I first went to Negril in the early 70's and stayed at a place up in Red Ground called Porter's Cottage. Right in the backyard was an entrance to a neat cave. Local kids would go down to play and once they turned us on to it you couldn't keep us out either. I wrote a story about those early days in Red Ground, but alas, those old stories are no longer in archive on Negril.com. By 1975 Negril was played out and was becoming a tourist attraction. I didn't return until 2007 when I came down with my family to spread the ashes of my cousin who had died, an original hippie who turned me on to traveling. Certainly everything was quite different. I walked up to Red Ground to see if any of the old guard was still around. The area was quite built up compared to more than 30 years earlier and that little entrance to the cave was now in somebody's yard. I inquired if anyone was around that could take me down into the cave. Somebody went to fetch Markie, the cave man. I made arrangement to meet the next day and the 3 of us were handed Indiana Jones type torches to head down. Markie was a slender filthy mess, but he made his living harvesting bat dung to sell to the farmers. After our trip we cleaned up the best we could, paid him his fee and something to drink at Miss Alice's store. He told the story how he had been a kind of caretaker for a Canadian couple who had a small place in Red Ground. He basically looked after the place while they were away (stayed in the house), and they let him stay in a shack while they were there. He had it made. But he met a girl who led him down the path to a hearty coke habit and the Canadians had to evict him. When I met Markie he had realized the mess he was in and had ditched the girlfriend. he was trying to get clean. Wether he was clean at that time or not I really don't know. But 6 months later I visited again and brought along a couple of more people for a cave tour. Markie seemed to be doing quite a bit better. Still skinny as a rail and harvesting the dung, but seemed a bit more together. I stopped into Red Ground next almost 2 years later looking for Markie. Miss Alice showed me where he lived and i got a good look at his house. On the last visit he told me he used to carve wood, but had no tools, so I had brought him down a fairly cheap Harbor Frieght wood carving set. He was thrilled. He was doing quite well and by this time had comletley kicked any drug habit for sure. He had a little garden at his house. The next visit was November 2010 to plan our daughters wedding. I took my wife up to meet Markie and he took us on a couple mile walk deep into Red Ground. We stopped at Fuzzy's house and rested a while. We also walked up to what he called "Skull Gate" another friend who had a place with a fantastic view ofall of Negril beach from up in the hill. This time we had brought him some clothes that would fit someone 5' 10" and weighing 120 lbs!. We also brouhgt him a nice pair of slightly used sized 11 sneekers. Our daughter got married in May 2011 and the morning of the wedding 5 of us (including the groom) went up for a cave tour. The guys loved it. By this time Markie was doing really well. Still loving hand to mouth, but really intigrated into his neighborhood. He gave me a carving and some of the others spent money for other carvings. Living up in Red Ground he has very little contact with tourists and has sold very few of his carvings. he was really happy for the extra money from the tour and the sale. December 2012 we stopped down again. He had gotten word to me that he had a very expensive lignum vitae walking stick he had been working on for long time. It was out of this world expensive but when I saw it I knew I had to buy it. We had brought him a couple of pairs of slightly used running sneekers this trip. He gave us a sanll carving for my daughter for a wedding present. and had made a carving just for me. It is a nice carving, but what made it special was that he carved his entire name on the back, even misspelling his last name! The walking stick is all anyone talks about, but his signed carving is what made the day for me. He told me I was the best American friend that he has. We had originally took him as as kind of a project, and it has been nice to see him do better. I never expect anything from him and give to him out of the love of my heart, and he has done so to me.
I will post some photos by year so you can see my friend Markie.
Regards,
Bob
