Babble On, Babylon

The Prime Minister of this fair island toured some of the project recently, although I am not sure exactly how much of it he saw from the seat of his helicopter as he rotored his way to his weekend retreat at Tryall. The point is that his people let the project’s people know he was coming to see the project. Upon hearing this, they immediately started milling about, moving equipment hither and yon, and generally making the sort of mess only possible when you have absolutely no clue. A lot of the activity just looks busy, and has little to do with any actual forward progress of the Works.

At least there is something going on. But first, the cynical recapitulation.

Once upon a time there was a large international contractor based in Korea. In an effort to expand his global operations, he pursued a couple of large infrastructure projects in the Greater Antilles. As is often the case when breaking into new territories, this contractor offered steep discounts to perform the work (often called, “buying the job”). Unknown to him was the fact that his local economy would collapse shortly after he signed the contract and that he would take a bath (often called, “taking it in the shorts”) on the foreign exchange market.

Unfortunately saddled with money problems, labor problems, utility problems, lack of site availability, his total lack of project and equipment management skills, and a quality control consultant not about to take anything less than what is required by the Contract, the poor contractor collapsed in a heap, having completed some thirty percent of the work in 125% of the contract period.

For reasons still not fully understood, the Client refused to sack the contractor, electing instead to keep him on board as coordinator and equipment supplier to the subcontractors that the Client was about to hire.

Now, on the surface, highway construction is a fairly simple process: build a culvert or two, cover them with dirt, pave the planet, add some paint and you have a road. The important thing is to perform the work in the correct order. Obviously, placing pavement prior to moving dirt is foolishness.

Obvious to you and me, maybe.

Anyway, the Client cut the unfinished product into smaller portions, hoping that these would be easily digested by various local contractors. The remaining Works were divided into several subcontracts, first the culverts, then the earthwork, then the pavement, and then the paint - seven disciplines in all. To add one more level of confusion, he also divided the work into three longitudinal sections, for a total of twenty-one contracts. These he let independently and then gave to The World’s Worst Contractor to coordinate. In addition, the Client wanted all of the work to be performed simultaneously and completed within fifteen months.

Of course, this new contracting scheme will cost considerably more than the Korean’s bid, so large money needs to come from somewhere to pay for it. In light of this, the Client has engaged in some very creative financing to defer the payments - each subcontractor has arranged for an independent bank loan to construct the Works. The applications for payment are presented to the various banks, who then write one check to the subcontractor, one check to the government for a down payment on future taxes, and one check to the government for the contract retainage. The government will then buy these loans,... later.

As is increasingly common here, the banks will end up owning more government paper. Sure, the government has promised to pay off these loans at a favorable interest rate, but I would certainly balk at the level of risk associated in making a loan to anyone who spends over eighty percent of his total revenues on debt servicing.

And of course, it comes as no surprise that each of the subcontractors envisioned his portion of the work as being free and clear of all obstacles, be they utilities, property acquisition issues, or other subcontractors. Now that they are on site, each subcontractor has to deal with the stark reality that the prime contractor has no idea as to how to properly coordinate everybody, to make sure that they do not get in each other’s way but mostly to ensure that downtime, delays, and excess overheads are minimized.

That would be a lot to ask from the World’s Worst Contractor.

Our unheeded suggestion from last year was that Contractor be given the boot, and that the project be retendered based upon a few longitudinal sections. This way, the few lucky subcontractors could manage their own piece of the work, from bottom to top, and not have to deal with inept scheduling from on high.

In the words of Sir Jagger, “You can’t always get what you want.”

Ultimately, the twenty-one packages were awarded to eight different contractors, so I will have only twenty-two payment applications to process each month,... and nine sets of shop drawings, coordination meetings nine times as long, and nine times the faces and names and conversations to remember. Actually, the number today is only seven, as two subcontractors have yet to get their funding approved and have yet to start any work. Any guesses as to which body of work those subcontractors were to build? Remember how paint followed pavement? Remember how pavement followed dirtworks?

Well, despite any idea the Client may have to the contrary, culverts still need to be constructed prior to earthworks, and the culvert contracts have yet to be awarded. Until the culvert subcontractors get on board, there really is no schedule, as no major and continuous portion of the Works can be complete without the construction of the necessary and required drainage improvements.

Shock? Dismay? Surprise? Not hardly.

What is refreshing is that some of the newly contracted local contractors are clever capitalists who actually want to complete the work and make a profit while they are at it. Of course, the specification means nothing to them, but that is why we are here. The money on this job will not be in the work, however, but in the delay claims, and we will have plenty. After a thorough review, I will recommend many of them, then the government will take advantage of the contractor’s bank loan to pay for them, and then pay off the loans,... later.

