Jamaicans At Work

The sort of work that people do in different parts of the world doesn’t vary a great deal, though the way in which they do it and the implements and equipment they use are infinitely varied. The important thing is that they should enjoy it. This the Jamaican attitude to work – even, as is often the case, hard work – ensures. While no-one has a harder job than the sawyer, his cheerful grin is due quite as much to temperament as to pleasure at having his photograph taken.

He is of pure African descent ,"his ancestors were slaves" and his skill at his trade has probably been handed down from father to son. Whether he is building his own house, or working for a private firm, or on one of the community building schemes, he certainly enjoys it.

With even more cause but less apprehension a Jamaican schoolgirl in her neat uniform of white and navy blue bravely allows the school dentist to drill a tooth. Increasing numbers of Jamaicans are being trained as doctors or dentists and return to their own country to look after their fellow countrymen, with the result that the improvement in the health of schoolchildren in recent years has been most marked. This fine type of elderly Negro in his spotless white coat probably has to work Iong hours to cover all the school health inspections.

Jamaicans are often skilled sempstresses and fine needle women, with a flair for colour and the design of clothes. Unlike their less fortunate sisters elsewhere, they can use sewing machines in the open air under the shade of a grove of banana trees. That may be partly responsible for the charming smile of this young Jamaican girl of pure African descent like the sawyer above, with whom she also shares an obvious enjoyment and pride in her work.

Often in Jamaica you will come across scenes like this, washerwomen in groups, adorned with graceful hats, scrubbing their garments and those of their customers on the stones and flat rocks of the nearest river. In the heat of the day it is undoubtedly pleasant to stand knee-deep in cool water and enjoy a gossip while laundering clothes by this time-honoured if rather drastic method, against a background of tropical foliage.

A little wayside tailoring establishment with a high sounding name in a Jamaican town may not be quite up to Savile Row standards but the owner, in his smart, locally made hat of jippi-jappa straw, will make you a suit in two days, even in one if pressed. Like many other occupations that to our damp European way of thinking are more suitably carried on indoors, tailoring and indeed nearly all the pursuits illustrated in these photographs are regarded as outdoor jobs in Jamaica.

Work on the banana plantations is one of the main sources of employment in many parts of the island. The Jamaicans call bananas "green gold" for they are of course cut while still green and have long been a reliable source of ready earnings for large numbers of the population. But a load like this is heavy and it is hard work cutting and carrying bananas all day .for shipment to England in specially constructed cargo-boats.

A haircut in Chicago is probably as different from one in a village on the banks of the Limpopo as both would be from one performed by the side of a Jamaican road, but when the victim is a small boy they are each bound to raise a cloud of doubts in his mind about the safety of his ears and the competence and even the good intentions of the barber, the sharpness of the scissors and the final result which can hardly be anything but deplorable. Thick, black, woolly curls are tough to cut, which gives this young Jamaican just cause for apprehension.

Work begins at an early age for Jamaicans .The children are on the whole very intelligent and anxious to learn, with a particular aptitude for speech-making! These small boys are having lessons out of doors, probably because their school is overcrowded, and, since there are not enough lesson-books to go round, must share. Even so their concentration is evident. Clearly these young people will reward Care and trouble taken over their education, the future of the island lies with them.

Notes by Lady Huggins –
Photographs by Erica Koch
Geographical Magazine – May 1952

I apologies for using the words "negro" in this article, but here at RetroRambling I post articles writen in English as the originally was written and "negro" were unfortunately the most commonly used words for African natives in 1952 – Ted