Moontown

STEAMED PUDDING & SOUSE; CORN MEAL COU COU

VEGETABLE RICE; PEAS AND RICE

MACARONI PIE; STEAMED FISH

FRIED FISH; GRILLED FISH

BAKED CHICKEN; BAKED PORK

FIRED PORK; LAMB STEW

STEAMED VEGS; TOSSED SALAD

Jamaica Gleaner

A private boat docked at the marina. We saw him surrounded by handcarts, hammering away at the wheels of one of them.

His name is John Pryce and he can be called the handcart man of the Port Antonio market. He builds, repairs and rents handcarts from his base at the back of the Port Antonio market.

“I go by the hardware, buy old board, make the wheels, everything. Yuh si, living is a mus’,” he said. He doesn’t see his work as demeaning labour but rather something from a higher calling.

“My work is to fulfil the works of the Almighty. Every man deh yah pon di earth fi do im t’ing. So dis a my t’ing,” he said.

Pryce went on to explain that, based on the Christian teachings, any honest work was good work, hence his conclusion. But how did he get started?

“A inspiration yuh know. I see other men were doing it and I jus’ feel seh mi can do it too. I have neva had no training,” he explained.

Pryce’s mother sells coal not too far from his work area while he works to support his two children.

“From yuh have yute and yuh a work, dat haffi support dem,” he said. We asked him about Port Antonio and he paused before painting a grim picture.

“Nutt’n nuh good bout di capital but dat a jus wheh mi experience,” he said. “Anadda man might seh sump’n else.” He felt that much of the negatives came from those who prefer a less holy way of life.

“A peer (pure) wickedness mi see a gwaan yah now!” he lamented.

We asked if there was any hope and he said there was, on one condition.

“Dem (people) haffi waan change though,” he warned.

Dale Westin, general manager of the Errol Flynn Marina, talks about some of the benefits of the marina.

A section of the Errol Flynn Marina.

It’s hard work but John Pryce prefers to make a living the honest way.

Jamaica Gleaner

Oscar Jackson reflects on the days when farming was more profitable. - Photo by Ian Allen/Staff Photographer Despite the many commercial edifices that now take up Port Antonio square, there is still a place for farmers, albeit a reduced one.

Oscar Jackson is one such farmer. He has been in the industry for over 30 years.

“Mi plant banana, sweet potato, plantain, every likkle mix,” he said from the veranda of his home in the Boundbrook community of Port Antonio. He bemoaned the fact that one of the main purchasers of farmers’ goods closed down years ago.

“You could ship t’ings (your goods),” he said. “You didn’t make a great deal of money but you could sell in bulk. A lot of those places close down now.” He said he takes his produce to market on a few days and has some customers come to his gate on others, but he isn’t ‘rolling in dough’.

“Sales not so wonderful. People don’t have the money so your products spoil or you get little or nothing for them,” he said. Jackson’s father was a farmer and, along with friends, helped develop the profession, passing it on to his son.

“The young generation, they don’t worry with it,” he chuckled. “They say it’s too hard. I don’t know what they doing now. It’s like dem go sleep a day time,” he said.

He recalled that the 1960s “weren’t too bad” but in the ’80s, he said that things started to slow.

He said that there needed to be greater marketing for the produce.

Jackson said he also had challenges with the weather as the wind sometimes blew down his bananas.

“Put in more jobs. We need more institutions to employ people. Things would go on better,” he said.

Nation News (Barbados)

JULIAN HUNTE: only nominee for the top post at the WICB.

by HAYDN GILL

IN SPITE of a turbulent year in which there have been several calls for his resignation, Julian Hunte is set to be re-elected as the president of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).

Investigations by the SATURDAY SUN have revealed that Hunte is the only nominee for the top post at the WICB’s annual general meeting in Antigua tomorrow.

Additionally, Dave Cameron, who was Hunte’s vice-president during the past two years, is also unchallenged.

With none of the six territorial associations - Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Leeward Islands and Windward Islands - putting forward other candidates when nominations closed a month ago, the re-election of Hunte and Cameron will be a mere formality.

It comes as a surprise in some quarters that the 69-year-old Hunte has no challengers after a tenure dogged by controversy.

There were increased calls for him to step down in February after the embarrassment of the abandoment of a Test match at the Vivian Richards Cricket Ground because of a below standard outfield.

Three months earlier, Digicel chairman Denis O’Brien also called for Hunte to step aside after the WICB lost a battle with its principal sponsor in the London Court of International Arbitration over the staging of the Stanford 20/20 US$20 million match.

During the past few months, the WICB and the West Indies Players’ Association have been embroiled in a dispute that had included the leading players making themselves unavailable for the series against Bangladesh, a no-show of the players at two official functions, and a boycott by six regional teams for one day during the first-class competition.

Under Hunte’s term, the WICB also lost the sponsorship of its two leading regional competitions with Carib Beer no longer funding the four-day competition and KFC opting not to continue its backing for the One-Day tournament.

Nation News (Barbados)

Minister of SociaL Care, Constituency Empowerment, Urban and Rural Development, Chris Sinckler (left), with Ambassador-Designate Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford yesterday.

GOVERNMENT IS SEEKING some tangible returns following its decision to establish its first permanent embassy in the Chinese capital of Beijing.

Indeed, Chris Sinckler, Minister of Social Care, Constituency Empowerment, Urban and Rural Development, is hoping Ambassador- Designate Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford could use his “influence” to secure finance and expertise from the Chinese to assist in Government’s social care programmes.

Speaking to reporters after Sir Lloyd paid him a courtesy call at Parliament yesterday, Sinckler said he was particularly keen on finding offices for the newly established Constituency Councils.

In this regard, he suggested the provision of technical assistance for the retrofitting of abandoned buildings within communities to form constituency empowerment centres.

Cooperation

He also suggested that cooperation could be forthcoming in the area of services, particularly with respect to training people to produce prostheses, since Barbados only had one trained person in this field.

Sinckler, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs when Sir Lloyd’s appointment was announced last year, also spoke of the possibility of student exchanges and the sharing of information in areas such as urban development planning.

Sinckler also discussed the possibility of staging exchanges between elderly people in Barbados and China at the level of the senior games, since it was a major part of the island’s sporting calendar and capable of attracting a number of visitors.

For his part, the ambassador-designate, who is expected to head off to Beijing some time next month, said he was grateful to have been offered the opportunity to serve his country and gave a commitment to the strengthening of ties between the Asian giant and Bridgetown.

“I will make a full representation . . . to those areas of cooperation you have raised,” Sir Lloyd assured Sinckler. “I will try to make for a creative and mutually beneficial relationship between China and Barbados,” he added.