These are photos of the life of a St. Bess family.  It could be any family in St. Elizabeth, but it is mine.

One day I will tell you the stories of my cousins.  They are a rainbow of colour in their characters; men with strong shoulders, easy smiles and dedication to their children and women who have toiled with love and determination to feed and provide for their children side by side with their life mates or on their own in their abandonment.  One day I will share.  But not today.  Today the photographs will tell all.

Looking out on the garden from the porch

There is a lane in a village up a hill and out of the way in St. Elizabeth.  In that lane there are several houses and fields of crop between them.  One or two of these houses have electricity, brought by wires run through the hills from the village.  The electricity is very weak and flickers every time you plug in the kettle or the iron or anything really.  But there is no need for air conditioning here.  Here you smell the cool and deep inhales and exhales of the mountain spiced with rosemary, thyme and scallions.

The Mountain in the kitchen

There is a mountain in the kitchen.  The house was built into the mountain but this particular stubborn piece just would not be moved.  In the really cold mornings the mountain sweats.  In heavy rain the water seeps in.  But hey, if you can’t move it DECORATE IT!

Mid-morning snack

A piece of fruit cake and coffee.  MMMMMMM!

Water Truck

For homes without a tank the need to call for water is very real.  We sat on the porch and my cousin told me she’s so glad we don’t need to pay out for water any more!  The tank holds all they need and rain comes, thankfully, frequently enough to fill the garden tank as well as the house tanks.  The tank is filled with fresh and clean rain water and everything we eat is cooked with it, our clothes are washed with it, and we bathe and wash our hands in it.

Running the hose to the house

The freshly ploughed red earth of St. Elizabeth

Red dirt rich in bauxite and rejecting nothing is ploughed up by tractors and sowed with seed.  But there are great mysteries to farming.  For instance, the man down the street who plowed up what was once a carrot field and planted nothing but woke up one morning to a growing crop of callalloo.

Camped out on the front porch

Waiting for the kids to come home from school, I sat with my book, my pen, and my popsicle watching the breeze dance over the mountainside.

Walking home from school

Transportation is no easy thing.  Much walking is done in St. Bess as roads such as this country lane are steep and gouged out with water trails in rainy season.  Many an undercarriage has been torn up turning up this little lane.  To get to school my cousin walks to the end of the lane and takes a taxi.  Other taxis pick up primary school children like a bus and take sometimes 8 sometimes 10 little kids to school sitting on each other’s laps.

Good grades make Grandma proud

St. Elizabeth people value education and prize their educated.  Every family is proud of their doctors and their lawyers and the whole parish is proud of their esteemed such as Colin Powell, a man from Lover’s Leap.  Those who love farming will farm and those who do not must educate themselves out of it.  But there is great pride in every occupation as long as it is honest.

Little man asks his Aunty for tomatoes from the garden

Neighbours depend on each other and share their crops freely.  Little man has come to ask his Aunty for tomatoes please.

Tomatoes and cheesy chips - yum!

Driving trucks through the gate

Little boys will make toys out of anything!  This time two bucket covers are used as steering wheels and they jostle one another to “drive” through the “gate”.

Star apples get "nyamm" one by one

Little cousin and I follow a Johncrow's circling

As evening falls the sky seems to grow even bigger.  There is much peace to be had in the simplicity of St. Elizabeth.

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