Lifestyle

I had never yet been mistaken for a policeman. Now, I'm not saying that's a good thing or not, just merely stating a fact of life. But that all changed recently inside a small, musty shop in Balaclava, St Elizabeth.

It was one of those community shops that sells everything - from bread and biscuits to women's hats and reels of thread. I was in there for no more than five minutes when in walked a short, square-headed man with a bald patch at the very top of his head.

"Squaddie! What a gwaan? Is long time I nuh see man like you! Heh hay! How Miss Linda?" he said, loudly. The man was looking in my direction, so I turned to look behind me to see who he was speaking to. There was nobody there.

"Bwoy, di crime rate high ah town eeh man?" he said, shaking his head in apparent empathy. I looked over at the woman working behind the counter. She seemed as puzzled as I was.

"Squaddie?" I said.

"Hold on, mek ah put on mi glass," said the balding man, reaching into his shirt pocket to retrieve a pair of spectacles. He put them on his face and squinted.

"Eh eh! Yuh haffi see wid me yuh hear bredrin, for di eye dem ah get dark," he said, chuckling. He put his glasses back into his shirt pocket and walked over to me.

"I am Rexton," he said. "When mi did first see yuh, mi did was think yuh was fi Miss Linda big bwoy. Him do police work ah town. Mi hear him did deh bout di place yah. Mi nuh see him from him a lilly bwoy so when mi see yuh and yuh nuh beknowing to me, mi think it was him," said Rexton.

"Good to see yuh anyway," he added. I thanked him and asked if he lived in Balaclava.

"Well, nearby, nearby," he said, slowly, looking around the shop. Rexton was wearing a khaki shirt, short pants and waterboots. I asked him if he was a farmer.

"Yeah, man. Most of we around here do we likkle farming. I plant sweet potato and sell it inna di Santa Cruz market," he said.

I asked Rexton how things were going with his crops so far this year. He was still looking around the shop, slowly.

Encouragement sweetens 'labour'

"Cough! Ahhm. Mi throat kinda dry yuh know. Di talking kinda nuh suh easy pon a dry throat," said Rexton, looking at a shelf stacked with liquor behind the counter, then at me, then back at the shelf. He stood in silence for about five seconds before I offered to buy him a drink. "Oh, thank yuh, man, thank yuh, very kind of yuh," he said, his smile wide. I signalled to the woman behind the counter and she immediately started making him a drink, an apparent routine activity for her, since she didn't bother to ask him what beverage he required. In about a minute, Rexton was sipping from a cup and more than happy to talk about life in Balaclava.

"Is a place dat don't have no real developness. Dem need fi really devel it up some more still," he said.

"We nuh have nuh real young girl bout di place neither. Di young girl dem waan live ah town and dem place deh," he said, looking annoyed.

"It alright still," said Rexton. "Nuh shooting or nothing nuh gwaan ah Balaclava. We deal wid hard work around here. We nuh have nuh time fi di foolinish. Hard work is what we is about right here," he said.

robert.lalah@gleanerjm.com