Left: Maffi draws a crowd every day in Wakefield, Trelawny. Right: Wakefield in Trelawny is one of those sleepy, old communities. - PHOTOS BY IAN ALLEN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
CLARENCE IN Canada apparently forgot to send the package he promised to Inez in Wakefield, Trelawny. So when she went to the post office to collect it, she was somewhat peeved to learn that the parcel was not there. "But see yah! A wah kinda crosses dis pan mi soul now, Father?" she muttered as she walked dejectedly out of the post office.
It was earlier this week that photographer Ian Allen and I found ourselves in the tiny post office in Wakefield. It was a quaint building in a rustic community. There was a notice on the front door asking anyone who felt they had a moral right to the estate of Gustavious Morris to contact the administrator-general.
With Inez now some ways down the road, still cursing Clarence, the post office was empty.
CONVERSATION ABOUT WAKEFIELD
Miss Clarke came out from a back room and greeted us. "Hello, how are you today," the bespectacled woman said with a smile. She was smartly dressed and had a pleasant face. We struck up something of a conversation about the community.
"It's a nice place. Of course, the youths are unstable in these last days, but nothing too serious. More or less, it's quiet and sometimes boring," she said, cursing a mosquito that landed squarely on her nose.
We left the post office and wandered on to the street. A few schoolchildren were making their way up the road, and a woman in a ripped pair of shorts and a yellow blouse stood with a baby by the side of the road. A rickety truck sputtered along the road, leaving a cloud of exhaust behind. Someone shouted something to the driver who stuck his head out and replied, "Alright, mi a go uppa Miss Jack! When mi pass back mi check you!"
We noticed quite a crowd developing some distance down the road. We ventured over there. It was a rainy day and a few drops gave rise to a smell of wet dirt.
We caught up with the crowd which was mainly made up of schoolchildren. We realised that they were gathered around a bald-headed man in a blue shirt who was sitting on a makeshift chair at the side of the road. The man was holding what looked like a wooden walking stick in one hand and a paint brush in the other.
His name is Maffi, and he is Wakefield's most famous craft vendor. Famous, mainly because he makes all his goods himself, right there at the side of the road. And at lightning speed. "How unnu do?" he said looking up. A mischievous schoolboy touched a carving of a woman in an unmentionable place causing another boy to giggle. A schoolgirl gave him an angry look and the boy scurried off.
CARVING FOR 25 YEARS
Maffie said he has been carving since he was 16 years old. He's now 41 and has eight children. "Di dutty tuff still. But it a feed di youth dem so we haffi praise Jah," the bald-headed man said.
Maffi said he taught himself how to carve, because God told him one day to get a piece of wood. "So when I get the wood, I just hear God say, yow, go carve dis," the man said in a deep voice. I think he was impersonating God.
On the ground beside Maffi were a few of his productions. There was a well-endowed woman, a menacing snake and a man with a lot to be thankful for. "So how do you come up with the designs?" I asked. "Well you want to see that it's just the inspiration you know. I never know what I am carving. I just carve and then look and see what come out," he said.
Maffi said he carved the figure of the well-figured woman in less than 20 minutes, which was shocking, considering the curves and turns of the project.
"I do work fi all Hollywood you know man. When dem a do flim show at Ochi, dem buy my things and use dem in it. Yes man. Mi is a cebrelity!"
The man dipped his paintbrush in a cut-off plastic bottle and continued speaking. "I make a lot of money off this. A carving like the one with the woman, I can get all two hundred U.S. dollar fi dat," he said. The tourists will pay anything, cause dem appreciate di quality, you see me?" the man chuckled. He said he has received offers to live abroad, and to work on movie sets and at West Indian shops all over the world.
"But I man is a natural countryman from birth. I not into di hype. I just get my wood and do my works fi keep mi family going. When nothing a gwaan, mi just plant two seed and mi nice same way. Nowhere nuh sweet like yard, so mi a stay right here inna Wakefield and do mi ting," Maffi said.
When we left, Maffi was still at it. Doing what he loves best in the community he loves more than any other in the country he calls 'di best country inna di world."
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