Tyrone Reid, Enterprise Reporter
Daphne Wright, a 73-year-old shop operator who lives in Rae Town in Kingston, says she does not want to leave her community she just desires to see it return to its former glory. - Ricardo Makyn/Staff Photographer
Rae Town residents are poor, but not in spirit. Despite living in a visibly impoverished ghetto community, most of the people of this popular area in Kingston have no desire to change their community, just their circumstance.
Meet Natakia McKenzie, a 12-year-old graduate of St. George's Girls' School, who will be enrolling in Camperdown High School this September. Her father was brutally murdered last year. When asked of the date of her dad's demise, the bright young girl in a fluent tone that suggested she had memorised it said, "November 8th, 2005."
When asked how her father died she replied, "Robbed, stabbed and shot" in his home just a stones throw away from where we were standing on an avenue called Fisher's Rowe.
Still, young Miss McKenzie does not desire to spend her childhood years anywhere else. She said the community spirit is what makes her want to stay. "The things that we do ... having stage shows, parties, dance ... " said Miss McKenzie.
Forty-two-year-old Joan Facey is also numbered among the faithfuls who refuse to leave the place she has called home for the last 32 years. "You have to stick to the evil weh you know 'bout...," she insisted.
They do not want to leave but neither do they want to continue to live in a dilapidated community. So, they are crying out for some much needed development to take place in their community.
Change of address
On the other hand, Norma Blair, 51, expressed interest in changing her address. "I want to move out because I live in a big yaad ... I don't have toilet and bathroom for my personal self, we have to share," she said.
She took The Gleaner on a trek through a little track that led to the 14-house tenement setting where she lived. Most of the houses are Food for the Poor units, as fire destroyed the original structures some years ago. Miss Blair is a mother of three children, ages 18, 13 and 7, who all live with her in the one-oom house.
When asked to affirm how difficult it was to make it from day to day, Ms Blair, with a hiss of the teeth said, "You see it, ah jus me and dem (her children)".
While wanting to leave the community because of personal discomfort, Miss Blair lauded the positive attitude with which the members of her community face the hardships life throws at them.
"It is a ghetto but is not everybody is really living the ghetto life, (be)cause I'm not living it. Definitely, I'm not living it. I am living above it," she stressed.
The outspoken Miss Blair continued: "Most of the people, ninety-eight (98) per cent of them are trying ... because there is nothing that is uptown that you can't find in a house here and you have people here that is in good jobs ... we have Customs (Officer) here ..."
"If you enter into that yard you find everything in there even AC (air-condition)," she added.
Violence
Joseph Bodden, a 57-year-old, Fisherman, told The Gleaner that a lot has changed in the community over the years. One of the changes is the sporadic violence that shatters the community's togetherness every time it raises its ugly head.
He also revealed that while there has not been much structural change, the occupants of the community have changed drastically.
He disclosed that in his days as a young boy many moons ago, Rae Town was inhabited by mostly Caucasians. But, that has changed too. "Some dead and some around same way enuh," he said nonchalantly.
However, the talk of Rae Town is the weekly oldies session. Every Sunday people from near and far flock to the poor community to bask in what many deem to be Rae Town's richest treasure. Miss Blair, classified the weekly sessions as a source of development. "You might hear about Rae Town's oldies but goodies...and this has been in progress for 28 years and it is now in the Guinness Book of Records and things like that," she said with much pride.
