ALLIGATOR Pond, Manchester – A relaxed Evrol “Blackie” Christian was looking out to sea, munching on the last of his lunch, when the Jamaica Observer visited his Little Ochie seafood restaurant last Wednesday.

“Down to zero,” he said with a rueful smile, when asked how business was going in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Christian was quick to add, however, that he was thankful Little Ochie was still open for business, though only averaging about six customers per day.

That’s a far cry from just a few weeks ago when every day scores of people would come to eat, drink, and relax at the world-famous seaside restaurant and bar.

“I have to give God thanks. We are doing six [customers] on a daily basis and I want to tell Jamaica now that we still open and practising all the [recommended social distancing and sanitising] measures,” said Christian.

Up to the weekend, COVID-19 had caused eight deaths in Jamaica, drastically altered people’s lives, closed down tourism and air travel, as well as schools, entertainment centres, churches; and generally reduced business activity to a crawl. Thousands of people have lost their jobs.

A spike of infections at a business processing outsourcing (BPO) centre in St Catherine forced the Government to enforce a 24-hour shutdown in that parish for 17 days, which ended on Friday. A 12-hour nightly curfew is still in place nationwide.

The labour-intensive BPO sector has also been severely restricted.

Globally, more than 200,000 people are said to have died from the novel coronavirus which originated late last year in Wuhan, China. There have been in excess of three million infections globally, reports say.

Last Wednesday, Christian was philosophical as he discussed the impact of the health disaster on his business which started back in 1989 when he was still a teenager, selling fried fish, dumplings and mint tea to fishermen at dawn just before they left for sea.

“Yu understand the situation but at the same time yu cant mek [it] override you,” he said as he reflected on COVID-19 and its impact. “But you realise things not going to be the same and yu have to deal with it day by day. As it stands, I don’t think yu can put in any major planning until yu see a little light in the tunnel…,” he added.

For Christian, a plus is that he had significantly reduced stocks of fish, lobster, and other marine delicacies leading up to the onset of COVID-19 in late February to early March.

“Coming round to Lent we would have used up storage but we also got an indication of what was coming to us, so we were very careful. I don’t think anybody in this industry had any great storage in place, we saw it coming…,” he said.

At business peak, Little Ochie Restaurant and Bar employs in excess of 40 people. Now, Christian said, a “rotation” strategy was being used to allow everybody “to get a little taste”.

While recognising the value of the Government’s strategy to shut down activity – while urging people to stay home – in order to slow down the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus, Christian said the time was fast approaching to change tack.

“Yu can’t tell a man to stay at home when him hungry, when him have five pickney fi feed. Yu can’t cover the whole pot, yu haffi leave a little room for steam to come out of the pot. It too pressuring…,” he said.

Christian nevertheless, said visitors to Alligator Pond were pleased with the recent resurfacing of a mile of road entering the quaint fishing village in south Manchester, close to the border with St Elizabeth.

“Just as our MP [Michael Stewart] put out all the energy and get the road fix, is the same time the impact of corona [began to be felt]…But now we [at least] have a stretch of good road coming in one mile…,” he said.

He noted that recent water problems caused by a National Water Commission (NWC) pump failure had also been resolved.

Just a little over a hundred metres down the beach from Little Ochie, fisherfolk were also giving thanks despite the ravages of COVID-19.

Just arrived in his small, near-shore boat from visiting his fish pots at Alligator Reef, nine miles out to sea, Lloyd Robinson, also called Breda Lloyd, showed off his meagre catch.

“Nuh laugh,” he said, as he opened his small, less than half-full container of fish, large and small, even as potential customers gathered round.

“Weh mi catch can hardly pay fi mi gas but mi still haffi try because mi have family to take care of, wife and pickney…,” he said.

He lamented that there was not enough support for fishermen for while they had to pay a licence fee, there was no insurance to provide even a minimal level of security.

A short walk away, Patricia Simmonds, “Miss Watt”, who scales and cleans fish, said a visit a few days earlier by a television crew had helped – making it known to all that people at Alligator Pond are still selling fish.

“We see little changes, one or two people coming,” said Simmonds. “Before that, fisherman catch fish and we nuh see no buyer. And me the scaler, a whole heap a customer me have and me couldn’t see none [any customers]…but thank God mi a see one or two a dem now…” she added.

“Mi a hard-core scraper, scraping mi love…,” Simmonds explained. “My customers keep mi alive and well. Sometimes mi charge like $50 a pound [to scale fish] and sometimes, fi mi good customer dem, mi nuh badda charge dem – dem just pay me…,” she said with a laugh.

Shay Murray, who buys fish from the boatmen then retails to visitors at $650 per pound for “high quality” and $350 for “lower quality”, said social distancing has brought swift changes to how business is done.

“We can’t socialise with customers like one time…,” she said. “We haffi dress back five feet as the prime minister is saying…but business going on. We trying to keep the place in good order…and when the customer come and see yu in the mask they feel more comfortable to buy we fish…people not coming as fast as use to be the case, but we going on,” said Murray.