Roadblocks

We had a few more roadblocks last week, although locally, roadblock is really not the right term.

On Jamaica, the term “roadblock” is used to describe a police action, whereby two to four police will find a nice, shady spot by the side of the road, and then pull over anyone they choose. Sometimes they will have a huge, stationary radar unit and give out speeding tickets to the unworthy. Other times they will stage spot safety checks, or try to isolate and persecute the robot taxis, or just shake down the motorists. The best thing about driving a government van is that I very rarely get stopped at these travesties of justice. If they do wave you down though, by all means, stop. Those prominently displayed assault rifles are probably loaded.

Instead, what we had more of last week is what is locally called a “demonstration”. The worst of these demonstrations could better be called a riot.

The most severe in recent memory occurred just prior to our arrival, when there were demonstrations islandwide to protest an increase in the fuel tax. In every parish, junked cars, old tires, and debris were used to block the road. Shops and vehicles were torched. People beat on other people.

Eventually, the Jamaica Defense Force was deployed to keep the peace, clear the roads of junked cars and debris, put out the fires, and beat on other people. This demonstration went on for about three days, and losses were huge to businesses, individuals, and the island’s fragile image as a pleasant and safe tourist destination. As a result, the government repealed the proposed taxes, giving the people what they wanted.

Of course, over the next year, the government inched up the taxes in less noticeable ways, back to the level of the original increase, so the government got what they wanted too.

These nationwide demonstrations are uncommon, to be sure. The only other instance that comes to mind is when the national football squad (i.e. soccer team) won a place in the World Cup, and happy demonstrations shut down the island for a couple of days. More often, the demonstrations are local, and involve single issue protestors. Unfortunately, the highway is a very large single issue.

The poor condition of the roads is a commonly demonstrable offence. When the folks living next to the project get overtired of the dust and construction debris, they drag out the Lada shells and a couple of downed trees and seal off the transportation corridor. Recently, this has been happening somewhere along the project about once a week.

Jamaicans are great for their demonstration preparedness, bringing placards, scrawled on scrap cardboard and waved in front of the news cameras. That is, if the news cameras bother to attend. Demonstrations over poor road conditions occur so commonly across the island that it is no longer news.

The demonstrations do get some degree of attention though, especially when the road being blocked is this one. Johnsontown is noted for their demonstrations, and many a stick of water main has been buried recently bearing the spray painted tag “we want our road”, having been previously used as a large, blue, cylindrical, road blocking placard.

Usually the demonstrations are well planned. As such, we will sometimes hear of one pending, and can work to resolve it prior to the fact. Too often, these are developed and executed under the direct supervision of area dons and/or the local parliamentarian. Once one or the other of these is satisfied, the demonstration will quietly end. The people will then mill around for a while and grumble, until some new activity comes along.

Sometimes the demonstrations will not block the road, but just the work. As the work moves from place to place along the roadway, the locals will demand that they be hired to construct that part of the project which runs through their neighborhood. Too often, large groups will converge upon a job site and demand employment. They will raise a ruckus, get in the way, take over the heavy equipment, and pester the employed until a few get hired as Rastabouts, flagmen, or idle wage earners.

At Probyn Bridge, a large gang of locals (nee mob) accosted the superintendent, demanding work. Their claim was that, since the workers already employed had been at the task for the past five months, it was now their turn to be hired. The Contractor was then instructed by the mob to fire all of his help and hire from the pool of the great unskilled. He chose to retain his current workforce, and has been shut down at this location for the better part of a week. Actually he has been stalled at two locations, as his small tool storage was at this bridge, so he cannot get supplies from this to another site until the demonstration ends.

Last week we had two demonstrations simultaneously, which probably diluted each message overall. One at Riley, just east of Lucea, was to protest the lack of garbage pickup in the community. The community, however, is a few chains from the main road. To demonstrate there would have had no effect at all, so they dragged their junked Lada’s down from home and deposited them where they would get a better response.

On the eastern embankment to the new bridge at Kew, just west of the highway camp, residents amassed to demonstrate a different problem totally unrelated to the road works. They were concerned that, once the highway was completed, the government would completely forget about their little spot on the planet and would never spend another Jamaican dime in their community. They were demonstrating to make known their need for water and power and phones, and now must have seemed a good time to squawk. Since the folks in Riley were demonstrating as well, it must have got them in the mood.

I think part of the simultaneous nature of these two demonstrations is due to the fact that Michelle has been raining on the Land of Wood and Water for two weeks. I imagine that a tropical variant of cabin fever (“zinc shack syndrome”) has gripped the people, forcing some ejaculation.

