As So Much Cattle

The pillar of thick black smoke that rose above the highway camp, although completely unexpected, was unsurprising to me as I rounded one of the many bends between Tryall and the near side of Sandy Bay. At this point, I was still nine kilometers from the end of my morning commute, and at the first location where I could spy the thirty meter tall cement tower and the balance of the compound, on the point of land the maps designate simply as Pointe.

Sure, I was unsurprised (that is my island mantra, “I’m not surprised”), yet I was mildly disturbed. If the camp were to be burned to the ground, the day’s efforts would become more challenging. While the machines get backed up regularly, the paper records would certainly be damaged, and to recreate three years of project documentation would be just slightly more than annoying.

With each bend along the coast, I was a little nearer to the office, and I could get another brief glimpse of the goings on at Pointe. The plume of smoke was still rising, and my irk was turning to ire. Something like this was sure to be intentional, and I quickly ran down the list of suspects.

Top of the list,... the contractor. He would not be the first one to torch a poorly performing project. He certainly had unfettered access to the site. He was well aware of what would burn. He had little to gain by continuing his efforts here.
Of course, labor had to be disgruntled by the way they were let go, with little warning and no future prospects. They, too, knew what would burn, and site access was as easy as bribing one of the underpaid guards at the gate. Hell, storming the gates would not be far fetched, considering previous mob actions associated with this project.

Third on the list, the JLP (Jamaica Labour Party). If this project fails, they are one step closer to regaining control of the government, as the inability to construct the highway would be (and already is) a huge embarrassment to the current party in power, the PNP (Peoples National Party). Considering the level of ultra-violence that surrounds the national elections on their five year cycles, and the rapidly diminishing popularity of the JLP, I would not put it past the party irregulars to resort to such flamboyant tactics.

With each kilometer, the Dogwagon seemed to squeak and rattle with a greater sense of urgency. I have had projects go down in flames before, but it was always in a figurative sense. If this one were to go up in literal flames, I wanted pictures. I knew that, once I made it through the cut up the hill on the west side of Mosquito Cove, I would be able to see the entire compound, and could start planning my photo locations.

But when I got to that point, the angle of the smoke was not quite right. While still rising from the center of the compound, it seemed to be a little in front of where the flammables were supposed to be. The plume seemed too small as well; not nearly the magnitude of smoke that I imagined would be spewing from a Navy Surplus triple-wide engulfed in a tropical conflagration.

Less than half a klick from the gate, I located the object of such concern and imagination. Just another flaming cow. The second this month. I guess there would be a day’s work after all.

For a variety of reasons, local beef prices are depressed. I have heard that there is a(n unfounded) fear of mad cow disease pervasive here. While this may account for some of the lack of demand, the fact that there have been absolutely zero reported cases of angry cows makes me think that there are other factors involved.
If I had to speculate, I would say that the reason for the low demand for beef is that the local beef tastes really bad.

As there are no expansive grain farms on Jamaica, grain which could be fed to these cattle, many of the beasts are free range, living off whatever scrub they can forage. This results in a steak with little fat whatsoever, and with no difference in taste or texture from the inside of the cow to the outside. There are large ranches on the south coast, where cane waste is sometimes used as a feed supplement, but we do not see that beef on this side of the island.

On the north coast, free range is almost an understatement. Unpenned cattle are everywhere, crossing the roads in the country in small groups, cow/calf combinations on the shoulders, entire herds sleeping on the beach in Sandy Bay or in the middle of the Freeport roundabout. It is a wonderment that more of them do not meet their fates at the front ends of Ladas.

There are government pounds, where the aforementioned wayward bovines, once rounded up, are detained until such time as their owners come to bail them out. However, I have heard that a few weeks' charge of room and board for a cow quickly surpass its value, so farmers do not pay the ransom, the pounds stay full, and no further cows are detained.

The value of cattle is so low that it makes no economic sense to even repair the pasture fences. The cattle roam free, and eventually end up on the roads, where they spend the nights sleeping on the asphalt, which still radiates heat from the day before, and where they occasionally meet their demise as 500 kilo hood ornaments on the ubiquitous Russian sedans.

As in the States, it usually falls on the public works people to clean up the roadkill carcasses. With limited resources, the public works departments here are a bit more, how shall we say,... creative. Small beasts are usually left to the ravages of traffic and, once suitably tenderized, carrion. Mid-sized dead things are scooped up if in town, or tossed into the bush if in the country. Cows are big animals, and large equipment and disposal sites are scarce, so they usually get pushed to the shoulder, covered with four to six old radial tires, doused with diesel fuel, and set afire.

The column of smoke I had witnessed that morning was not caused by malice, but was performed as a public health service. On my commute the next day I saw only a scorched patch of earth, a big charred pelvis, and a twisted pile of steel belts where the barbeque had been.

The project was in the same state of uncertainty as it had been the morning before.

Not quite a large dead thing yet, but sleeping on the highway was a move in that direction. Better have a couple of tires around, just in case. Read More......

