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  • Jamaica Kincaid A Small Place EXCERPTED

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    Robin Richardson
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    35 views20 pages

    Jamaica Kincaid A Small Place EXCERPTED

    Uploaded by

    Robin Richardson

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 20
    1 You co to Antigua as a tourist, this is what you will see. If you come by seroplane, you will, land at the V. C. Bird Intemational Airport. Vere Cornwall (V, C.) Bird is the Prime Minister of ‘Antigua. You may be the sort of tourist who would ‘wonder why a Prime Minister would want an air- port named after him—why nota school, why not a hospital, why not some great public monument? ‘You are a tourist and you have not yet seen school fn Antigua, you have not yet seen the hospital in ‘Antigua, you have not yet seen « public monument in Antigua, As your plane descends to land, you right say, What 2 beautiful island Antigua is— ‘more beautiful than any of the other islands you Ihave seen, and they were very beautiful, in their Jamaica Kincaid way, but they were much too green, much too lush with vegetation, which indizated to you, the tourist, that they got quite a bi: of rainfall, and rain is the very thing that you, just now, do not want, for you are thinking of the hard and cold fand dark and long days you spent working in [North America (or, worse, Europe), earning some money so that you cquld stay in this place (Antigua) where the sun always shines and where the climate ie delicioualy hot and dry for the four to ten days you are going to be saying there; and since you are on your holiday, since you are a tourist, the thought of what it might be like for someone who had to live day in, day out in 9 place that auffers constantly from drought, and so has to watch carefully every drop of Fresh water used (while at the same time surrounded by a sea and fan ecean—the Caribbean Sea on one side, the ‘Atlantic Ocean on the other), must mever cross your ming, You disembark from your plane. You go through customs, Since you are 4 tourist, a North American or European—to be frank, white—and ‘not an Antiguan black returning to Antigua from Europe or North America with cardboard boxes of much needed cheap clothes and food for relatives, you move through customs swiftly, you move 4 A Small Place through customs with ease, Your bogs are not fearched. You emerge from custome into the hot, lean sir: immediately you feel cleansed, imme iately you feel blessed (which isto say special); ‘you foel free. You see a man, a texi driver: you ‘ak him to take you to your destination he quotes ‘you a price. You immedistely think that the price is in the local eurreney, for you are a tourist and you are familiar with these things (rates of ex- ‘hange) and you feel even more free, for things seem so cheap, but then your driver ends by saying, “In US. currency.” You may say, “Hmmm, do you have a formal sheot that list oficial prices and destinations?” Your driver obeys the law and shows ‘you she sheet, and he apologises for the incredible ‘mistake he has made in quoting you a price off the top of his head which is so vastly different (favour- {ng Him) from the one listed. You are driven ta your hotel by this taxi driver in his taxi, ¢ brand-new le. The road on which you are Japanese-made ve ‘wavelling is very bad road, very much in need of repair, You are fooling wonderful, so you say, “Ol, ‘whats marvellous change these bed roads are from ‘the splendid highways T am used to in North America." (Or, worse, Europe.) Your driver i reck- ‘ess; he isa dangerous man who drives in the middle ‘of the road when he Uhinks no other cars are coming. 5 Jamaica Kincaid inthe opposite direction, passes other cars on blind ‘curves that run phil drives at sisty miles an hour on narrow, curving roads when the road sign, @ rusting, bes-up thing left over from ealonial days, says 40 sce. This might frighten you (you are on your holiday; you area tourist); this might excite ‘you (you are on your holiday: you are @ tourist), ‘though if you are from New York and take taxis you are used to this style of driving: most of the ‘uxt drivers in New York are from places in the world like this, You are looking out the window (because you want to get your money's worth): {You notice tht all the cars you see are brand-new, ‘oralmost brand-new, and tha they are all Jepanese- rade, There are no Amerian ears in Antigue—no ‘new ones at any rate; none that were manufactured in the last ten years. You continue to look at the cars end you say to yourself, Why, they look brand- new, but they have an awful sound, like an old cara very old, dilapidated car. How to account for that? Well, posily its because they use leaded gosiline in these brand-new cars whore engines were built