The Kew-pers went to far, though, and failed to disperse upon command. What followed then is unclear, but it did involve a fair amount of government issued tear gas and some gun fire.

Worst was that there was no way into Lucea for most of the day, so I could not get to my favorite Ital place for stew peas, ackee, tofu and a cold beet root juice. Yum.

Valerie’s, though, the other way in Sandy Bay, has got some good chicken and yams.
Lunch was saved. Read More......

Currency

“The problem with Scotland,… is that there’s too many Scots.”
- Edward Longshanks, Braveheart

“The problem with this project,… is that it is totally fubar.”
- Alan Palmer, NCHiP

It has not always been so, but recently things have taken a bit of a left turn. A turn south, if you like that analogy, or the wrong turn at Albuquerque, if you are more partial to wascally wabbits.

This does not look at all like Pismo Beach.

There ain’t been much of any beach lately, as there has been little time available for extended and sandy shores, the project taking most of my time. When we have beached, our fellow beachers have a new configuration than what we were seeing prior to September. There are few tourists on the road or in Negril and fewer in Montego Bay. Fewer people have taken their carefree vacations recently, and this has had a telling effect on the national economy, and the local psyche.

The Jamaican economy has never performed any better than tenuous since Independence. In recent years, it has become more and more reliant upon tourism to pay the bills. Any reduction in tourism affects the airlines and their workers, the hotels with their staffs and suppliers, the bus and taxi outfits, and the vast trinket sector. Unlike the States, there is no great cash reserve (or the ability to print such a reserve) with which to bail out these sectors, although these sectors do not fail to ask. More often, the Jamaican response is to try to muddle through.

Muddling was the government response when The Contractor bailed on the highway, and it was the same government response that this project received when faced with unrealistic completion expectations. Not surprising is the fact that there are still lands to be acquired and utilities to be relocated. “What can we do?” is a common question.

One of the contractors recently ran out of credit with his local fuel supplier and had to cease his operations. “What can we do?”

Another contractor has finally admitted that his bid was in error and is now claiming that he was some sixty percent low on the supply price of a key roadway component. He has severely curtailed his operations. “What can we do?”

The bridge contractor feels that he must fill the channel of a flood prone river during the rainy season so that he can hoist his girders. Citing the maintenance of hydraulic efficiency and environmental portions of his Contract, he is refused permission. “What can we do?”

You can always muddle.


In my experience, a contractor who runs out of credit, has no clue with regards to estimation, or is not intricately familiar with his contract usually will not return to play ball the next season. Unless, of course, there is some other factor involved - like an unwritten rule book. Apparently, we have not been playing by these unwritten rules and have, as one contractor told us in confidence, “spoiled the party”.

All along our project alignment, we run into water mains. We run into them because they are installed in shallow trenches, with minimal cover, using the worst material around for backfill, placed with no compaction. The result is mains that leak, that burst, that destroy the surrounding pavement, and that cannot be considered a consistent supply for the users who rely upon this service. Certainly, the National Water Commission specification calls for a minimum depth of cover, and must specify the quality and density of backfill. What right minded water commissioner would let it be otherwise?

As I drive around potholes throughout this island, I cannot help but notice (‘cuz I’m a geek, remember) that the pavement surrounding the hole is rarely much thicker than a couple of centimeters. Now, who in their right mind would place two centimeters of asphalt on a road which carries five to ten thousand vehicles per day?

The answer, quite obviously, is the contractor, who traditionally charges the government for ten centimeters. To seal the deal, the contractor may do a small favor or two for the resident engineer and his staff, like take them out to lunch, or give them a nice bottle of rum or an envelop full of cash. Every so often, our staff reports such attempted tipping practices, and thankfully reports that the tip was refused. To both the project and our benefit is the Company’s high level of competence, consistency and commitment to the project, and the fact that we already pay better than anybody else.

Our second government project director, who had little history with us or the Works, hand picked the contractors to fill in for The Contractor. The cream of the crop,... would go into their pockets if all went as usual. And this is exactly why the Japanese dudes providing the initial funding for this job required that a foreign firm be the quality control agents for the work. They knew what I am only beginning to grasp.

What I still fail to understand is the reasoning behind the massive levels of corruption. Easy money, I suppose.

