A Metaphor and a Poem

I was in the bakery yesterday and had a small metaphorical epiphany… I had an epiphany due to a metaphor.

It’s a pretty typical bakery set up: long counter opposite the door displaying baked goods, register on one end and you wait for your order on the other. There are a few tables with chairs attached and at either wall to the right or left there are two booths to sit in. The booths to the left don’t fit quite perfectly (to American standards) and the end of the booth allows about a one grown man width between it and the cashiers window. About three people can stand in this narrow hall, shifting after every order to allow the previous customer to proceed down the counter. Now here is where the metaphor points out a quintessential difference between Jamaican and American culture.

Imagine that the time is hot. You have three black plastic bags full of pumpkin, cho-cho, yam and other pretty heavy produce. You’re sweating in a stream down your face, back and chest- nothing new, it’s Jamaica. You walk into the bakery and even though the air conditioning is on, you still sweat. The line is long, almost to the door. You rest your bags on the floor (and people stare because that’s gross here) and rest until your turn. Now you’re next and the woman in front of you has decided to order 17 lbs of bread.

As an American, you see the space between the booth and the register and think, Well, I’ll stand beside the booth and wait for this woman to come out of the cramped space between the wood and hard plastic before I step up to the register myself. It makes sense to us. Americans like their personal space and they respect the sanctity of the line. We also see no correlation between the space between each person on that line and the speed with which it moves. (fit 5 people on a line 20 feet long. It moves just as fast if those same 5 people are standing on a line 10 feet long)

This is the part when you remember (if you haven't realized it already) you’re not in America. From pre school days, American children are taught to walk in a line. It’s a perfected art for us. Jamaican children are taught no such thing and most lines here loosely resemble a mob. At the bakery, Jamaicans want three people standing in that cramped space, even if you’re carrying shopping bags and wearing a backpack, no matter how certain you are that you will be helped next. If I stand next to the booth, 8/10 times the person behind encourages me to move up into the space EVEN THOUGH I’ll still have to scooch out of the way of the previous customer as she moves down the counter, my body running sweat into my eyes, my arms hefting several grocery bags.

Here, my friends, is my metaphor for Jamaica. If you think it’ll be easy, it won’t. If you think it will be orderly, it won’t. If you think things would feel less cramped and chaotic if it was done a different way well, I have news for you bucko- no one cares what you think! So get on “line” and be assertive like every other person here!

 

On that note, I wrote a poem:

When it Rains on Laundry Day

When it rains on laundry day
I do not fuss or pout
Cuz I must admit, the first time round
the suds did not come out.
I dunked and squeezed and dunked and squeezed
Washing them by hand
Until I saw the rain clouds
then I knew that I could stand
So thank you mother nature
for doing what I cannot
For rinsing my panties my jeans and my shirts
Of all of the suds, which got rid of the dirt
And now I implore, before I grow old
Don't rain every day or my clothes dem will mold!