DESPITE the devastation that Hurricane Melissa brought to sections of St Elizabeth, roadside shrimp vendor Carolyn Lewis Morris says she is still managing to make a living, one bag at a time.

Sitting by her usual spot at a section of the main road in Middle Quarters, St Elizabeth, she told the
Jamaica Observer that with the increased traffic of passing motorists and relief workers heading to the worst-hit communities in the west to deliver aid, she’s been able to continue her business.

“Me decide say, with how much me pay for the box of shrimps, I can’t really dash weh that. I can’t really make that go down the drain, so me come out the Thursday [after the storm] and me sell. Me come out the Friday and me sell again, and a so me come out until the shrimp them done,” said Lewis Morris.

“Shrimps a weh me sell for a living, so anywhere them deh me affi source it. A gentleman around the road…is him I get the shrimps from, so every day now. I can’t buy as much as I usually buy because I don’t have [a] fridge…me just go buy one box of shrimps from him, parch it today, and sell it.

“If it’s done early in the morning, I take away myself and go [to] my yard, me nah be too greedy. Anything me sell for the day, a just me; me done early yesterday [last Tuesday]. I finished after 12 o’clock, and weh me do? Me go a me yard. I could easy well go buy one next box and come cotch, but me nah be too greedy,” she told the Sunday Observer.

The vendor said she started selling shrimps on the roadside more than 20 years ago when she moved from Kingston to St Elizabeth.

“Me never really have nothing much to do and me see my sister a sell, and she give me two pound and say, ‘Gwaan try something.’ I realised [that] when I sell it I see money and the money can do a lot of things, so I just continued from there,” she shared.

However, she did take a break from the shrimp business eight years ago. She explained that it was due to religious reasons after she got baptised, but she started up again three years after she’d stopped.

“I have to do what I have to do to make a living. I know [that] if I wait on God’s time, [it’s] the right time. The Bible said to ask and it shall be given and seek and you shall find, so me seek for the shrimp and me find the shrimp, so me continue with the shrimp. I have to eat, and me nuh know what else to do. A this me know fi do,” she reasoned, a small smile playing on her lips.

As she looked around the damaged community of Middle Quarters, Morris said she is thankful that she is alive and was not as affected as her neighbours. She shared that, thankfully, she lives in a concrete structure that was not blown away by the wind, but her shop, which she built a few steps away from where she sells shrimps, was damaged. She said she built the structure to bring in another source of income.

“The shop, that can come a next time, because all me a consider about, to tell the living truth, is just the people. Me nah go have no food to sell until such time, so me nah put me agenda on this shop. Me ago get it repaired, yes, but not immediately, because [it is] ground provisions that I sell, and you know, ground provisions a go take a while to come back. Even if you can source it, it’s a hill and a mountain for it, so me just a kind of hold off on it,” she told the Sunday Observer.

Morris admitted that she did not take the storm seriously, but is lifting her hands and thanking God that he brought her through it. Still, she grieves with the people of western Jamaica who were not so fortunate.

“I [went to] Santa [Cruz] on [last week] Saturday, and when me a look on the place and see all of the damage, oh my God. The water settled in my eye and cah drop out. I don’t feel it for myself because I consider [that] I don’t get nuh damage, because I am still in my bed, no wet, dry. When you look and see house flat, the water in my eye and cah come out. Me heart just a bleed for the people them, trust me,” she said, her voice filled with emotion.

She encouraged relief workers and Jamaicans looking to help to look out for one another, particularly the elderly who might be shut-ins and unable to seek the necessary resources for themselves.

In the wake of Hurricane Melissa, Carolyn Lewis Morris is grateful to still be able to sell shrimp by the roadside in Middle Quarters, St Elizabeth.