One might argue that, if the work performed this year is a piece of crap, you can come back next year and get paid to fix it. However, would not the country be better served if you did the work right this year, then the budgeted repair moneys could be used for new infrastructure next year? If this went on for a few decades, there would be a reliable network of roads, paralleled with adequate power and water, ready to facilitate economic growth.
Blame it on the invisible evil hand.

And this evil hand needs someone to slap silly. The project is out of money due to some huge government sponsored changes, the contractors hands have been kept from the till (at least as best as we can manage), and there will be an election soon. Somebody gotta be slapped. “What can we do?”

Hey! Why not slap the consultant? They are an outside outfit. They are foreign in many ways. They are not members of the “boys’ club”. They are still owed plenty of wampum. And best of all, it beats resting the blame for this fiasco on the government.

So, I am writing this particular thousand word treatise amidst my efforts to write a twelve to fifteen to twenty thousand word position paper for our corporate attorney, preliminarily entitled, “A History of Project Construction Costs for the North Coast Highway, Segment One” or “If We’re Fucked Up, You’re to Blame” (current apologies to Blink 182).

It gonna be a long couple of nights.

Life in the Tropics. Read More......

Canine Demise

There is no more Dogwagon.

It left me with a loud tick, then silence, then an uncomfortable rattling from that little thingy that controls the heat of the glow plug, then a few well placed epithets, then nothing but the fading echo of the door slamming shut.

No great matter, though, as I had a spare. The spare is a newer version of the same Mitsubishi, with a few less miles, and with a much more powerful (i.e. turbocharged) diesel engine. It does move a bit better, so calling the thing Dogwagon II is probably out of the question. As of this moment, it remains unchristened,... Truckulator?... Mitsutrashheap?... Give me a second,...

Mangycurmobile?

Magadogomatic? Hmm. Promising.

Which reminds me, the other evening, while fjording White Gut to avoid the citizen road block of the existing highway in front of Sonya’s Highway Pub, the driver of a minibus squeezing down the mud track in the opposite direction leaned even further out of his window to exclaim in my general direction, and for no obvious cause, “Mister White Boy!”
Yeah, that be MISTER White Boy, mon.

Actually, I was seriously considering not accepting the other truck, when it was delivered to me earlier in the week. Despite the greater power, lower miles, higher clearance, three cup holders, two speaker cassette stereo and power on two of the four windows, it is bright red. Bright, shiny red, with large chrome tubes for running boards, chrome tubular brush bar and a matching chrome roll bar. This van stands out,... sticks out,... like a tourist on Jamaica. If fact, the red is the same shade as many tourists, and just as painful to the eye.

Some may note that my last car was bright red. To them I say, “nyah, nyah, nyah”. To the rest of you, I will note that, in a land primarily populated by stark white vehicles, I would rather not be the subject of any excess attentions. As it turns out, the Dogwagon made the choice for me. That, and the sizable increase in power apparent with the new one.

Of course, we will not put down the ol’ Dogwagon. We will fix it, but it will not be returned to me. Instead, I will assign it to one of my inspectors as a field vehicle. He can rename it.

Our field guys’ inspection fleet used to consist of three or four ratty old Toyota pickups. Four doors, for sure, but each with around 300,000 klicks on the clock. Their time had long expired prior to them being assigned to us. Few working lights, fewer working window winders, convenient snap off bumpers, springs sticking up through the seats or down through the holes in the floors,... the works. Think back. Remember the worst car you ever owned? Luxury. Remember the worst car you have ever seen? Good for you.

The Ministry recently replaced these awful vans with a couple of four year old Suzuki’s and a newer Toyota. They ain’t real pretty, but they help me forget the massive repair bills I had to process to keep the old green relics on the road.

Yet, even greater than the fleet repair costs are the mileage checks we write to those inspectors who drive their own vehicles for work. Sure, the bad roads are bound to do more damage to a vehicle than smooth ones, but is it worth twenty five Jamaican Dollars (US $0.55) a mile? And, with the physical length of the project as it is, I see some really large mileage checks.

Each fortnight, the largest of these checks invariably goes to one man, who inspects the eastern end of the job. According to the submitted vehicle log, he claims to drive almost 200 kilometers each day, so, at the end of the fortnight, he gets a check for roughly JA $40k. Over the course of a year, this equates to about US $23k. It is all too obvious that this figure is excessive, and most likely a complete work of fiction.

So this inspector will get the Dogwagon, once it gets back from the vet. This will cramp his lifestyle, to be sure, but I am just an evil puke some days, especially when trying to save the Client a buck or two.

