorised that he would not be able to “achieve” this if he was still working for the Englishman.

“It helpful still; it nuh big but small morsel thankful receive. Mi sell until mi decide seh mi a go buy one piece of land with one little old house until it break down and mi start to build something new. By mi finish build it one of mi sons seh, ‘bwoy daddy mi nuh live nowhere enuh so mi can live inna di house?’ Mi seh take it man and mi build another one after selling some more,” the father of four said.

Lee explained that business has become slow but that the key to surviving is to live within one’s means.

“… Because of the amount you earn, you nuh put yourself out of the way fi buy 10lbs of chicken fi cook. You can buy a pound or pound and a half to cook because is that you can afford. And one thing in life, learn fi use up what you have. Nuh grudge di other person for what him or she have; use up what you have and give God thanks. Mi nuh regret it, but mi get tired now. Mi want fi go raise some chicken now,” the small businessman said.

Along with his talked about Janga soup, Lee sells the usual Jamaican favourites: red peas with pig’s tail; chicken foot; cow skin; chicken neck; beef; and cow cod.

“I want tell you something: I think in the whole Jamaica me is the first one start to sell janga soup. People come here and enjoy it and dem go back and start to inquire how them can get some shrimps and them start to cook it,” he boasted.

The soup specialist, at the same time, would not divulge his secret ingredients.

“Mi can’t tell you what I put in there; it’s a secret,” he said with a broad grin.

“Mi cook that soup so long that I can come here and you blindfold me and mi can still cook it because mi know exactly what and what to go in it. Most places you go now and see people running down janga soup and people fighting over it, I did it first,” said Lee.

He proclaimed that the soup, also known as crayfish soup, is the fastest-selling soup in the island.

“If you cook meat soup and mi cook Janga soup, when mi done two pots of janga soup, your soup nuh half yet,” the confident man said, adding that he also does small catering when the opportunity arises.

“Things nuh nice like before, though. Now, you have too much covetousness, badmind and grudgeful and envious people. It mek di system go down; it nuh nice like back in the 70s when mi just start out and people used to live good with one another.”