Jamadian - Your time will soon come.Originally Posted by Jamadian
I just had a Jamaica moment; I was out in the yard looking around and checking the weather (it’s cloudy) when I observed six little green parrots gathered in an ackee tree. They squawked at each other for a few minutes, hopped from branch to branch, and then flew off in a loose gaggle to who knows where. It’s the first time I’ve seen these parrots in the wild. They’re called the yellow-billed amazon and are endemic to the island. It was so cool to see them!
Here’s another Jamaica moment:
“Did you know that the coconut is the only food that goes into the body and washes the heart?” the man asked me. He was selling jelly coconuts from the back of his truck which was loaded with coconuts and sugar cane.
“No, I wasn’t aware of that,” I replied.
“Yah, mon, it does,” he assured me, “it cleans aroun’ de heart.” He gestured with his hands, like he was washing a heart, I guess.
I was thirsty, so I said, “Well, in that case you’d better give me one. My heart could do with some cleaning.”
“Two hundred,” he said.
We call it ‘Dead Man’s Corner’. Others call it ‘Mandrix Corner’ for reasons unknown to me. Most people know it by ‘The Church Corner’. But all will agree; it’s a dangerous piece of road to walk on, no matter what you call it. It could rightly be called ‘Dead Woman’s Corner’, since a woman who was walking the road was run down by a truck there not long ago. Sadly, she died.
The corner is blind in both directions, it’s sharp and it’s on a hill. On one side there is a tall concrete wall which completely blocks the visibility of vehicles entering the corner. That is where the woman was run down. We often take the alternate route down into center-town, specifically to avoid Dead Man’s Corner.
The corner is tricky to negotiate while walking; there is no sidewalk. When walking westbound, up the hill, we stop just before the corner on a grassy verge and look back along the road. We wait until we see a big gap in the approaching traffic and then book it up the hill and around the corner. Most locals just walk blithely around the corner, leaving it to fate whether they will make it unscathed to the ‘safer’ part of the road.
For the most part, drivers approaching from either direction don’t slow down a bit, they just lean on the horn and take it on good faith that they won’t run someone down.
If and when the proposed West End sidewalk materializes, it will be a great day for people who walk this section of the road. Until then, we will be very careful, fully alert and cross our fingers when we walk Dead Man’s Corner.
Dead Man's Corner
Yeah!! Chicken has arrived at the Corner Bar.
23/7 - gone but not forgotten. I loved that place, and I miss it.