Grasshoppers on Ant World. But,... after months of nothing,... there is now something going on. Read More......

Mayhem

Not for the squeamish.

I was forced to make a very rapid stop driving home the other night, braking hard and to the point that the tires slipped just a bit, to give you that wee, though still unnerving, screech, all to avoid nailing a goat with the Dogwagon and making a jumbo-sized serving of domestic animal puree with the grill. Being neither my van nor my goat, such an accident would be well short of tragic, but I would be saddled with certain post accident responsibilities.

Scot once biffed a bunny with my Toyota, whacking it in the noggin with the right edge of the bumper. The impact twirled the rabbit onto the shoulder, out of the path of the traffic to follow. There was no damage to the car. It was a perfect hit. Whacking a goat, I surmise, would not be so clean and would probably cause some damage, damage that I would have to report to the Ministry of Transport and Works, our Client, and the owner of my vehicle.

When I was assigned the van, filed in the glove box was the Ministry’s “First Accident Report”. Stapled to it was the Ministry’s “Final Accident Report”. Here lies a source of confusion.

I can understand filing an accident report, but one would think that the Ministry would be able to determine if it was my first accident just by counting the number of forms that I filed prior to the filed form. And, since I need to drive here until the end of this assignment, I can never rightfully assure the Client that any particular accident will be my final one. In addition, both forms are on legal sized paper, which I find totally annoying.

As such, I will do my darndest not to collide with anything that will leave a mark. This is one of the toughest parts of this assignment and, sad to say, I am not entirely successful in this regard. I got hit by a wayward football while passing the playing fields in Sandy Bay one afternoon, which left a small and as of yet unreported dent behind the right passenger door. And, while executing an unanticipated five point turn in town, I backed into a square lamp post, which put a small crease in the bumper. I will probably blame both of these on the Dent Fairy when the day comes that I give back my vehicle.

But I have yet to hit an animal, despite their massive roadside populations. Every other day, it seemed, somebody else’s car was striking dead one thing or another - cats, dogs, cows, pigs - all sorts of farm animals and household pets. But in our early days of island life, I do not remember any sightings of dead goats, despite their ubiquitousness.

I used to think that goats possessed a special ability to avoid fatal contact with motor vehicles. Oftentimes, in our first few months here, I would see them browsing along the highway, with their goat butts projecting into the line of cars, or relaxing en masse on the shoulder and pavement, yet never did I see a dead one. Once, however, after months of seeking, I did (noting large X’s where its eyes should have been), and then another, and then my interest was piqued and, geek engineer that I am, I started to collect data.

Roadkill is not at all uncommon in the States, as evidenced by the ever-popular vacation pastime Roadkill Bingo and The Roadkill Cookbook (undoubtedly influenced by Granny’s cooking segments on the Beverly Hillbillies). Deer die. Opossum operish. Bunnies buy it. Skunks are squashed. Raccoons get really rumpled after repeated rollovers. But what binds these animals together (besides muscle, sinew, and molecular bonding) is that they tended to be wild, or at least untamed, prior to their demise. On Jamaica, the subjects of roadkill statistics are inclined towards domesticity.

So, morbid or no, here they are,... in the missive that took a year to write,... my Fresh Kills data for the year 2000, a summary of dead things sighted through my windscreen.

Dogs 54
Cats 36
Mongeese 24
Goats 18
Cows 16
Pigs 5
Chickens 5
John Crows 3
Rodents 1
Snakes 1
Other Birds 1
Donkeys 0
Humans 0
Total Dead Things 164

Obviously, dogs are the most stupid of beasts here, and man is the smartest (tied, at least, with the donkey). This is where my theory falls apart, as it is probably not the big brains which keeps the humes from getting offed in larger numbers, but more likely the fact that, should you kill one, you get to spend some time in a Third World prison (if the deceased friends and family do not chop you to death in retaliation before you can turn yourself in to the local constabulary). Not so with the donkey, which proves that it is smarter than man. Go figure.

As anyone who passed Statistics on the first (or even second) attempt can tell you, I need more data. All I can justifiably glean from what data I have is the fact that I see more dead cows than dead pigs, and more dead pigs than dead chickens, which is a lot more dead cows and pigs and chickens in the last year than you would see along the highways and byways of the United States in a lifetime. To make a valid statement regarding the relative intelligence of these critters, I need to know something about the number of animals not killed, where they live in relation to the road, if they had a happy childhood, and other such nonsense.

All I really wanted to know was the number of goat warriors that sailed their way to goat Valhalla, since they were obviously no longer immune to the dangers of crossing the road. Next year, though, after another twelve months of data collection, I will get to hypothesize on the development of trends in animal mortality. Then the true analysis can begin.

