The Customs Guard

 

In the mid 80s my company sold a piece of refurbished specialised equipment to a scientific institution in Bulgaria. The equipment was placed in a 20 ft container, to be shipped from Grand Cayman to Montego Bay, then trucked to Kingston and put on a freighter to Europe. Because I knew Jamaica well, I was asked to accompany the container as far as Kingston, in order to ensure everything went smoothly. Sure, no problem man!

 

The freighter was to leave for MoBay in the early evening, and arrive the following morning. There were no passenger cabins, but fortunately, I was able to get the owner’s permission to use his cabin. Not fancy by any means, but it sure beat sleeping on deck.

 

The voyage started smoothly enough, and after a light meal with the crew, I retired to my cabin. Sometime during the night, the seas began to build, and the little freighter started pitching and rolling quite violently. It got to the point where I could not stand in my cabin, and had to use the strap fitted to my bunk to avoid rolling out of bed. Lying there in the dark, |I remembered that the equipment in the container, though fairly stable and robust, was not actually strapped down. I became very concerned that the extreme movement of the ship was enough to send it crashing about. There was nothing I could do at that point, and eventually the waves started to subside and I fell sound asleep.

 

When I woke, the port of Montego Bay was in sight. Soon we were alongside the dock, and the containers were unloaded. The shipping company was supposed to have made arrangements for a truck to transport the container to Kingston, but nothing was in place. After several hours, I was able to get things organized, and by early afternoon the truck arrived, with a driver and sideman. There was, however, one small problem. Customs decided that as this shipment was “in bond” it needed to have a customs guard. That meant that the beefy driver, his equally beefy sideman, a skinny little country-boy customs guard (who had never been to Kingston before), and myself, all needed to go with the container. No other vehicles were available, so we all squeezed into the 2-man truck cab and set off for Kingston.

 

We had only gone a few miles when the driver turns and asks me (as the customer) “yu no mind if me smoke?” Next thing, he pulls out a bighead spliff, and lights up, completely ignoring the presence of the customs man! All the guard could do was shake his head and say, “yu bad, yu know”.

 

About four hours and five rum-bar stops later, we made it to the port just before sundown. At the gate there was the usual security screen, primarily in place to prevent drugs export. Security examined the truck from a gantry above, and with rolling mirrors from below, while the driver patiently tooked away on his weed. Once inside, the container was unloaded, and the driver and sideman drove away, leaving the customs man and myself to fend for ourselves.

 

Out on the sidewalk in the twilight, we found the street virtually deserted. We had talked about flagging down a taxi or a minibus, but there were none. Businesses in the area had closed for the day and the staff long gone home. Docklands in many cities are rough, dangerous areas, particularly after dark. The fact that I was a white bway on the Kingston waterfront did nothing to ease my apprehension, but I soon discovered that compared to my customs buddy, I was relaxed! The poor guy was shaking like a leaf. Keep in mind, this was his first time in Kingston ever, he had no idea where he was, or how to get home, and however bad Kingston was, it probably wasn’t as bad as the stories he had heard. I, on the other hand, knew Kingston well, and if I could just get a few miles uptown, I could get myself safely to a friend’s house.

 

With few options, we started walking towards Hagley Park Road, the main road leading north towards the comparative safety of uptown. We had not gone far when a car approached from behind, then slowed down to match our pace. The car windows were strongly tinted and looking back, I could see nothing inside. The vehicle then pulled up alongside and stopped. The back door opened and a rough voice from inside said, “get in”. Country bway and me looked at each other. Except for a dim streetlight, it was now completely dark and the road was otherwise deserted. We both seemed to realize that we had little choice but to get in and hope for the best.

 

We got in. There were two dark figures in the car, the driver and a front seat passenger who had presumably leaned back to open the rear door. I closed the door and we set off. Nothing was said. Was this a robbery, a kidnapping, or worse? About the best we could hope for was an extortionist taxi ride. The driver turned north up Hagley Park Road and soon we arrived at the busy, well-lit intersection with Spanish Town Road. “Get out” the driver ordered. “How much do I owe you?” I asked. “Is alright”, meaning “nothing” (or perhaps “your life”) was the reply. Almost in shock, we gratefully complied.