to use nonleaded gesline, but. you ‘musn't ask the person driving the car if this is so because he or she has never heard of unleaded K A Small Place tate to buys isa model that's very expensive: t's @ rode! that’s ite impractical for person who at to work ex hard at you do and who watches every penny you eam go that you cam ffrd thi liday You are on. How do they afford mach car? And Gh they live n'a Ixcrious howe to match wach @ av? Well no You wil be suprised, then, to see that most key the person driving this brandoew cer filed withthe wrong gas lives in a house that in comparison, is far Bonet the tats of Oe cary and if you were task why you would be tld that the banks are encouraged hy the goverment to ‘ake loans emilable for cars, tt loan fr houses note esly available; and f you ack again hy, you vel be fold that the two main car dealer hips in Antiga are ovmed in part or outright by ‘minster government. Oh but you ae on olay and the sight of these brand-new cas driven by People who mey or may not have realy pated their Erving et (here was once a scandal abot diving icencs fr sile) would not rally air up these thoughts in you. You pas a building siting in & sea of dust and you think, Tt some Intrines for ‘People just posing by, But when you lok again You see the tulding has writen on it ricorr's cnoor. You pass the hospital, the Holberon “lyptas and how wrong you reno to think about 7 Jamaica Kincaid this for though you ae «tourist on your hotidays rho if your heart should iss a fw beats? What {ta blood vesel in your neck soold break? What it one of those people driving those brand-new ears filled with the wrong ge fal o past safely while fing uphill on a cure and you are in the car fring inthe epposte direction? Will you be com fovied to know that the orpital is stated with doctors that no actal”Antguan trast; st ‘Antiguans always ey about the doctors,“ dort ‘vant them near me" that Antiguans refer to ther fot as doctors but as “the three men” (there are three of them); that when the Miniter of Health meet doesn’ fel walle takes the ist plane to New York to see areal doctor that if any one of the ministers in government needs medicl care he Bes to New York to gti? Tes a good thing that you brought your own ‘books with yoo, for you couldn't just go to the frmy and barrow some. Antigua tied to have © splendid library, but in The Earthquake (everyone tals bout it that -way-—The Earthquake: we ‘Antiguans, for Tam one have a great sense of things, andthe more meeningfl the thing, the ‘more meaningles we rake i) the Kbrarybuiing sree damaged This was in 1974, and son after that 2sgn was placed om the font of the builing A Small Place saying, ts nuILDIN Was DAMAGED IN¢THRE RARE fquane oF 1974, narains anz rxxoine. The sign hhangs there, and hangs there more than a decede Inter with ite unfulfilled promise of repair, and you ‘might see this as sort of quaintness on the part ‘of these islanders, these people descended from slaves—what a strange, umaual perception of time ‘they have, nuratns ARE enoinc, and here it is many years later, but perhaps in a world that is twelve miles long and nine miles wide (the size of Antigua) twelve years and twelve minuter end ‘twelve days are all the some. The Iibrery is one of those splendid old buildings from colonial times, and the sign telling of the repairs is a splendid old sgn from colonial times, Not very long after The Earthquake Antigua gotits independence from Brit- fin, making Antigua a state in its own right, and ‘Antiguans are so proud of this that each year, to ‘mark the day, they go to church and thank God, 1 British God, for Uhis. But you should not think of the confusion that must lie in ll thet and you mast not think of the damaged library. You have brought ‘your own books with you, and among them is one Of those new books aliout economic history, one of those books explaining how the West (meaning Burope and North America after its conquest and fetlement by Huropeans) got rich: the West got 9 Jamaica Kincaid rich not from the free (free—in this case meaning gotfor-nothing) and then undervalued labour, for generations, of the people like me you see walking ‘around you in Antigua but from the ingenuity of small shopkeepers in ShofBeld and Yorkshire and Lancashire, or wherever; and what great part the invention of the wristwatch played in it, for there ‘wat nothing noble-minded men could not do when ‘they discovered they could ap time on their wrists just like that (isn tat the last straw; for not only id we have to suffer the unspeakableness of slavery, but the satisfaction to be had from “We ‘made you bastards rich” is taken away, too), and 20 you needn't let that slightly funny feeling you Ihave from time to time about exploitation, oppres son, domination develop into full‘iedged unease,

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