Until then, I am a little bored with my commute, yet still irie. Read More......

State of Things

How are you? I am fine.

It strikes me that, until I was old enough to know better, every letter to spring from the aquifer of this artesian began that way. Was there actual care expressed therein, or was it simply a way to transition from the “Dear Great Aunt Hyacinth” to the “thanks for the tube socks” part of the letter?

I was never really into letter writing. Seems that it was so much more convenient to just talk to someone nearby, than try to engage in some terminally slow-motion conversation with a person days away. This has not changed much through the years, technological advances or no.

I actually do hope that you are all well, both for your sake and for mine. On this end, I am, as they say on the island, not too bad. I have heard that any reply more enthusiastic than “not too bad” is an invitation to any nearby duppy to worsen your existence. Of course, the tourists are taught to say “ever-ting’s irie”. This could be a ploy to get a few rich vacationers to suffer just a bit, as admitting to feeling good would bring the duppies down ‘pon their heads. Maybe then they would feel just a small part of what most every Jamaican feels every day which, no doubt, is oftentimes frustration.

One of the upstart third parties here, the National Democratic Movement, or NDM, has as their slogan, “Jamaica too rich to be so poor”. The point being that, with the copious resources of sun, sea, soil, people, and bauxite, there should be no reason why the population cannot all richly benefit. Yet despite annual promises of forthcoming prosperity from the People’s National Party (and the Jamaica Labour Party before them), Jamaica still has the worst economy in the Antilles, second only to Haiti.

It seems that most conversations that I have with the locals eventually turn towards the state of things. Invariably, the people believe that corruption exists in every level of government, from street cop to vehicle inspector to chief cop to the Prime Minister’s cabinet. A recent Gleaner poll showed that some seventy percent of the population claimed to know at least one corrupt policeman. As well, when you consider the huge amount of foreign grants and loans made to this country compared to the minuscule improvements apparent from their use, it is easy to imagine that much of this funding is being rerouted or malappropriated.

Aggravation is inevitable. How can you believe that inflation will be controlled, jobs will be produced, crime will be reduced, and this damn highway will get constructed, when there is rarely results on the order of the promises? Why should you work hard to succeed when the rewards go easily to the criminals? What do you do when there seems to be no way out of your duppy-plagued existence, no way to change the system which keeps you held to the ground, no way to offer your family any level of long term security?

Maybe you go to nightclubs and dancehalls, and let the intensely loud music wash away your troubles. Maybe you go to church a few times a week (and maybe a tent revival during) to hear some preacher reassure you that your reward is not of this earth. Maybe you smoke yourself silly, until you see the solutions to the problems so clearly, only to forget them once you come down (in this light, it may be best to stay high). Or maybe you play bingo. At least, that is what we thought to do Friday night (not that my frustrations in constructing this project are anywhere near to the local variety).

On Friday night, we attended the First Annual Sea Fans Bingo Night. The Sea Fans is the local dive club in Montego Bay, organized to advance the sport and to assist with efforts to monitor and maintain the Montego Bay Marine Park. Not being one of those club joining kind of guys, I have yet to join the club. From what I can see, most clubs are just opportunities for people to drink beer and tell war stories. If I wanted to spend my time doing that, I would just spend my days in a construction field office.

Anyway, the bingo itself was for a seemingly good cause, and the door prize was a weekend for two at one of the Hedonism’s, so we bought a couple of cards and settled down for the 19:00 start. At 19:50 (19:00 JST, Jamaican Standard Time), the caller finally got down to it, and we trudged laboriously through the eighteen games scheduled for the evening, each with a lame donated prize (unless you really wanted that pale mauve table lamp or just had to have another toaster). I was surprised at the number of Bingo crazies there, filling their tables with a dozen or more cards, yelling at each other and the caller, complaining bitterly about the quality of the prizes, and generally making a ruckus. I thought they would cause the grand prize donator to blow a gasket, but he maintained his internal pressure throughout to a point just below boiling.

The dog eared cards (“books”) were stamped with the seal of Chapter 3700 of the Ladies VFW Auxiliary somewhere in Louisiana. The cage and balls (“seeds”) were borrowed, with the books, from some local church. Without an interpreter nearby, it would have taken much longer to figure that a call of “round woman” meant B-8, that “Christmas morn’” is I-25, that “forty blind” is just N-40, that “fifty..... fifty..... fifty..... fifty..... .....two” was just a really annoying way to say G-52, or that “top and bottom” is O-69. The game took forever to play and the bingo crazies were just a little scary and, as such, it will probably be our last attendance of this annual event.