But the Client’s pocketbook is just one of his current worries. Time is of the essence as well. The Minister of Transport and Works, the Honorable Doctor Peter Phillips, still holds firm to his promise that the highway will be completed by the year end. Go ahead. Laugh all you want. It really is his promise, though, and apparently his actual intention to get the project at least substantially complete. He is probably delusional.

So... Wednesday I receive a facsimile from the Ministry that my attendance is required at a meeting to be chaired by the Ministry’s Chief Technical Dude on Thursday.

At last”, I thought, “an opportunity to discuss with da man hisself, one on one, our spate of problems and some potential solutions.” Only later did I learn that the meeting would be well attended - all of the subcontractors, The Contractor, the water utility, and assorted Ministry minions. There would be no one on one discussion of the project and potential solutions. Sadly, only after the meeting was over was it clear that the Chief Dude would not even be making an appearance as chairman, two and a half hours being excessively late, even for a Jamaican.

Except for the lack of pom pons, the meeting felt like a pep rally where only the cheerleaders are peppy (reminiscent of the “Pimples Full of Pus” event the fall of 1977, except without J. Bob Walther). The Ministry was trying to sell to the team their plan to complete the Works by their newer, closer, more arbitrary date of some eleven short weeks from now. They would now be enablers, and would do “whatever it takes” to stay the course.

The contractors just wanted to know when the utilities would be relocated, and when they would get paid, as most of their deferred financing was used up performing previously “whatever it takes” tasks. The utility relocations are almost a lost cause, as that money has yet to be found.

In May, the Client asked that we prepare a completion cost estimate, which we did, which he sat on for three months, until he asked us to prepare an updated completion cost estimate, which we did, which he sat on until now. Fearing for his job, the Project Director (recently back from the dead) has delayed presenting Cabinet and the government finance guys with the estimated cost of this debacle. Without this presentation, funding cannot increase beyond existing limits, and the project will stall. I would have no problem doing this, mostly as I would like to see the faces of this group when they hear that their little highway, which The Contractor was to build for US $25M, is now estimated to cost much much more.

As for me, a hundred megabuck highway is a much more impressive project to place on my resume. Read More......

Chantal

To compensate for the poor quality of our Internet service provider, and the equally poor quality of our telephone service provider (not surprisingly, the same outfit), I usually find myself on line in the morning. Early in the day, there tends to be less traffic on both sides, and download times are about as good as you are going to get. I use this half hour opportunity most mornings to process the electro-mail, check the headlines at CNN and at the Onion, and check out a few old Mr. Boffos from the archives.

On cue, My Yahoo lets me know that I am still warmer than you. In fact, I have only noticed two days this summer (winter comparisons being moot) when I was not, local temperatures being surpassed by those in the Twin Cities on those rare occasions.

It is August in the Tropics, however, and our recent typical temperature range has been remaining steady with a low of 28 and a high of 35 (82 to 95 for those Fahrenheit-ites out there), every day for a couple of weeks. These high averages tend to heat the sea around us and the ocean to the east of us and, for a variety of mostly unfathomable meteorological reasons, the atmosphere becomes unstable, and I figure that it is time for a visit to the National Hurricane Center’s (NHC’s) web site.

Well, I suppose that the reasons behind the weather are not all that unfathomable. Regardless, unfathomable is a fairly cool word. Unlike the vast majority of the others, it mixes both comprehension and seafaring.

“Arrgh! The waters, Cap’n, they be unfathomable.”

“Abast! Shiver me timbers and shut yer blow hole, ya swab!”

For most of the year, the NHC site (www.nhc.noaa.gov) is good for infrared satellite images of the Caribbean and Gulf basins, looking north well past Raleigh, south to Panama City, west to Brownsville and east to almost Africa. From this, you can see the larger cloud formations, and the blacks, whites and grays make nice wallpaper, changing every day, yet with the same basis.

The other day, though, the change to this image was obvious, as a dense circular mass had appeared and was looming just east of the Windward Islands. Obviously, something afoul was afoot - perhaps just a mass of rain, or perhaps something stronger.

Oh, yes, perhaps something much stronger.

I flash to another page at the same site, where I see that the NHC has given the cloud a name, “Tropical Depression Four”, the fourth such named occurrence this season. The season,... of course,... of the hurricane.

[Cue lightening flashes, thunder and scary storm music]

Early that afternoon, the wife called to tell me that she was going to the grocerama. Typically, not so odd an event, and completely expected once she informs me that the androgynous cloud formally known as “Tropical Depression Four” is now a somewhat butch tropical storm named “Chantal”, heading ever more rapidly towards the Windward Islands and then, most notably per the current predictions, towards our little island paradise.

