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blacks live side by side in perfect harmony. What rubbish, what lies! You would have to be blind not to notice that the majority of blacks are uneducated, poor and despised by both the middle and white upper class groups who never bother to disguise their contempt for them. They’re more concerned about their own status than those of the black masses.
    The blacks live within the twin boundaries of poverty and unemployment and cannot step outside them unless they have education or money and if they can’t get those they will remain where they are. Jamaica opened my eyes to the frailties of human nature. Until I came here I hadn’t realised that humanity could come in varying degrees and that there could be such a dramatic class distinction in the social structure of one race of people.
    Kingston is still an attractive city with wide streets and buildings painted in shades of pink, cream and blue, the gardens full of hibiscus and blood red poinsettias and rich purple splashes of gorgeous bougainvillea vines. But I prefer the old capital, Spanish Town, and even though it’s now shabby, neglected and damaged by earthquakes, there still remains some splendid Spanish architecture and the ancient cathedral.
    There are shops of every kind in Kingston, but never the one I want when I need it.
    There is an increase in motorcars now but I find them a nuisance because their motor horns are so loud and drivers use them constantly. And they are dangerous because of the “Blow and Go” war-cry of the drivers. If two cars are at a cross roads and both blow their horns simultaneously, each one hears only the sound of his own horn and if both “go”, which usually happens, there’s a crash. The utter and complete disregard of the speed limit by car drivers is only equalled by the utter and complete disregard of the police to enforce the speed limit in the city.
    The side streets of Kingston are where the blacks live. Women wearing brightly coloured turbans gossip from the windows with neighbours on the pavement below and men standing in the shade discussing something in patois, a language I never learnt. Mangy dogs wandering the streets, full of fleas and with prominent ribs sticking out worry me as well as goats with their kids which amble through the city in search of grass. But my heart breaks for the poor little donkeys with their big gentle eyes, long ears and delicate tiny feet, heavily ladened down with goods strapped across their back and the owner perched on top smoking ganja and half asleep.
    My marriage to Henry didn’t last but it did produce 11 beautiful children. Before we married I knew of his reputation for living a reckless life. Too much drinking, gambling and he had known plenty of women. But I loved him and I thought he would change, in fact, I thought I could change him. But the habits he had before we married continued during our marriage and caused me great pain. I would have put up with his peccadilloes, but not his drinking and gambling. When he drank, he gambled, when he gambled he usually lost all his money and then we had no food. I would have to go to the priest and beg for money to feed our children. That was too much. I couldn’t stand begging.

    ******

Report

    Fr Frank Butler, Holy Trinity Cathedral, Kingston,
    to
    His Lordship Bishop Robert Collins, London

    Your Holiness
    I, too, have seen the recent articles in the English Times, and share your concerns that Obeah is flourishing unchecked in Jamaica and that it would appear that the people are choosing it as their religion rather than Christianity.
    It is an interesting view that The Times puts forward, that “Obeah is a spiritual disorder” but I tend to disagree and think that it is a “psychological disorder” as it seems to me to be based on suggestion. Startling effects can be produced by suggestion and drastic changes in personality. Two persons quarrel over some difference they might have. One throws out the suggestion that he is going