Saturday we had a refreshingly well served dinner at The Native. The brown stew chicken was excellent, as was the red pea soup. The drinks, food, drinks, and check arrived promptly and in good repair. The only minor annoyance was the group of forty from the Princeton Review seated at the tables adjacent to ours. I hate to see joyful enthusiasm when I am feeling sullen. It spoils the mood. We hit the casino afterwards, and departed as winners.

The Suarez Circus is in town this week (the world’s only circus with a polar bear act), so Sunday we went to their evening show, the culmination of a relatively distracting weekend.

Come Monday, and I returned to my occasionally exasperating employment, secure in the fact that, if this country self-destructs tomorrow, and if I can get a flight off island, I can easily find a position elsewhere. I can always return to the motherland, where the system is not nearly as corrupt (at least, not so visibly corrupt), and find gainful employment, a nice home, and relatively safe streets.

Once back in the First World, I can harbor, nurture, and maintain my typical frustrations about the lack of choice in elections, how taxes are really oppressive, or how there is nothing good on cable tonight. Minor inconveniences, when you consider that the rest of the planet cannot get a decent pizza delivered; so exploit it while you can! Read More......

Linkage

We had little idea as to what to expect of this place prior to our move here.
My initial assumption was that the work would be challenging and, by extension, rewarding. Our biggest concerns were more on the lines of our level of comfort. Not to say that we needed plush surroundings, upstairs maids and gilded Barcaloungers, but we did not want to live in wattle huts. As it turns out, as close as we get to wattle is the cedar shakes on the roof of the apartment building.

Of course, there were many questions to be asked before we could give up our comfortable middle class exurban existence. 1) Could we drink the water? 2) Is utility distribution regular and consistent? 3) Is food plentiful? 4) Is there a problem with crime? 5) Would there be adequate golfing opportunities?

1) If you like the taste and smell of chlorine, you will love the National Water Commission. Of course, chorine does not kill all of the bugs in a municipal water supply, but it will kill a great deal of them, even more if you up the dosage. Combine the bugs normally occurring in the supply with the deteriorating distribution system and plethora of illegal, unsanitary taps, and the chorine overdose make sense. We imported a filter that mounts on the faucet to rid what we ingest of the residual chorine and the balance of the bugs.

2) When the cruise ships are in, our water pressure is drastically reduced, as we are on the far end of the stub that supplies the port, and the ships refill their potable water supplies while they are here. If there is a threat of an outage (heavy weather or strike), we stockpile. As for electricity, most storms knock out the power for anywhere between a couple of seconds and a couple of hours. We keep candles for this occasion, and an uninterruptible power supply on the Dell. For phone service, quality connections and consistent communications via Cable and Wireless is irregular at best, but this is not an insurmountable situation.

3) There is plenty of food, although I am disturbed by the growing availability and popularity of imported vegetables, as well as processed foods. With their generally lower prices and better quality, I do not wonder why they are so common. What disturbs me is that this is a country that can ill afford to send hard currency off island, especially for basic necessities.

4) There is a problem with crime. Do doubt. We are fairly well removed from it and do our best to keep our distance, so for us, crime is not much of a problem, directly. As per this morning’s Gleaner, however, 722 persons have been murdered (“died violently”) since January. As such, the two million resident here each has about one chance in 2,400 of being murdered this year. Compare this to the less than one in 60,000 chance for the statistically average Iowan, and you might think that this is a comparatively violent place.

5) We were told that there were golf courses on Jamaica, so we brought our clubs.

Unfortunately, they spend most of their days in the closet, huddled in a corner next to the more commonly used tennis rackets, often used scuba gear and recently used and empty Ting bottles.

There is golf here, but not that “twenty bucks a round at the municipal course” type of golf. This is more like “twenty bucks plus tip just for the caddy” type of golf, and you must have a caddy. Break into the dead presidents, as rounds can easily run a hundred or two, plus caddy, beverages, balls, tees, and sundries.

We rarely golf.

Joel and Susan, our downstairs neighbors, are on the links most every weekend, but they have a scheme. First, they have joined the local federation, which allows them to play at the more favorable local rate (we have yet to pursue this membership). Second, I think that they are more fanatical about the game than we.

The wife and I played one weekend on a course at a resort in Runaway Bay. This was in the middle of June, and we had not had much rain for weeks beforehand. The fairways were almost as hard as the cart paths. The greens were brown, and very fast. The wind blew hot.

To our benefit were the caddies, who lugged the bags and gave us pointers and sound club selection advice. We gave up after nine in favor of the unlimited drinks at the hotel, but it was the best half round I ever shot, which is not good by anyone else’s standard but my own.

