Photo by Mario James
The intrepid travellers pose beside Edna Manley's 'Artisitic Impression of Paul Bogle'. Behind the statue are the charred remains of the Morant Bay courthouse, the site of the rebellion of 1865.

Mario James, Sunday Gleaner Writer

JAMAICA IS a fabulous place. Potentially, how great a place it is to live is lost on the best of us as we try to emulate a lifestyle that this land and our culture cannot support. Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan, on one of his visits to this beauteous, bountiful isle, said, "Jamaica is a place where if one spits on the ground, something grows."

It is a great pity then that most people living here do not take the opportunity to learn about the land and, by extension, themselves.

In times past, we would see families in their cars going to the beach or on road trips to visit some relative in the country. Even further back, when trains were running, it was commonplace to see major train stations - Catadupa, Linstead, Spanish Town, Buff Bay, Annotto Bay, Highgate, Balaclava - teeming with activity on a weekend, as fathers and mothers took their families on excursions islandwide. Friendships were forged and cemented on these trips, and a generation discovered just how beautiful the land really is.

Requests of relatives

Prompted by the requests of relatives visiting from overseas, I recently took my extended family on the road. We decided to tour the eastern side of the island. I decided to take them to Golden Grove, St Thomas, because I wanted them to see a water pump or storage facility for the sleepy town (back then it was, anyway) that I had worked on as a student engineer with Carib Engineering back in the late '80s.

So, we departed from the Lawrence Tavern environs in St Andrew, travelled down Constant Spring Road, made our way to Camp Road and picked up the highway to Harbour View.

Our first item of interest came upon us just after Bull Bay, where we saw Jack Mansong's marker. I then saw an opportunity to recount Clinton Black's History of Jamaica, embellished a bit and put a smattering of fear in the little ones. Whoever thought of putting "to this day" at the end of a scary story was a genius. It is better for children to control themselves than for restrictions to be placed on them by orders alone, I think. Days after, just the mere mention of 'Tree Finga Jack' after hours was enough to get the children to toe the line.

Adult debates

Morant Bay via Yallahs sparked adult debates on whether the bridge spanning the dust bowl of the Yallahs delta would stand the test of time. We saw the former Goodyear tyre factory in tatters, an effigy of its former self, and wondered about change, the one constant in the world. While nothing lasts for ever, that factory - closed in March 1997 - stands as a reminder of the effects of poor long-term planning. Morant Bay Courthouse also started a heated debate, which centred on the condition of the courthouse. Our moot was whether the courthouse should be restored or not. Destroyed by fire on February 19 last year, the structure is still in its dilapidated state.

Elderly man

As we approached the building, an elderly man asked our party if we wanted to see the shrine of Paul Bogle and George William Gordon. He was there as we drove up, looked as if he did this kind of thing all the time, and only asked for "a likkle sup'm". I laughed to myself, thinking about the ingenuity of Jamaicans and the drive for survival that is endemic to life. Here was a man, bent over with age and walking with a stick, yet he finds a way to be nattily dressed and is sharp enough to work a perfectly acceptable hustle, while just yards away youngsters are scratching for pocket change. Where did we make the wrong turn?

All this knowledge is here to be gleaned and shared. Discovery and National Geographic channels can't hold a candle to it when it is real, raw and in your face. A ship's rudder is in the stern of the boat, not the bow. Isn't it ironic that captains use a device in the back - the past - to chart a course for the front - the future? Only when we know who we are can we know what's good for us.

Next week: Golden Grove and beyond.