The children of Harrison Town can now enjoy watching television. - Ian AllenBy Avia Ustanny, Staff Reporter
THE LIGHTS came on in Harrison Town one Friday night in October.
With the flip of a switch the 13 homes comprising this Clar-endon district of reddish dirt, near Milk River, came out of the darkness and into the 21st century. Until then, electricity had never lighted their paths.
The light, turned on by Jeff Bonnick, director of distribution systems at the Jamaica Public Service (JPSCo), now shines on a curious mix of misery and elation.
"Oh it is wonderful," said 62-year-old Neita Rodney, wife of a cane cutter and mother of nine.
"We have some nice Christian cassette to play and couldn't get to play. I plan to start a little something to help pay the light bill."
She also plans to get a refrigerator sometime in the future.
"When I buy meat and I have leave over, I have to brown it. Sometimes it spoil. I don't have a 'fridge yet, but when I get a little money I plan to go and trus' one."
Yet in addition to the delight of residents and the appearance of easy plug-in electrical outlets that have replaced kerosene oil lamps and battery-operated radios, electricity has also unmasked the poverty of the community.
The broad, pitted, red dirt track which passes for the main road (it's easier to drive on the bank than on the road) leads to mainly one-room houses, though a few are as big as two bedrooms. Not one among them is completely rendered and painted. Their unfinished state reflect the status of the residents.
Vinnette Piper, sitting under the shade of the tree beside a blue one-room house, is surrounded by three of her 11 surviving children and some of her 23 grandchildren. She welcomes the advent of electricity but doesn't have the money to buy the comforts and convenience of the new millennium.
"I have a daughter at college and one at nursing school, and sometimes we can't even find food to eat," said the 57-year-old.
Pauline Forbes, one of her daughters, shed light on life before electricity.
"We light innya was peenie wallie and bottle lamp," she said. "When night time come, the children who gone to high school, we have to go to street mouth and way lay (wait for) them. We don't want people way lay them and kill them.
"Some of them eye sick (studying) through the lamp," added her mother.
"Mr. Junior Bailey (counsellor for the area) come mek we get light. Write him down," instructed Miss. Forbes.
According to another daughter, Elaine Forbes;
"The pickney dem glad for the light for them can watch TV everyday."
"They go to the neighbour and when you call them them don't want to come. Them crying."
Miss Piper who said that she "walk and wash clothes and throw pardner and send the children to school", says that she plans to pay for her light bill in the same way.
Devon Boucher, a community spokesperson told The Gleaner that "The financial is difficult, but everybody have on meter. Many of us are unemployed. Now we can do little things like mechanic, dressmaking... the youth in the area are talented. They can do mechanic and woodwork.
"By 7, 8 o'clock we used to in bed, but now we play dominoes and Ludo under the street light.
"What we looking for now is a water system. We do not have any road, but we want water because many empty land are here and we can ketch crop and plant vegetables."
Harrison Town is fairly near to the Moneymusk cane factory and New Yarmouth Banana Estate which employ some of its citizens. But they cannot employ everyone and some residents say they have never earned their own wages since leaving school.
In the meantime, JPSCo's rural electrification programme is working to bring almost 20,000 households across the island that have never received electricity, out of the dark.