From there, the clubs were relegated again to their space in the closet until last week, when I gave in to the occasional badgering by the Koreans to join them for their Sunday game. I drove to Tryall bright and early (by Jamaican standards) to try to get a grip on my game and to whack a bucket of balls. The Koreans (Mister Ji, the project manager, and Mister Kim, one of many Kim’s) arrived ready to play, with matching two-toned spikes, unnaturally gaudy and suitably mismatched togs, and expensive clubs in leather bags.

There are rarely people seen on any of the courses I drive by, so I was not at all surprised when we walked onto the first tee and began to hack. No crowded tee times. No pushing the group in front, or from the group behind. Not worrying that you are wasting someone’s time while you scrounge for a ball lost deep in the bush.
But that is just one of the reasons to have a caddy. Not only do they hump the clubs, but they also keep track of where you hit, and find your lost balls. In addition, they will slice open a coconut for you to drink and, at Tryall, they keep your score,.... very well. No “practice swings”, Mulligans, winter rules, or toe wedges for these boys. Fortunately, they cannot count over ten.

Off we tramped then, over hill and dale, past palms and vistas, through sand and water. At least, I made it through the sand and water; the Koreans had some trouble with the creeks and bunkers. I had my usual handicap - I do not play well. The Koreans were in the same boat, despite their efforts in looking like golfers, and we spent much time watching the caddies root around in the bush for lost balls.

I have long thought that there is some ancient Asian tradition of losing, especially when golfing. I have no idea from whence I heard of this tradition, or why it is so, or whether or not the winner or loser is the real winner, but when the round was complete, I discovered that had upheld this great custom, losing quite dramatically.

In retrospect, I would have crushed them both had I shaved a stroke from every hole, and I could have done so, too, except that the caddies were keeping score.

One more thing. On every other hole it seemed, Ji would ask that we move the cup to wherever his mis-hit ball would stop. This was not at all surprising because, as a contractor, he has lost sight of his goal of project completion, and instead works hard to do nothing more beyond the point he is at.

I just thought it was sort of funny. Read More......

Neptune

I went on my first night dive a short while back. I accompanied the wife with Kris to use the facilities at Sandals, instead of my usual dive haunt at Jack Tar, one of the other resorts in town.

It was a nice set up, really. Their nine meter boat was new last season, and is equipped special as a dive boat. Two benches run down the sides of the deck, with little cups mounted to the back of the seats to hold your tank in place while you assemble your equipment and suit up. Actual steps, lowered into the sea, make it much easier than a ladder to exit the water. Once back on board, there are fresh water showers and a trip to seats on the flying bridge to take in the sights of Jamaica’s Second City as you motor back to the pier.

If only the captain could get the thing to plane. Instead, we plowed through the water, nose way high, stern way low, engines straining to move the water aside to allow us passage. He must not know any better. I imagine that someone pointed to the boat and said, “drive this and don’t hit anything”. In that, he seems to do a fine job.

Besides the Captain, we had two divemasters with us, plus a newlywed couple from Montana. The newlyweds were newly certified, and were diving two or three times a day (aside: freaks). Victor was scheduled to accompany us as well, but his wife chickened out and yanked him at the last minute.

The most exciting part of a night dive is entering the water, black as pitch, with neither sight nor indication as to what may lie beneath. You make a giant stride of faith, and trust that the water will be deep and the sharks asleep. I had been on this site a couple of times before, and being there after dark was like strolling through a familiar city in the wee hours before dawn, with few lights and no traffic, when only the insomniacs are moving about. In this case, the squirrelfish, all big-eyed and orange and less skittish than usual.

We use flashlights, of course, and with seven of them blazing, plus the small beacons tied to our rigs, visibility was not dissimilar to a daytime dive after a storm has churned up the bottom of the sea and polluted the view with all sorts of crud and particulates. The lights easily picked up the red eyes of shrimps, the translucent bodies of fry, and the glint of another diver’s flipper just before it tries to unseat your regulator. When we turned off the hand lights, it was not quite cave dark, but it was dark enough to see the previously unseen individual glows from untold numbers of tiny phosphorescent critters.

Since the wife is currently off island working on the Hart campaign, I did not hesitate to partake in another night dive this last week. For amusement’s sake, if naught else.

This time, we (Hank, Rita, and I) went through Jack Tar, using Divemaster Dwayne from the Holiday Inn. The dive boat at Jack Tar is about the same length as the Sandals boat, and they are both boats, but any further resemblance stops there.