“Buy some bottled water”, I recommend.

One large difference between hurricanes and other heavy weather is that the Federal Government gives plenty of notice (what the local government gives us is a second hand report on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report). Rare is the hurricane, nee tropical storm, nee tropical depression, that is not predicted three or more days before landfall. This is quite unlike my experience with tornados, where you can learn to recognize the conditions favorable for their formation, but then they pop out of the front at random, giving the population scant minutes to grab the cats and the radio and hustle down to the storm cellar.

Growing up in the Midwest, school was often interrupted by tornado drills, where we learned our lesson as to how we duck and cover and hope it hits someone else. As an adult in the Midwest, I came to expect the late afternoon wail of the warning siren and knew what to do when it sounded - grab the cats, head for the cellar, duck and cover and hope it hits someone else.

Things are less uptight here, or just less organized. The last hurricane to impact the island hit in 1988, when Gilbert stopped by to rearrange the furniture, relocate some utilities and harvest the banana crop. Last year, there was not even a tropical storm watch, and no threat of local destruction (by the weather only, self-destruction in Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston is a different matter). Needless to say, the shopping excursion was undoubtedly premature by local standards, but it did help us avoid any last minute rush, and we got rice and peas to last a month or two.

Now, if only there was a hurricane.

Chantal, it turns out, was just a sissy little tropical storm, who lost her bluster once she hit the Windward Islands, and was quickly downgraded to big cloud status. The season is young, though, and there are normally seven to ten named storms each year, so we may still get pummeled.

Until then, we will keep our mouse balls clean, our eyes on the maps, and eat rice and peas.

That is, unless she happens to get riled and get herself upgraded again to tropical storm in the last twelve hours, on her way to a class two hurricane, which should hit the island this evening sometime.

Time to batten, land lubbers.

That is, unless she changes course again and misses the island altogether. Read More......

Kansas

On occasion, we behave like tourists. -- Hang a camera around the neck. Wear some gaudy clothes. Speak real loud. Act real rude. Pay too much. Visit McDonalds. Get sunburned.

We are not very good at it, though. The best we can do is to wear the camera. We have yet to visit McD’s (not to be confused with Mack D’s, the auto reseller). The suntan guru makes sure that I wear plenty of sunscreen.

Ok, I am rude. But I am an asshole, too, so it sort of makes sense.

It is hard to avoid the tourist spots on Jamaica. Negril has the best beach on the island. The tour guides know it. The locals know it. We know it. So we go there and enjoy the beach. Similarly, the nice restaurants in town are bound to be tourist spots, since they are the nice restaurants in town. I guess there is really no tourist grocery in town, but if there was, it would probably have a better selection of overpriced food, and we would shop there.

Even so, whenever we are in a situation wherein we might be confused with the tourists, we try to quickly establish ourselves as locals. Driving the Dogwagon helps, as the yellow license tags clearly show it to be a government van, something a tourist would not have access to. A prominently displayed cellular phone is a great asset too, especially if accompanied by a tirade about how the new supplier, Digicel, is vastly superior to the crap that Cable and Worthless was trying to pawn off as “service”. And, of course, a working knowledge of local greetings, news, politics, and Patois goes a long way to demonstrate that we are not here for a week of getting stoned and sunburned.

Sometimes I am forced to be less subtle. At lunch at Walter’s last Sunday, a pair of hustlers approached us in the restaurant. “Welcome to Jamaica, mon!” came the greeting with the handshake. “Welcome to Sumfest!” Now, what could they be selling? Drugs? Guide services? Trinkets?

No matter. It probably involved a scheme whereby they get my money.

“We live here”, was my curt response.

Theirs was to immediately leave the restaurant.

If they were just non-hustling locals, the usual response would be more friendly and chatty, and would establish everyone’s role on the island - then I would ask for the local rate. The hustle works both ways.

We just got back from Europe, where the wife played tourist for a month and I for the final two weeks. I could not even try to pretend we were otherwise, as the language differences were so vast. My typical conversations started in one of three ways, “Buono giorno, tu parlate Inglese?”, “Bon jour, parlez vous Anglais?”, or “Ello guv’nor, do you speak English?” This clearly established me someone from another land. If they needed further proof, all they had to do was answer the English proficiency question with a “no”,... and let the language fun begin!
If it became clear that my best attempts at communications were for naught, I would just mumble an apologetic phrase like, “mon aéroglisseur est plein des anguilles”, and try to find a more cooperative native.