 

Hagley Park roundabout! Not a place I would normally hang around after dark, but that night it seemed like a safe refuge. I was able to get my customs buddy safely on a minibus heading back to Montego Bay, then catch one myself, headed uptown.

 

The next morning, there were a couple more things I needed to take care of.  First, I needed to satisfy myself that the equipment in the container had not broken loose and been damaged. Secondly, I needed to make an effort to secure it, to withstand a possible rough winter crossing of the North Atlantic. Neither of these was (legally) possible as the container was in a restricted area, under customs seal, but I had faith in the power of a few well-placed dollars.

 A few hours later, a cooperative and well-rewarded customs broker and I closed the doors of the container for the last time. I left the port in his car, knowing that no damage had occurred, and that the equipment was secured as well as could be. Like I said, no problem!           

Ganja, Suh!

Recently in Cayman, there have been reports in the press about the police mounting roadblocks and seizing a variety of “weapons”, some of which might have legitimate lawful use. This has sparked a debate on the radio call-in talk shows as to what powers the police actually have, and reminded me of an incident in Jamaica involving a co-worker. No, true, a no me. 

Around 1980, I was in charge of a project on the North Coast that involved  research diving using Scuba gear. My primary dive buddy, George, lived in St Ann, but was originally from a remote area of St Mary. One weekend he took some time off to go visit his father who still lived backabush. He left Friday evening on his Honda XL100 trail bike, due to return Sunday evening and be back at work, bright and early, Monday morning.

 

Monday morning comes, and no George, no message, nothing. This was very unlike George, who was extremely reliable.Well 10:00 O’clock rolls around, and finally here comes George, on foot, no bike in sight.  So, waahappen? First off, the visit to his father went well. On his departure, he received a present, an entire rucksack full of ganja; green, mind you, for medicinal purposes, not the dry type that is used as a drug. He only had a couple sticks of the latter, and that was to carry for a friend. George did not mess with drugs!  He did not get far before the bike broke down. Despite efforts to revive it, he eventual had to leave it in someone’s care, and hike to the main road to catch a minibus. By the time he was on his way again it was quite late.

 Near to St Ann’s Bay, the bus was stopped in a joint police/military roadblock. A policeman demanded that everyone get out of the bus, while soldiers with automatic rifles stood in the background. The cop then started inspecting the luggage in the back of the bus. “A who rucksack dis?” asked the cop. George stepped forward. “Is my own”. “Wheh you have in deh?”. “Ganja, Suh”, returned George truthfully.  Sucking his teeth, the cop retorted “A lie you a tell”, but George insisted, “no, is true”. The cop gets nervous, pulls his gun and calls another cop over. “Check ina dat bag” he orders. The junior cop does so, and immediately confirms George’s declaration. All of a sudden, there are two cops with drawn firearms, and half a dozen soldiers pointing M16s at George. “A weh you gun deh?” demands the first cop. “Hold on, hold on”, says George, “Me a no Gunman. You ask me wah in a de bag, and me tell you de truth”. Then he remembers he is carrying his dive knife, and thinks it best to declare this. The knife is seized, George is handcuffed, and he, the knife and the Ganja are put in a police car and driven to the St Ann’s Bay lockup.  George is then put in a cell, to await the arrival of the Sergeant.

While waiting for the Sergent, George gets talking with one of the guards, who seems sympathetic about the big fuss over a few pounds of green ganja. Soon they are chatting like old friends. Up to this point, he has not actually been physically searched, and he remembers that he still has a couple sticks of dry Ganja in his back pocket. He takes a chance, and calls the guard over. “Hold this for me nuh?” He asks; “Me no want dem find dry weed pon me”. The guard is happy to accept the ganja, and no more is said about that. 

Later that night, the Sergeant arrives, and is brought up to date on George, the rucksack full of green ganja and the knife. Nothing is said about the couple sticks of weed. George is interrogated about the source of the ganja. “Me find it ina de bush” is all he offers in explaination. No way is he going to point the finger at his own father! Then they get on to the subject of the knife, and George explains about his job as a diver on a research project. Clearly, the Sergeant is impressed that George is no career drug dealing bad bway, and eventually decides to release him without charge. No report to write, no time in court, no need to account for a large bag of ganja! George is brazen enough to ask for his knife back, but the Sergent tells him he cannot let him out in the night with it, but he can collect it in the morning. Me, I would have stayed soooo far from that police station, but the next morning, George took the bus back to St Ann’s Bay and returned with his dive knife, albeit late for work!