Wilbert, the Rasta captain, told me once that it used to be part of the Royal Navy in the 1930's, as some patrol boat or something. It is open decked, with the only cover coming from a retrofitted canvas shade. There are no lights, running or otherwise, so we use our dive lights to ready our equipment. There is no head or running water, only the sea and a bucket of slightly briny tap water. The boat is sometimes loud, on this night crowded, and generally full of character.

With us were two Cockneyed Brits, who usually dive in dry suits in the northern lochs. Dwayne’s wife, a Canadian and marine biologist for the Montego Bay Marine Park, came with us, as did the Marine Park ranger and his girlfriend (du jour), a Peace Corps volunteer assigned to the Marine Park. The purpose of this dive was to witness coral spawning.

Watch enough Discovery Channel and I am sure that you will see this. The camera is really close to the coral; all is still, when --poof-- the coral spew their gametes. This rises as a milky cloud and flows to the appropriate receptors. There is little romance, just raw sexual activity, just like on the Playboy channel, only the spawning coral are more traditionally educational, … and somewhat smaller breasted.

Unfortunately, we must have come at a bad time, as we failed to see the coral spawn (perhaps they had a haddock).

Actually, I was not looking very hard. Sure, coral is interesting and all, but it usually just sits there, and there is always the hope when you are diving that there will be something bigger, more colorful, more tentacled, or more active just over the next rise. So I would scan the coral for a time, but then be drawn by whatever was just out of sight.

There is much out of sight, of course, because it is a night dive, and even with lights, visibility is still limited to five to ten meters, less to the side of the beam. So you tend to concentrate on what is immediately before you - bright red prawn, sponge, sexually inactive coral, sleeping jackknife fish, sponge, sexually inactive coral, tiny undulating red starfish (ruby brittle star), sponge, sexually inactive coral, purple mouth moray (a strikingly purple eel) - back up, hover, try to get as close a look as possible while staying clear of those very sharp teeth - sponge, sexually inactive coral,....

In one sandy area, while contemplating sea urchin trails, a small movement beneath the sand captured my attention. I moved in slowly and could only see two small plumes, four centimeters apart, blowing little puffs of sand into the sea. I waved my hand close to the disturbance to remove the cover. As the cloud moved up and away, I saw part of an unidentifiable (and ultimately unidentified) creature who immediately worked to rebury itself.

All I could see, despite numerous attempts, was part of a round head, and while I exposed a spherical head segment some fifteen centimeters across, the diameter of the sphere could have been twice that or more. This head had a visible mouth as straight as a string across the entire exposed portion, almost muppetlike, with two nostrils of sorts, the source of the plumes. Each time I exposed it, it reburied itself.

I could not tell if it was a crustacean or just a really ugly fish, and had no idea how much of it was still buried. For all I know, it could have been a monstrous sea creature, twenty meters in length, with huge gnashing teeth, able to sink our small boat with a casual flick of the tail, ravenous and hungry for divers.

I pestered it for five minutes. If it was a giant sea monster, at least it could show some restraint. Most everyone except the Brits saw the thing, and no-one, not even the ranger or biologist, could identify it.
The dive was shallow, just nine to twelve meters, so we got to spend over an hour at the bottom, surrounded by the familiar and the strange, intruding in the bedchambers of polyps.

It was fascination at five fathoms and, with apologies to Chris Cornell, a dive in the superunknown. Read More......

Tump Thump

A couple of months ago, Chris declared that he would pursue his Jamaican driver’s license. After half a year on the island, he thought it was something he should accomplish, since his Australian license was only good for the first thirty days that he was here. Upon hearing this, I too decided that having one could be wise, since legal use of my Iowa license expired more than a year ago. I could probably make it through my tenure here without ever having a local license but, what the hey,... we have little to do until the government sorts out who will complete the work.

Ten years ago, when I moved back to Iowa from Illinois, I went to the IDiOT examining station, whereby they scrutinized my existing license, gave me an eye exam, and filled out a form. After a flash of light and a brief wait, my new identification was spat out the far end.

Not so, Jamaica. The first of many steps is to look deep inside of yourself and ask, “how much free time do I really have?”

Next step, the tax office, which has the application form, on a double-wide sheet of legal paper, three-fourths of which must be filled with redundant data. With a little word processing, this could be reduced to both sides of a sheet of letter, or less if you get rid of the medical examiners certification, my next stop.

This was my second experience with Jamaican country medicine. The first was for the removal of some stitches from my back that I had received in Chicagoland. After almost blacking out during that procedure, the doctor remarked, “the mind and the body are sympathetic”. Only when I got home to a mirror did I realize what he meant, because it was the wound tearing open which convinced my mind that maybe, just maybe, it would rather be elsewhere for the balance of the procedure.