Project Status

Even with the project stalled, stopped on the shoulder, transmission in park, headlights dimmed, emergency brake engaged, the one working indicator flashing, bonnet raised, white rag tied to the car pole, left front tire nothing but scattered steel belts since he drove the damn thing for the last seventeen kilometers on a flat, rim destroyed, no spare, out of washer fluid, driver leaning on the fender sucking his last Marlboro down to the filter, pissed off passengers sitting on the right-of-way fence having spent the last two hours unsuccessfully trying to flag down a ride while continually deriding the jerk of an operator who swore he had a good spare in the boot, twenty-three kilometers from the nearest town, sun is going down and everybody is tired and hungry,... we are still hosting weekly progress meetings with the Contractor.

Of course, after a couple of months of idleness, there is no progress on which to report. We go through the motions, though, and the meetings give us regular opportunities to admonish what is left of the Korean project staff.

They kept a few employees here, to tidy up particularly messy areas, and to perform some remedial work. I have noticed that one of the Mr. Lees (“Bridge Lee”) is starting to look particularly shaggy, so I imagine that one of the Koreans to leave the island for home was the man who doubled as the barber. Besides Lee, there are three Indians and one more Korean, two Jamaicans in the office, and two Jamaicans as domestic help. Hardly enough to construct a seventy-one kilometer roadway project.

Not even enough to explain why they have stopped work.

Through this period, we have been trying to keep our staff busy with what little work we can invent, so that we do not have to lay them off and rehire them later. As such, they do very little, never quite completing an assigned task. To complete your work could make you redundant, so the fear of losing one’s job actually slows down the output. This is so anti-Capitalist.

Meanwhile, the government refuses to terminate the contractor. Sure, such action would be an annoyance, even politically unpopular, but I see no way that the Koreans will complete the work, even if we succumb to their ludicrous demands. Their first offer was to complete one quarter of the project length for a sum equal to the contracted amount to complete the entire project. In addition, they want immediate payment for all claims (real and imagined, documented or not) against the project equal to five times what any reasonable person could justify. Plus, they want half of this before they will even come to the negotiating table. As a result, we have a frustration surplus here of ample quantity to supply the needs of the entire Caricom.
Solution? We spent Sunday at an all-inclusive in Negril, adding shots of dark rum to the children’s drink menu while relaxing at the swim-up bar. Try the Boo Boo Special - orange juice, pineapple juice, strawberry syrup. Then add rum and a lime. Yum. Actually, I was already making these at home. Who would have thought that the pickneys would be drinking them too, sans rum and lime?

Now that you are beveraged,...

Dave has been down here for a spell. He has decided to call Jamaica the “Land of the Unfinished Concrete Shell”. And why not?

As you drive around the island, you notice numerous houses apparently under construction. Typically, the site will have been cleared, and the shell of the building will be erected and roofed. The exterior and interior walls of these houses are made of concrete block, occasionally reinforced and filled with concrete, then plastered with a cement grout. Utility services and conduits, all of thin walled PVC, are cast into the blockwork, to be sheared by any future differential settlement to which the house may someday be subjected. Once a concrete roof is in place, construction stops. The unfinished concrete shell can remain in place for years, until such time as the owner saves enough money to complete the project.
Jamaica is a poor country. Plagued by massive unemployment of the unemployable and fiscally irresponsible leadership. Any money that is available to lend is sold at usurious interest rates. To secure a mortgage when the cost of money is high and little likelihood that you will be employed next year is foolish anywhere, so Jamaicans build what they can when they can. It appears to me that the commitment to finish the project, er,.. house will not be made until the homeowner has the funds in pocket to complete the work.

If he were to come back with money enough to install just the fixtures, they would be stolen. Maybe just the windows? They would be stolen. Iron bars? Stolen. To secure the building, the homeowner must install fixtures, windows, iron bars, and whatever else is required to make the place livable, so that he can move in and guard his castle from the inside. I suppose he could hire someone to guard fixtures, windows, and iron bars, but what is to stop the guard from going halvsies with the t’iefs?

These half completed houses are everywhere. Combine them with the shells of structures abandoned after Gilbert hit in ‘88, and Dave may have stumbled across this month’s analogy. Let us beat on this dead horse and see who salutes. M’kay?
Lessee. The houses are the roadway, right? The houses are not done, and the road is not done either. In the end, nobody will care. Was it Dick Van Patton or Robert Fripp who said, “In the way that that it is that way that it is the way that it is.” Probably Fripp. This is Jamaica. Everyt’ing is everyt’ing. Analogy complete.
The glass half empty side of me agrees that nobody will care. Nobody will act.

There will be much talk, high level meetings, maybe some public demonstrations, but little direct action. To complete the project with the current contractor requires a contractor who wants to complete the project. We do not have that. They are bankrupt. Everybody knows that they are bankrupt, yet talks continue as if, somehow, the Contractor will find the capital to continue with the works. Ain’t gonna happen. At least, not that simply.

Option two - retender. This would involve finding someone else to complete the work. This would involve funding someone else to complete the work. This island will never see The Contractor’s low low crazy Earl prices again, nor can they extend their Japanese loan forever. Hence, the Jamaicans would need another boatload of cash. Ain’t gonna happen. At least, not that easily.

This road could be another unfinished concrete shell.

The glass half full guy knows that this will all change tomorrow. Read More......