As is the case with tourists to the Antilles, we flocked to the major tourist destinations, stood in line for the particularly cool and/or over hyped attractions, took hundreds of digital images, and consumed vast quantities. I particularly gorged on the Italian’s pizzas (although the crusts were almost nonexistent in their total thinnatiousness) and large slabs of tasty Euro-beef, both of which cannot be found here. Well, there is beef here, but there are plenty of other local items I would rather consume before the local beef, and that well marbled and fully aged Charolais,... grilled to perfection with the little mushrooms, some au gratin pommes and a bottle of rouge, mmmmm.

I could not help but to compare my experience as a tourist to the First World to what any American might think of similar systems here in the Third. Most notably the foreign transportation systems (read: geek). What was most foreign to me was the total lack of potholes in Italy. Kilometer after kilometer of smooth asphalt, well marked with bright white paint. Such a sight always gets me a little weepy-eyed, just ask the wife.

During any trip back to the First World, I have to relearn western driving skills - how to share the road with others, how to stay in one gear for more than two minutes, how to feel comforted by the knowledge that the taxi three meters ahead will not stop without working break lights immediately in front of you with zero warning, how to lay off the horn. It is always such a hassle.

In just two unbelievably short weeks though, I found it rather ordinary to make my way into the city on a timely, clean, and comfortable public bus. It seemed the usual state of things to safely drive at 150 kph down the Autostrada, with plenty of room to pass and be passed. There was no wonder at all as the train we were on ran at well over 200 kph through the French countryside en route to a faultless thirty kilometer tunnel under the English Channel.

Life in the Tropics emerged again at Heathrow, just prior to our return flight to Montego Bay. We had finished our drinks in United’s spacious and very well appointed Admiral Club (we had weaseled our way in because the phone at Air Jamaica’s ticket counter was not being answered, so who is to say we were not invited?) and strolled down to the gate just as it was announced that they were boarding the first third of the aircraft.

Why then, was every person in the departure lounge crushed en masse against the two overwhelmed ticket takers? It was so typically Jamaican, where the word queue has far too many vowels to be fully understood.

In the parking lot back at Sangster was a truck with four punctured tires, a victim of driving the wrong way through the tire shredders. The traffic signals at Pye River were completely dark, and had been for days. The new development down the way has placed their storm sewer in the roadway ditch, pipe crown above roadway centerline. Public Works diverted traffic at Round Hill without the necessary and required submittals, nor any traffic control signs or devices, for that matter. The rest of the contractors are still their traditional whiny selves.
Business as usual. There is no place like home. Read More......

Accommodations

If you are planning a visit to our fair island, I am sure you will want to know what you are getting yourself into. That may be why you read these, or you may want to see what we have gotten ourselves into. Regardless, today’s rant regards housing.

If we cannot meet you at the airport, you may have to take a taxi or rent a car. Not that anyone has yet had to do this. With a big international airport like Sangster, we would hate you to get lost between the nine gates and three (one working) baggage carousels, so we try to pick everyone up eventually. In the off chance that we cannot, we drive on the left here, so be careful. As you leave the airport, you will enter the first of many roundabouts (the word will make you out and out). Enter to the left, of course, and get off at the first left. Drive west until you are almost past the airport, but not quite. You will pass the jerk stand that is never open, and pass the Ministry maintenance yard with their hectare of rust. Just past the broken water main that is never fixed, and opposite the football field there is a turn to the right up the hill. Do not make this turn. In fact, these directions are wrong. Go back to the roundabout at the airport and try again.

Had you turned, you would have ended up in a neighborhood called Flankers. I know very little about this place except that we were told explicitly to never go there. These are the slums of Montego Bay. Potentially as bad as a West Kingston Garrison, it is controlled by rude bwoys. The residents do not take kindly to strangers, or so I hear. For all I know, it could be nirvana up that hill, just a nirvana camouflaged with tin shacks, stick shacks, blue tarped shacks, and scattered herds of rambling goats.

Better to head into town for now.

So instead, take the high road, upper road, or Queen’s Drive out of the airport roundabout. It is all the same road, anyway. At the next roundabout, turn on Sir Howard Cooke, then through two roundabouts down to Alice Eldermire, then to the roundabout at Southern Cross, then turn on Sunset and proceed to the last complex on the right. In the last klick and a half, there are a dozen sleeping policemen for your driving pleasure. A dozen in,... a dozen out.

