Wednesay | January 16, 2002
For the uninitiated, an early morning visit — 5:30 a.m. — to Coronation Market, is a revelation!
A visit to the same area three hours later, say at 9:30 a.m. is frightening! There is a general feeling of chaos. Early however, that chaos seems controlled and friendly. There is constant and rhythmic sound and motion. Hand carts pushed by men, nay, males of all ages, snaking their way in between motorcars, stalls laden with fruit, vegetables, hawkers plying matches, kaleidoscopic packets of fiery coloured seasonings, “chapaulin” [read tarpaulins], “high grade” [read pre-packaged portions of ganja hung on wire circles just like cashew nuts, “ten dollah yu get knife!” [Not really a threat! Rather, read “knives for sale @ $10 each]. And the list of wares goes on.
You point to and ask for “grow-me-shell”, meaning that exquisitely tasting banana with the French handle that the Dominicans will pronounce so beautifully as “Gros Michel” and realize that “Michelle”, sadly, must be gross! You might even find a taxi driver offering in all earnestness, to take you to “Eros’ Circle!” — how wonderful! Even Cleo, thought to be a wanna-be-Jamaican, couldn’t do that for you! Back on earth, the prices are usually very reasonable.
The relationship between vendor and purchaser as well as that between vendor and vendor is cordial, affable, friendly, indeed COOL, Seen! Yet at about 9:30 a.m. much of that changes. The competition between and among vendors, shoppers, cartmales, car and taxi drivers seems to have undergone a metamorphosis. It is not that among the cognoscenti, relations have changed. It is that the heartbeat of the market and surroundings has been pumped up for the pace and heat of activities to be accomplished. The “push”, the “crush” is on.
Schoolboy relaxes on one of the haulage carts chained together for safety at Coronation Market. © The Gleaner
For one on the second visit, i.e. from early morning to late morning, this change is immediately evident, and formidable. It is almost, or rather, absolutely intimidating. What for the initiated sounds like ordinary speech, to the newcomer or foreigner, appears to be and sounds like invitations to duel! These pages cannot offer/reflect the oral/aural aspect of the exchanges. But take it from me they are extraordinary, indeed exotic. Here is a people going about their lives with an enthusiasm, a zest literally, that does not admit of the hardship it entails! This is the embodiment of the spirit of commerce, to use today’s name for that drive, which reflects the creativity and longevity of the Jamaican peasantry — the folk who left the plantation to fend for themselves amidst tremendous natural and man-created odds.
Those yams and coco we see on display were perhaps, almost certainly, dugout from the bowels of Manchester hills on Thursday, taken to roadside down winding hill paths on head and donkey. From thence they were protected by child for at least a long night and accompanied on bumpy country bus on a 4-hour drive to Kingston arriving early in the Saturday a.m. Such is the requirement for urban life, as we know it, to be maintained.
Yet Coronation market and the Railway Terminus have neither, had the kind of renewal that is clearly necessary to sustain both urban and rural life in the future! Should I say “Choman do better dan dat!” The Thesaurus on Microsoft word insists I should change that to: “Chapman”, “dan” must be changed to Dam, and “dat” perhaps to “daft”! Like hell I should! “Chapman dam daft” indeed! But who or what is Chapman?