Apparently, the doctor could not tell that the incision had not fully healed prior to starting his work. But what do you expect for JA $500?

With this experience permanently and painfully in place, I drove to the offices of Doctor Stair. Before me were four others, crammed into uncomfortable metal folding chairs. After an hour or so (in which I peed in a reused plastic cup, had my blood pressure measured, and read the various posters regarding STD’s, sexual dysfunction and Viagra), I met the doctor, who checked my eye chart reading skills.

We talked about the highway more than my health and he eventually signed the form with multiple rubber stamp flourishes. The doctor suggested that I use my office address, as he thought it best to pursue a license using an address in the parish. With White Out and pen, he made the changes.

I had four passport photos left over from something or another, and these I presented to Mister Stair, brother of the Doctor, Custos of Lucea, employee of the Contractor, and friend of the Justice of the Peace, who must verify my identity and suitability for licensure. A week later, my form and photos were returned, duly notarized, verified and rubber stamped, despite my never having met the Justice.

Now we were getting somewhere, but not until we made another trip to the tax office, to pay the application fee. Of course, we (as Chris was with me at the time) could not pay the fee without a Taxpayer Registration Number. We could not get them that day, but we could apply for them, and be issued Temporary Taxpayer Registration Numbers that would last for the four months needed to process our request for a permanent number. The TTRN has a rubber stamp on it, to signify its officiality.
Next window please, where we paid the application fee, and received additional rubber stamps.

At the examiners, I presented my form and receipt to the Island Transportation Authority clerk, and was informed that the change in address made by Doctor Stair needed to be initialed by him,... and rubber stamped. Chris had a similar address snafu, so we retreated.

I secured the necessary initials and stamp, returned after lunch, and was given a slip of paper (rubber stamped), noting when I should return for my examination, some three weeks hence. In the mean time, I would bone up on Jamaican Rules of the Road pamphlet (remove the bulbs from your taillights, pass wildly, never dip your headlights, drive on the left).

Finally, the day of my examination was upon us. Chris was nervous we motored to the examiner’s station. He had yet to review the Rules of the Road, so he read the book as I drove.

A surprise awaited us, multiple exams. Since we were pursuing a “General” license, we were to be tested on our “Mechanical” knowledge as well as our “Rules” knowledge. Unfortunately, I had no clue as to how to answer the following highly technical mechanical question:

Q. If you are driving steadily along and your vehicle stops suddenly, what could be a possible cause?

Ok, the stop is sudden, so we can probably discount fuel, air, or electrical problems. If the engine quit, the vehicle would still roll along, unless the pistons seized, but then the transmission should allow for continued forward movement. Maybe applying the brakes would cause the vehicle to stop suddenly, but I would not be applying the brakes if I were driving steadily along. Hence, I must have hit a cow.

A. A disconnected coil wire.

Ah. Likewise, the Rules test had such posers as:

Q. What signal must you give when you are about to slow down or stop?

A. Extend your right arm with the palm of the hand turned downwards, and move it slowly up and down keeping the wrist loose, and….

Q. If you were at the intersection of a major road, how would you turn your vehicle around?

A. Reverse into the minor road and then drive forward into the major road.

We would see our test results after completing the Driving Test, actually driving around Lucea with the examiner in tow. Breathe deeply, relax, coordinate the use of turn indicators and the wagging arm signals, do not nail any peds, drive like you have had six too many and a state trooper is riding your bumper.

I think this is where I failed. Except for my last cholesterol screening, this is my first failed anything since that three semester Dynamics fiasco at State. I guess I was too cautious in avoiding all potholes and people. I waited at intersections until it was actually my turn. I stayed within my lane through the uphill hairpins. I checked my mirrors and waggled my arm prior to stopping. I did not sound my horn unnecessarily. I stayed within the speed limits at all times.
The examiner asked if I drive much on the island. Apparently, he wanted not a flawless example of courtesy on the roads, but more of the aggression typical of the local taximen

When we got back to the examiner’s station, I saw my Rules score, 25 of 26 (20 is passing), and my Mechanics score, 7.5 of 22 (16 is passing) (oops). Despite this, I think my cautious driving cost me, as Chris got an 11 on the Mechanics, and he got licensed. Anyway, I had two weeks to study before retesting.

So, yesterday morning I reported to the examiner, and was instructed to report to the tax office to pay another examination fee, and to get another stamp. That done, I retested my mechanical knowledge, scoring 21 of 22. I could pick up my new license the next day, today, at the tax office, provided I paid the licensing fee, which I did (three rubber stamps), and was informed that the machine that makes the licenses is broken.

