Clabow! My heart jumped and my knees started to wobble. I was standing on a pothole-riddled sidewalk in the community known as Cassava Piece in St Andrew and started looking around for the source of the sound, all the time ready to hit the pavement, should it become necessary.

Now I'm no chicken, but when I first arrived in the community and was nonchalantly strolling through the place, I was warned by an older woman who was selling sweets from a wooden stall, to 'watch mi head back'.

She went on to warn me that there were a few people who would not take too kindly to me (an unknown) just frittering my day away in their hometown.

So, you can see why I might have been a bit unnerved by the sound, that, upon investigation, turned out to be the result of a child jumping on an air-filled juice bag.

The child, by the way, managed to get a glimpse of my reaction to the sound and was not in the least reluctant to let his amusement be known.

"Tee hee hee!" The boy laughed and pointed in my direction.

I was red in the face and in my anger, may have, for a moment, contemplated yelling age-appropriate obscenities in his direction, but quickly altered my plan when I spotted a large woman, whom I assume was his mother, looking over his shoulder at me. I decided to walk away, and quickly.

Disinterested man

Now that all that was over, I found myself walking next to a large open gully that ran directly beside the roadway.

Although I was still trying hard not to attract attention to myself, I was somewhat startled by a squeaking sound behind me. I looked around to see a skinny, bearded man pushing a wheelbarrow filled with some white, plastic bottles.

I gave him a quick lookover and decided that he seemed harmless enough.

I called out to him.

"Hello!" I said. No response. The man only mumbled something to himself and seemed to struggle to keep his pants up.

"Ahmm...hello," I said, again.

This time, the man looked at me and nodded. He rested the back of the wheelbarrow on the ground and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow.

I introduced myself to him and, looking completely disinterested, he asked what he could do to help me. I asked the man if he could tell me about the community.

"Gullyside?" he said. I nodded, having been told that many people refer to the community that way.

"Well di place hot sometime and other time rain fall," he said.

A tad puzzled, I asked him, more specifically this time, about the people who live there.

"Well, yuh know dis place get bad name sometime, but most of di people dem nuh trouble nobody. Yuh have yuh good and bad like anywhere else," he said.

"But mi caan stay wid yuh, for mi haffi carry dem bokkle yah dung di road and mi pants ah drop off," he said, and wheeled off in the opposite direction.

'Gimmi a drink'

I looked around for someone else to speak with and was alarmed by a man running straight at me. He was an elderly fellow with only a few teeth and quite a pronounced limp.

"Mi hear yuh asking about Cassava Piece," he said. I confirmed that I was and asked him if he would be able to tell me about it.

"Well, mi coulda do dat, but mi mouth kinda dry, still," he said.

I was confused by his response at first, but then I noticed that he was eyeing a nearby rum bar.

I offered to buy the man a drink and he brightened up considerably. Together, we walked over to the bar that was manned by a husky woman with more chest hair than the average construction worker.

"Gimmi a drink, deh baby," the man shouted and the woman dipped below the counter and started to pour a clear liquid into a glass.

I wondered silently how she knew what he wanted, but asked no questions of it.

Instead, I asked the man, after he took a sip from the glass, of course, about the community.

"Well, the people who live here long time, like me, live good wid each other. Plenty people think is only no-good come from around here, but is not true. Dem need fi come in and really get fi know di people before dem start cast judgement. Cassava Piece alright man, we nuh too bad at all," he said.

robert.lalah@gleanerjm.com

The hunt for a friendly face took longer than I expected.

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