Paul H. Williams, Sunday Gleaner Writer
Lush bamboo foliage as seen from Bath Fountain Hotel and Spa. - Photo by Paul Williams
When you want to get your favourite bath, for whatever reason, you head east, where there is water everywhere, hot and cold. In the eastern parish of St. Thomas, there is a place called Bath! But, Bath is an irony; it is in dire need of a bath, to cleanse the stagnation that cloaks this beautiful rustic village.
Though there is now no sign of it, Bath used to be the playground of Jamaica's landed gentry, and Europe's rich and famous. Sir Henry Morgan himself was a frequent visitor.
The village was established along the banks of the Plantain Garden River, in the early 1700s, after the discovery of hot springs further in the interior.
The springs became famous for their healing and therapeutic properties, and Bath was now the haunt for the aristocracy. One piece of literature said, "In short, from a destitute and desolate rural area, Bath grew into a rendezvous for the polite and social amusement for the most privileged."
Today, it is back to where it was, a village inhabited by the poor and the unknown; a village neglected and forgotten; and the residents are crying out for help. However, their cries seem to be muffled by Bath's breathtaking scenery: crystal-clear streams, majestic mountains, and lush green vegetation.
Bereft of social infrastructure, training and employment opportunities, proper housing and other amenities - as many other communities in Jamaica are - the village does not have much to offer to its residents, especially the youths. They themselves cannot offer anything to the village. They don't have the wherewithal. So, by day, Bath lazes around, and at night, it sleeps eternal sleep.
Rough to live
On a visit to the community, recently, The Sunday Gleaner spoke with residents about the state of the village. Two women were livid as they explained how rough it was to live from day to day with no prospect of employment. One of them swore to beat, with her bare hands, any politician who ventured into the area seeking votes. In anger, she pointed to her son, who washes vehicles to send himself to school. And speaking of politicians, they said they have seen their Member of Parliament, Dr. Fenton Ferguson, only once since 2002, when he was campaigning.
Before that, around 1995, a campaign of another sort was embarked upon to revive the village. Mr. Devon Blake, of the Jamaica Sustainable Development Network Ltd. (JSDN), a not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation, "did a needs assessment and a development plan for the Bath community. The documents were commissioned by Dr. Ferguson, who had a vision of Bath as the tourism centre of St. Thomas. The plan called for the installation of various infrastructure, training of all categories of workers, empowering of community organisations such as PTAs - human resource development, farmers' co-ops, agriculture and agro-processing, sports clubs - sports and health and culture."
In reference to the plan, a JSDN web page said Bath was "now on its way to ne with a development plan, with a price tag of $1.7 billion. The town is being reconstructed: a new bridge is being built; a multi-purpose centre costing over $9 million; a small farmers' cooperative with assets of $9 million; the Bath Botanical Gardens is to be upgraded; and, the Bath Fountain Hotel and Spa are being refurbished. Bath is poised to take off as a major tourist resort."
Waiting for fulfilled promises
Well, 11 years after, Bath is still idling on the tarmac of promises, waiting for the pilot of fulfilment. The only visible evidence of this 'take off' is the new bridge and the Tourism Product Development Company-operated Bath Fountain Hoteland Spa. The property, which offers employment to a few residents, is a lovely place to unwind and be as one with nature.
Nestled in a valley at the foothills, an ideal getaway it is. The only building in the area, it is surrounded by dew-bedecked plants and bamboo trees that sway to the songs of birds and dance to the music of the wind. The Sulphur River hums a lullaby below. The hotel and spa offer many services at reasonable rates. According to Easton Green, Gleaner driver, the curried goat is good, the conch soup 'orgasmic'. And the chicken soup? Well, if you are hungry, it tastes very nice.
Sick of tin mackerel
But the residents at Bath would love to have some of that nice chicken soup. One young man said he was sick and tired of eating "tin (canned) mackerel and rice". His face contorted with grief as he lamented the desperate circumstances that the youths in Bath and beyond are going through. Another, who claimed he had five CXC subjects, and wants to be an architect, is employed, but in a job which any graduate of Miss Green's basic school could do.
This seems to be the cry of the youths in this farming village - where it is not easy to acquire farming lands: absolutely nothing to do after leaving high school. Those who continue their education outside of Bath do not return to stay for obvious reasons. "Most of the people dem go to town to look job because from you leave school, you go college a town ... This community yah, it push out a lot a good people, but the people them never look to come back," explained a high-school graduate, when asked about the future of young people residing in Bath. He continued, "There is no factory, no job, nothing to do."
That is perhaps why they compete strongly with the hotel for visitors to the area. Daily, they gather at the foot of the hills, hoping to be lucky. They escort visitors up the steep and sometimes slippery hillside and across the river, into which piping hot sulphuric water flows. They provide all sorts of services for which they are given money, the amount of which is directly stated, or negotiated by 'provider' and 'customer'.
Breadfruit festival
When The Sunday Gleaner spoke with Mr. Blake about the 1995 plans, he said: "Based on my observation, the bridge was built. The multi-purpose centre was erected, but not furnished as stated in the plan. There is a Bath Community Council and there was a Bath Farmers' Co-operative ... Also coming out of the plan was an annual breadfruit festival.
"No funds were ever allocated to ensure the success of the plan. One of the main planks of the plan was to empower an executive agency by giving them financial support to execute the plan. This was not done and so the promise of showcasing what a community working together could do was never realised."
It is believed that "partisan politics was the main cause of the plan not going any further. The community was suspicious and the plan was not aired to the general public."
Simply put: The residents want employment, and the establishment of social, health, and training facilities. For some, the only thing they have is the rain upon their tongue; some can't even find soap to have a proper bath! They need "development, proper water system, proper road, proper lighting". One man was quick to point out that "we around here, we definitely want work fi wiself. Wi nuh actually need a gift, we work for what we want, more jobs, more development". He had a very interesting suggestion to ease the "suffering".
He said there were too many churches in Bath, churches that were not offering much to the community. He wants them to be converted into factories. There was not one dissenting voice to this rather irreligious proposal. But he might want to bounce it off Prime Minister Simpson Miller when on May 23, she visits Bath Botanical Gardens, the national Labour Day project.