I am to return in a couple of months. Until then, I will continue to drive with no valid license, as I suspect is the case with the majority of the road warriors already out there. Read More......

Lizard

One of my favorite Wailer tunes is “Maga Dog”, back when Bob was not yet Marley, but still just another Wailing Wailer with Peter and Bunny. The chorus being, “Fi sorry fe maga dog, turn roun’ bite you - arf, arf.” In a more standard English, this translates roughly to “do not feel compassion for nor show charity to the dregs of society, as they will not appreciate what you have done, and oftentimes scorn you for your efforts - arf, arf.”

This is an old Jamaican adage, which seems to express an intolerance of those who are poor. Strange in a place where most of the population is poor. Everyone is out for himself or herself, though. The communists still resident to the north, scattered through the island’s history, and inherent in the locally popular religious teachings must not have got their message to stick - at least the part about the redistribution according to need.

We have ample opportunities to demonstrate charity and compassion. There are beggars at the grocery store, at the market, and at the shops, who may get to eat today if you would only give them twenty dollars. There are the vendors in their rickety shacks, in town and along the country roads, who may get to send their pickneys to school if you would only buy something from them today. There are the people on the road begging rides to wherever, who may get to their jobs or interviews on time today, or may get to bring their goods to market, or get to the doctor in town, if you would only stop and give them a lift.

Unless you are staying at one of the all-inclusive resorts, where everything is provided for you and you never have to leave the compound, there is no escaping the poor realities of the Third World. People do live in shacks. People do dress in rags. Maga dog do eat garbage from piles on the street. Sometimes, this can get a bit thick. But what can you do?

First, try to become desensitized to the reality that folks are poor. Despite the fact that we are, without a doubt, comparatively fabulously wealthy, there is no way that we could help them all and single-handedly raise the standard of living of all Jamaicans. We are a very small drop in a very large bucket. I have neither the patience nor resources for this task.

Second, choose your battles. While we cannot lift up Jamaica, we can align ourselves with a few, and try to make a difference with those. We tip well our usual wait staff. We buy more fruits, vegetables and juices than we can comfortably consume from our usual vendors. We have the newspaper lady keep the change and buy a ticket for every fund raising organization that she hawks with the news. That sort of thing.

We have yet to be bitten, but perhaps because the maga dog is still ruminating on the scraps he has been given. Maybe he will get rabies and attack later. Maybe he will choke.

On that note,...

I was only a few chains from home when I glimpsed the tip of the lizard’s tail over the nose of the Dogwagon. It took me a few seconds to process the information, and by that time he was making his way along the ridge between bonnet and fender towards the cab. He was one of the scaly and mottled brown varieties, some 12-15 centimeters in length.

I have often times watched ants on my windscreen as I accelerate down the road, wondering when the combined forces working against them would overwhelm the natural stickum on their feet. Now, watching the lizard move towards me, I wondered when he would succumb to the hazards of this new environment and be thrown from his hitched ride. Would the fall cause him any degree of damage? Should I care about a lizard?

As he continued to move towards the cab, I was plucked from my detached reverie regarding the future of this beast by the realization that, as he was advancing along the fender, he was getting closer to me. His line of travel was one which would lead him in short order to my open window. I could not close this window, as my cup holder was lodged over the sill and to move it would cause me to spill my scalding morning tea.

As much as I appreciate, and even enjoy, the occasional company of lizards (for insect control, they are unsurpassed), extremely close company with them is not my usual preference. I can hear the pro-lizard factions complaining already - “Lizards are just misunderstood”, they will whine, “they make wonderful, loving pets, and eat very little, and they are so very cute.” Hey, I understand that they are lizards, and I also understand that I do not want them loose in my vehicle. “But, but, but,....”

Okay. I am driving. There is a lizard on the hood. The lizard wants to join me for the drive.

I had seconds to act and intercept, and closing the window did not seem to be a viable option. If the lizard were to enter the cab, he could interfere with my driving - I could smash him under the clutch pedal, he could demand to be taken to Flankers, he could slash furiously at my unprotected face and throat with his razor-sharp tail and talons, or perhaps just sniff at me with his forked tongue.

While any major disruption was unlikely, I still thought it best to pull over and somehow convince this reptile to take to the ground and walk the rest of the way. My hope was that this would result in the best solution for the both of us. Happy with my plan, I activated my indicator, veered to the verge, brought the Dogwagon to a halt, and got out to deal with my little problem.

A few nudges to his lizard butt and he jumped to the pavement, turned to the right, ran his slinky lizard run out to the roadway centerline, and was squished by a passing Mitsubishi.

Fi sorry fe maga dog, turn roun’ get mash up.

Arf. Arf. Read More......