One of the benefits of living on the tip of a peninsula is that there is little through traffic. Yet, when the peninsula is largely landfill, it may end up as flat as ours, which leads to excessive speeders on the lightly traveled roadway, and the eventual placement of, what we call in the industry, “traffic calming devices”. The speed bumps do quite the opposite, annoying the hell into me, and I curse them daily. The Dogwagon has a stiff and poorly refined suspension, so I must cross each bump in first or second gear. Some of the neighbours though, with their Rovers, Lexi, and gold plated SUV’s, can afford to run the bumps at 80 kph and not feel a thing.

The resultant speed differential would be hazard enough, except that the road is also well used by the local driving schools. With their large red “L(ame)” mounted on the rear bumper, the instructors do not allow the students to exceed a forward velocity above idle. Three abreast is not uncommon, as I pass the learners and get passed simultaneously. The oncoming traffic may notice and pull left at the very least.

The bumps are a hassle, but one which will soon be eased. Only eased, mind you, as we are only moving four speed bumps down the road. Yet four speed bumps each way every day yields an almost three kilobump reduction in the next year.

We like our current apartment. For one, we live there now. As well, there is a great view of the marina and the hills between Bogue and Reading. Two pools, well landscaped, good security and quiet neighbors have great appeal. However, our landlord has not owned the place for six months, so it is probably time we stopped paying him and move on.

He told us seven or eight months ago, one month prior to lease renewal, that we would not be renewed. “Fine”, we said, “just give us six more months”. So, six months later, and we had yet to find a new place to house our guests. Our plan is to move to the complex next door. It is only a three bump reduction, but the apartment is nice.

We will still take it eventually, but only after the second segment of this project is underway. At that time, the current occupant, one of my coworkers, will move on to the next phase and a new place to live closer to the nexus. In typical Jamaican fashion, the start-up of Segment Two has been delayed,... again. Originally, it was to have started two years after Segment One started, and Segment Three two years after that. Since each project was to have had a two year duration, the Segment One staff was to have followed the work across the island, leaving dust and pristine asphalt in their wake.

But that was not to be. By the original schedule, this segment was to have been completed eighty days after the wife and I got to the island, and will probably take five years to complete. It is no surprise that further segments are also delayed. For the most part, the foreign funding folks saw the problems we had here with relocations and utilities and threatened to withhold the money until the problems were resolved. In addition, the apparent low bidder for Segment Two was declared naughty, so there was much last minute contract wrangling.

So we wait and wait for an apartment which fails to materialize and we get left inside a thirty cubit lurch. We had looked for housing out of the neighborhood, but the downside of those residences was that they were out of the neighborhood, and the Freeport peninsula really is the most western place to live in Montego Bay. ...and twelve speed bumps and three gatehouses go far in reducing the general riff raff quotient.

So, with just a couple weeks until we would be out on the street, our penultimate plans failing, and I resolve myself to find a place to live for the next quarter by nightfall, and we do, and we move in two days. This will give me little time to repair the major damage in the current place and to steal the fixtures.

Oh, our current contract with the Company has expired, but we will re-up.

How could we not? It be life in the tropics, mon.

Cazart! Read More......

Parade

Despite the island’s small size, I still do a lot of driving. This year, I expect to put another 30,000 kilometers on the Dogwagon, about ten percent more than last year. To do so requires that I spend a couple hours a day navigating the potholes, veering around the cows and goats, minding my speed and road manners, and paying attention just enough to stay out of trouble.

As a curious human, my attention was caught by the sounds of sirens on the road the other day. I checked the mirrors and saw one of the local cycle cops mounted astride one of the few remaining KZ1000 Police Specials, circa 1980-something, sirens a-blaring and blue lights a-flashing, pacing me no more than 20 meters to aft. “Holy increasing consternation”, I mouthed as I saw, slightly behind the Kawasaki, another cycle cop, this one on the common 450 Nighthawk (a Honda product more often used to transport traffic cops from intersection to stationhouse than for patrol duties), also a-blaring and a-flashing.

I quickly ran through my options - flight, fight, submit - then decided on the only thing I could do - eyes simultaneously forward and to the mirrors, hands at ten and two, seat belt securely fastened, one last look to the mirrors, I depressed the accelerator and increased the separation.

The bikes followed relentlessly, and were on my tail for the next three hours as I maneuvered a borrowed Mitsubishi on and off of the embankment under construction, through little used portions of the project site, from Bogue to Lances Eve and back.

