MONTEGO BAY, St James — On Easter Monday a young mother of three received a good-natured cussing from her customers at Retirement dump. Long before noon the fried fish she sold from the trunk of her car ran out, and they wanted more. If they wished, she could offer them bun and cheese, and other snacks. Her shop, after all, is well stocked.

The car is also a bed for her one-year-old daughter when it’s time for a nap. Her other children, boys aged seven and three, find items at the dump to keep themselves entertained.

“Put that down, baby,” the mother, who asked not to be identified by name, gently admonished the three-year-old who obediently dropped a grungy plastic tube of what one can only hope was harmless lotion oozing from the opening.

The stench from the dump enters the nostrils with each breath and it lingers there. Fat, shiny black flies are constant — their wings creating an audible buzz as they cut through the rancid air. Scavenger birds circle above. Soaked from days of rain, the wet marl underfoot is heavy when it clings to footwear and treacherously slippery in some spots.

The conditions are far from ideal.

Yet, the 25-year-old woman traded in her job as a waitress in a hotel restaurant for a shot at being an entrepreneur. She’s at the dump six days a week. On Saturdays she observes the Sabbath.

“I just resigned my job last month and it’s been great… I didn’t have anybody to keep my kids so I resigned. This could have been better if I had more money. I would be able to buy more fish so that I could be able to supply the customers,” she told the Jamaica Observer, her demeanour immediately transformed.

Her head goes up a notch and her shoulders appear broader. She’s no longer just someone eking out a living at a dump site; she’s an aspiring business owner.

It’s not her first attempt at being an entrepreneur.

“After finishing [high school] I did chef, I did waitress, I did bartending. I did my PSRA [Private Security Regulation Authority], to get my security licence. I did a little sewing but I didn’t finish it. I’m a certified hairdresser; I have operated an entire salon. I did hair, nails, massage, and everything; I did facial. So I’m here now,” she said when asked about her professional background.

She thinks she’s finally found her calling this time — at the Retirement dump.

“I do fried fish, I do escovitch fish. I buy scrap metal, I buy bottle; sell cheese trix, juice, bun and cheese, etc,” she said.

Added to the income brought in from her husband who has been working at a nearby quarry, she is hoping they will soon have enough to buy a van. She has even bigger dreams.

“I’ve always wanted to be a business owner. That’s the reason I ventured off in so many skills because I wanted to see where it was more profitable for me to launch off. As for me, this is going good. Financial wise my profit is very good and it gives me time to be with my children. So in the next five years I think I will have more vehicles wherein I can put them on the road and still be doing what I’m doing,” she said, her voice steely with determination.

“I also want to open up a little fancy restaurant down the road. This community [Retirement] does not facilitate stuff like that, but I would like them to be able to dine. I am trying to get the land space, which they refuse to sell, so I’m looking somewhere where I’ll be able to do this and also be selling,” she added.

Vending is not banned at the dump. In fact, head of the National Solid Waste Management Authority Audley Gordon told the Observer on Tuesday that he saw the young woman selling her products during his last visit to the Retirement dump.

“I just see it as part and parcel of just trying to eke out a living in a very tough situation,” he said.

— Charmaine N Clarke