The Poverty of Things: A Diva's Perspective

Clara Brown - Guest Author

“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies" Mother Theresa

My tiny District of Gibraltar, St. Ann is barely a dot on the map of Jamaica. Yet it was here, in the deep rural parts, that my five siblings and I spent our formative years.  These years paved our way to the highways and byways of opportunity and prepared us all for the sometimes unchartered terrains. We were pioneers in many ways, as our much older cousins, who represented success to our young and impressionable minds, did not travel the courses we took.                                                                               

We did not have much in terms of ‘things’. We had enough – by our standard -  but down the road from our three bedroom house and hall, there was Miss Daisy and Maas Joe. At 6' tall, Maas Joe was not only perceived to ‘run his house’ but was the most successful farmer and modern day equivalent of an  "Entrepreneur."

Maas Joe was successful and, incidentally, he was a  distant cousin of my mother. He and his household had “THINGS,” including a car and a massive house that was located right in the district’s square.  The downstairs of the house was a huge, in my youthful eye,  grocery shop and the upstairs were the living quarters. Maas Joe owned most of the lands in the area, perhaps hundreds of acres, and boy did he work them!   

Whenever he is working on the farm, Maas Joe would load the only Land Rover pick-up in the area with labourers of all ages. He owned numerous herds of cattle that grazed on the fodder adjacent to the Primary School that I attended.  Maas Joe had “THINGS."

Perhaps they were fleeting moments of ‘need’ but sometimes I wished Maas Joe was my father.

I was cognizant that with a fairly good supply of “THINGS," one could possibly live comfortably and would be able to buy anything he/she wanted. Looking back, something now dawns on me.  Miss Daisy and Maas Joe did not smile, at least not in public. There was no raucous laughter echoing through their doors onto the street.

My Church - Jerusalem School Room

More significant, there was no gathering of the sisters (Miss Coolie - my mother, Miss Tuxie and the youngest Miss Pulachie).  After church, the sisters would gather to exchange their weekend blessing of deliciously cooked rice and peas and chicken.  How many ways can one cook fricassee chicken?

Most Sundays, the sisters cooked the same foods, yet they exchanged meals and joyous, gut-busting laughter and anything else that could be thrown into the mix of 'togetherness'. It was never about “THINGS” for these three.  They also shared an ever-amusing interaction as they started speaking in a strange 'gypsy' language.  Us children were always fascinated when they started this charade. Instead of taking this as the cue to leave the room, we hovered in a corner within ear-shot until frustration set in as we could not decipher what they were saying.

It was never about “THINGS."

Our house was situated close to the Baptist Church and our cellar was the storage for the slippers and walking shoes of the ladies who travelled miles to attend church. Our 'facilities' provided relief for them in preparation for the 3-hour long service. We were awaken every Sunday by 5:30 a.m. to clean said 'facilities'. The early wake up was to ensure it was presentable for the first ‘stranger’ who came by.  “Stranger” for us simply meant someone who did not live in our household.  

My dearly departed Mother was an upstanding “Market Woman” with an extremely loyal clientele.  She sold at the Falmouth Market in Trelawny, the parish bordering St. Ann. Growing up, my elder brothers and sisters took turns to sell in the market, either with my mother or on their own when she was ill.  I, Miss Coolie's ‘wash-belly’, was never taken to the market.

City boys on their first donkey ride

I often tell my only child, Jared, about my astute mother's juggling act.  There was a point when three of us were attending Primary School at the same time. Unable to afford more, the single pencil my mother bought would be 'cut' in three pieces. We each took turns with the bit that had the eraser. Through this experience, we learned the value of caring for our ‘things’.  We were forbidden from borrowing so we each kept our third of a pencil in a safe place until Friday.  I really looked forward to my Monday morning treat when it was my turn to get the bit of the pencil with the eraser.

Our household was infused with a drive, energy and compelling desire to excel.

Excelling did not mean having cars, a huge house, acres of land as Maas Joe and Miss Daisy. To us, ‘things’ meant enough to provide fuel for the journey along the road to achievement of our life-long ambitions.  Our mother never put us under any pressure to do our school work.  Her repeated chant was instead, ”Pickney, work hard because mi nuh have no legacy fi lef give oonu."  Another perspective on ‘things’. We learnt from an early age that we can only count the cows in our backyard, not anybody else’s.  As Theodore Roosevelt so aptly stated:

“For better is it to dare mighty ‘things’ to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure – than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a grey twilight that know not victory nor defeat”

The welcoming red steps of home

Not too long ago, there was a Facebook post asking those born in the 1960's what was their favourite cartoon. I could not participate in this exercise because:

1. There was no TV in Gibraltar in my childhood and the radio station signed off at 8:00 p.m. due to poor transmission.
2. There was no electricity in my district until the late 1970’s.

The foregoing should have clued you in that my beginnings were humble.

I came to the big city, Kingston, after graduating from High School.  It was an immediate culture shock.  Despite what some might have considered poverty, we never begged. Imagine then my dismay to see people begging to get by.  Now in the Capital City of Kingston for all these years, I have not enrolled in the ‘art of begging’ course.

My first birthday party ever was for my 40^th.  Some of you might say “poor baby” but I never saw that as poverty.  I see those ‘economic limitations’ as a big SO WHAT?!.  I wasn’t deprived.  I was just a normal, average child who grew up in Gibraltar, St. Ann –  never feeling lesser than. 

I must admit that, despite my humble upbringing, I have been railroaded into indulging, bitten by the ‘material bug’.  The challenge we live with today is not trying to provide enough for our children but convincing them that what they have is enough. Things change and not always for the better. 

My primary school surrounded by Maas Joe's lands

There was a definite beauty, simplicity and wonderment to my childhood and Gibraltar. It was a childhood of dreams and imagination than of material expectations.  Cable, TV and video games did not yet exist, so we visited and played in our "pretend world" that we created in our backyards or the not too busy streets. 

It seems we valued things more because there was not a whole lot but we DID have enough. In fact more than enough. Materialism is now the way of being. We venerate conspicuous displays of wealth.  As a people, we need to revisit the fundamental yet ever-so wise truth that there is enough.  More importantly, our children need to be inculcated with a sense of "enoughness" rather than such a sharp focus on accumulating. It is time we go back to basics.

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Continue to experience an "Enough" day!

Clara Brown is an Insurance Executive and lives in St. Andrew,  Jamaica with her spouse and only child, Jared. She is one of our regular Guest Authors.