Nothing like that could ever happen in Cayman, right?

A Blue Mountain Hike, Part 2

The incident with dreadlocks and his victim was extremely alarming , and had left us shaken. We were already “bust”, tired, dehydrated, overheated. Now we were also dispirited.  Should we have done more to intervene? That was the unspoken question that I am sure we were all pondering as we trudged silently the last of the way to Whitfield Hall. We were the outsiders, trying to pass quietly  through a remote mountain communty, unwittingly employed as human shields, and suddenly involved in a murderous drug dispute where the only option to pacifism seemed to be to partipate in unrestrained violence. I did not know the answer then, and I don’t know it now.

Gloomy and exhausted, we finally arrived in the late afternoon at Whitfield Hall. The Hall is a coffee plantation Great House, converted to a hostel for hikers to Blue Mountain Peak. Situated at 4000 ft, it is close to the start of the trail that ascends to the peak, 3402 feet higher. Had we been doing this trip the “proper” way, we would have reservations for a snug bunk in the lodge, and a place before a roaring fire. As it was, we had a small tent and a grassy spot on which to pitch it. We intended to cook dinner, go to bed early and start our hike up the trail at 4:00 the following morning, in time to see the sun rise, if the weather held. 

In the fading evening light, we noticed that clouds were begining to gather, and the sound of thunder in the distance grew louder and more peristent. Then the heavens opened and the rain came down, at first only torrential, but building to a true deluge. Still, there should not be a problem, this tent had a built-in waterproof ground sheet with a raised lip, so it could handle water. Trouble was, this was no ordinary flood and soon the inside of the tent was like a shallow padling pool. We hung our rucksack from a ceiling pole and did what we could to stay dry, but it was evident that we needed to get moving. There was dry lodging at the top of the trail.  

We donned our raincoats, long, dark green ones that hung below our knees, and set out into the night.  For the next half hour or so we trudged up the trail in heavy rain, cold, miserable , but reasonably dry. For those of you who are not familiar with this hike, there is a long section at the lower end that traverses an extreemly steep, treeless mountainside. It is here that the lightening became almost continuous, and the wind really got going, roaring up the slope at perhaps 40 or 50 mph, and carrying with it the rain, now assaulting us from underneath our raincoats, rather than from above. The Tropical Storm had arrived. Needless to say, we were soon totally soaked and, despite our exersions, very cold. 

Finally we got to the tree-line and out of the vertically rising rain. We needed to rest, to eat, to get warm and, as far as possible, dry. At Portland Gap, a relatively level area between two mountains at an elevation of 5,600 ft.,  there is a  small cabin, which we found to be open and empty. We immediately started a small fire in the fireplace, using a candle to get a few small pieces of wood alight. We needed more wood and went out in the dark to look for some. The only thing we could find was an entire tree that had been blown over by the storm. It was tall, about 5 inches in diameter with very few branches. We needed to burn the tree itself if we were going to get warm, but we had no tools to cut it up. Lying on the ground, outside the cabin was a large boulder, weighing perhaps 150 pounds. This gave me an idea! The floor of the cabin was raised several feet above the ground, and had a set of steps up to the entrance. We dragged the tree to the base of the steps, set it on a couple smaller rocks, then rolled and dragged the boulder up the steps. With many hands assisting we managed to get the boulder raised in the air above our heads, then sent it crashing down on the fallen tree below. It worked! the tree cracked in two. The process was repeated again and again until we had a decent supply of firewood. Back inside we got a small fire going, then “drafted” it by covering the all but the bottom with a wet towel, causing the inrushing air to  create a blast furnace effect. Soon we had a roaring flame and were able to start warming up and getting dry.

We took turns, alternitely taking naps and keeping the fire going while the storm raged on outside. Gradually, as the night passed,  the rain seemed to ease up and the wind howled less violently. By about three in the morning, the last of our wood was thrown on the fire. We had burnt the entire tree! We were no longer soaked, but still damp, and as the fire dwindled we again decided it was time to get moving to keep warm. And we still wanted to get to the Peak in time to see the dawn.