Not that I could ever lose a couple of experienced riders. But, you never know, all machines are subject to failure when over stressed.

The cops were not always situated directly behind me. Sometimes they would be on either side of me, sometimes just ahead, and, whenever we were approaching a populated area or a narrow bridge or one of the culvert halves under construction, one or the other would race ahead to clear traffic, scattering cars, goats and pedestrians just prior to my swift arrival.

It did not take long for others to join the chase. Behind the cycle cops and me was a police Land Cruiser, lights a-flashing, then the Prime Minister’s Land Cruiser, then a police Corolla, then two unmarked police Corollas, then the Minister of Transportation and Works’ Land Cruiser, then another police Corolla, then two vans from the Jamaica Information Service, then two or three dozen cars and vans filled with assorted fans and flunkies and political hacks.

As it turns out, this was a parade of sorts, and I was the lead vehicle. The Grand Marshall, if you will, in this grand march, but only because I won it fair and square (the other clowns had nothing on my flashing orange lights).

Sure, the build up was unfair, but cops rarely chase me these days. The last time was just before we went abroad. I was in the middle of one last ride, to move my cycle from the Heartland to a shed in the suburbs, where it would wait patiently for my return.

I was taking one of my favorite excursions, tooling down a winding Route 64 through Jones and Jackson Counties in eastern Iowa, tucked behind the fairing, feet on the rear pegs, scanning the pastures and their securely fenced-in cattle at 150 kph or so, when what should appear in the mirrors but one of Jackson County’s finest.

I have no idea how long he was back there but, since I did see him eventually (who checks mirrors at that speed?), I flashed the brakes, rolled off the throttle and lifted my chest into the wind, at which point the sheriff passed my slow ass, accelerating as he cruised by. I guess he had faster fish to fry and, since this was the last county before the state line, he had to be the only law enforcement officer until the bridge at Savannah.

Warp ten, Mr. Sulu.

Anyway, I got to lead the parade because Hank was in the PM’s van, giving him the low down on the current status of the project. I was assigned the monster chromium baton, and had the entourage follow me onto and about the project site so we could produce the bestest tour ever -

See the marl pile up slowly!
Thrill as workers secure deck forms!!
Be amazed by incredibly small stretches of new asphalt pavement!!!
Wonder at the miracle of the excavator!!!!

Of course, I should have been working productively, but sometimes, those dang Clients,...

Every once in a while they seem to want to know where their money is being spent or, in this case, they want to see where the money they hope to get is being spent. Of course, there is no money. The deferred financing arrangement through which this project is continuing (after the collapse of the Koreans) is barely constitutional, and probably will not provide the level of funding required to complete the Works. Money or no, we continue. There may be money tomorrow.

Hand to mouth. An entire government.

Two million people. Hand to mouth.

It is tough to miss seeing the poor on this island. Zinc shacks litter the hillsides and inner cities. Litter litters the roadways, alleyways and drainageways. Children beg on street corners.

There are others less poverty stricken, but only the rich have much of anything from a western consumerist point of view. Even the nice looking homes, when approached, show rot and rust and dirt. But how do you improve this situation when there is barely enough to put food on the table or send the pickneys to public school? Or, with the government, to import food for the people or to build and staff the public schools?

Sadly, what I see as a dominant attitude is one where living hand to mouth becomes routine. After so many years of some how, some way, finding some thing that will get you through to the next day, people seem to believe that tomorrow there will be enough presented to get you to the day after. Look at the little birds; they do not toil and work, but their malevolent little bird goddesses provide for them.

And look at them; they are still birds, eating bugs and worms and getting buffeted by whatever ill wind happens to blow through the woods.

At least the bird has no aspirations of building a highway.

The lesson then is this. Birds should not build highways. Small regional airports, perhaps, or even package power plants, but not highways.

We have thumbs for a reason I believe, not only does it help us bring food to mouth, but also they allow us to rise above hand to mouth. If I was not having such a good time, this whole Third World poverty cycle might depress me.

But I digress.

The point was this,... I think. Every once in a while, the P.M. would stop the his van, thereby stopping the entire entourage in the middle of whatever stretch of road we happened to be on at the time, blocking all traffic, in both directions, just so he could get out and press the flesh. This, presumably, was to demonstrate that he is a man of the people,... at one with the common folk,... in tune wid’ de riddims’ of de country,... in conflict with and contrary to his actions, that of someone with so little time to spare that he must speed maniacally through the cities, towns, and countryside, supported by a raft of toadies.

I hope he loses in the coming election. Read More......