Eighteen-year-old vendor Kerry-Ann Lewis works very hard as she pushes her orange cart in downtown Kingston. - Photo by Andrew Wildes

Up and down West Parade, Kerry-Ann Lewis pushes a long wooden cart with three large black crates of oranges. How this one-legged 18-year-old manages the obviously hassling work is a mystery to many - even her.

"Mi nuh know how mi manage, but mi manage - fada God help mi fi manage," Kerry-Ann told The Gleaner.

The young woman, who tragically lost her leg to cancer when she was only nine, has been higglering since she was 13 when she used to help her mother to sell.

After losing her leg and being without the means to acquire a prosthetic, Kerry-Ann had to learn to use her crutch as though it were a replacement limb. She neatly places her leg through one crutch and, with the other crutch balancing her, walks and steers her cart.

"Mi have me foot inna di stick here so and mi start move roun' suh till me get used to it," she explained. "But it humbugging to me right now, suh mi woulda prefer get a false one."

Embarrassing falls

As innovative as Kerry-Ann has been, she has had many very embarrassing falls, as her aunt Michelle Russell shared.

"Sometimes, it slide her enuh," Russell said. "Sometimes it slide har, she just walk and drop 'Buff!'"

Russell says she cannot count the number of times her niece has fallen flat on her back as she works in Parade.

"When me foot cut off, a whol' heap a time me drop and me always a beg fada God fi mek me get a false foot," Kerry-Ann said.

For that and other reasons, Kerry-Ann says she wants to switch professions some day - as soon as another opportunity becomes available.

"It more pressuring to me, if me did have a leg mi coulda go round much faster," she remarked.

The fact that her formal education ended after primary school and that she is now the mother of a one-year-old boy are two of the main reasons Kerry-Ann continues to buy and sell.

"Me woulda waan stop the selling because it hackling fi me. Mi waan stop but through mi baby, mi cyaan stop," she lamented.

andrew.wildes@gleanerjm.com