This final section of the trail, climbs nearly another 2000 ft,  mostly through heavy virgin mist forest. It is muddy, slippery, rocky, steep and seems to go on forever. As the elevation increases, the temperature continues to fall, approximately 3 degrees per thousand feet. I did not have a thermometer on this trip, but I can tell you  it was cold bad, probably in the mid 50s. That might not sound so cold to some, but throw in a serious wind chill factor, and to a damp, tired, hungry yardie, that was plenty cold. 

We finally made it to the peak, where there is a large main cabin,  with a fireplace and glass block windows. There is also a drafty smaller cabin without a fireplace, affectionately known as “The Fridge”, though charing on the floorboards is evidence of someone’s efforts at an indoor bonfire. Neither cabin had any furniture, and legend has it that any furniture soon ends up as firewood. 

It was still a long way until dawn when we pushed open the door to the main cabin. By the light of our flashlights, we were astounded to find it already ram full of people, in blankets, sleeping bags and anoraks, trying to sleep on the cold wooden floor. There must have been forty people in there! A voice told us they were full, we would have to go sleep in the Fridge. No way! Anyway, everyone rolled and “smalled up”  so we each found a little piece of floor to lie on. Turns out that a large group from a Kingston church youth club had choosen this holiday weekend for their hike. The good news is that it was so “ram” that body heat made it noticably warmer than outside, and it was fairly windproof. The bad news was that several of their party had been unable to keep up and had still not arrived.  

Flashlights went out, whispering ceased and everyone settled down to make an effort at sleep. Other than the sound of the wind sucking on the chimney, silence. Then, a voice in the dark, “wait, a weh dis big Cyat come from?” (where did this big cat come from), followed by the noise of someone rummaging for a flashlight. Click……….”IS A RAT”! All hell broke loose, girls screaming, jumping up, then trying to climb on guys to get off the floor, and every flashlight in the place searching wildly in that crowded cabin.  I never saw the rat, at least not then, but next morning I certainly saw several that changed my perception of what size a rat should be. ”Big cat” did not do them justice.

That was the end of any serious efforts at sleep and several flashlights remained on for the remainder of the night. Several more times before dawn, a tap at the door signaled another small group had arrived. Eventually there really was no more space, and the door could not be opened as someone was lying up against it. For those unfortunate stragglers, the Fridge was the only option. 

A cold, grey, blustery dawn finally arrived, and with it, the last of the stragglers. This small group included two guys,  who had between them a girl who was making little or no effort to walk on her own. She was overweight, out of shape and had spent the entire night and the better part of the previous day out in the open. I learnt that the youth group had also stared at Mavis Bank, though they had walked up the long meandering dirt road to Whitfield Hall, rather than the steep trail we had followed. We got her in the cabin, wrapped in blankets and tried to get her to eat, but she was too far out of it. A couple hours later, she was no better. Her pupils were dilated, and she was semi-conscious. I am no doctor, but it did not look good to me.

 As the morning progressed, we heard the familiar sound of a helicopter approaching. Rescuers! A large group of us went outside and waved frantically as the JDF helicopter flew over, looked set to land, then dissappered into the swirling mist. Perhaps it was still too windy and dangerous to attempt a landing. Perhaps he was just doing reconnaissance to see if anyone had been caught on the mountain by the storm. Perhaps the pilot was afraid of landing and being overwhelmed by a large group all wanting to be rescued, I guess I will never know. All we wanted was to secure a safe passage down the mountain for the delerious girl. 

Well, no happy ending. Later on that morning, we left the youth club with their casualty and slowly made our way back down to civilization. I never heard a news story about the incident, so I assume they made it safely home. 

I have been to Blue Mountain Peak seven times in total. Each time has been its own adventure. The first time was supposed to be a school field trip, but it was cancelled at the last minute, and a group of us went anyway, without the benefit of teacher chaparons. Once during a really dry spell, I drank water from a rain guage, and sifted leeches from a tiny stream to stay alive. Twice I have been by trailbike, once with a pillion rider. Before you assume that is the easy way, you need to see the trail after it has been gullied by torrential rains! In all those trips, only once did I get asked for money for staying in the cabin. An old man on a donkey appeared one morning, complete with official receipt book and demanded perhaps $8 per head. We pointed out that we had only arrived at about 5:30 in the morning, so had not overnighted, but he knew his “rule book” and quoted us ”per night, or part thereoff”! He got his money!

 If you get a chance, go!