Orville Taylor | Post-Hurricane Melissa reboot

Calculated with precision. A full tank of gas, engine fluids check, tyres and suspension, check, brakes check.

Hotline is broadcasting from Enfield. No, not the one in St Mary. Blame the bland, unimaginative British for two places with the same name. But, then again, being so far removed, more than 200 kilometres between them, they could be literally worlds apart.

And that might precisely be it. We might have read the stories, watched and listened to the news reports, but have never experienced it first-hand. No one in Surrey went through half of what the people in the five western parishes, St Elizabeth, Westmoreland, Hanover, Trelawny and St James, endured.

Thanks to the brave men and women of the constabulary, the first footage came from Superintendent Minto and Sergeant Simpson in St Elizabeth. Then, two days later, following our team, I drove independently into Falmouth, parts of St Elizabeth and Manchester. Stories kept coming about how much damage and devastation there was in Westmoreland.

No lies, driving down Spur Tree Hill, the panoramic view was scary. Denuded hillsides and open plains. Then, scores of ‘homeless’ people on the roadside.

Pepper and Goshen looked beaten like well-used broom weed. Santa Cruz is in chaos. The bypass is only so in name ... . There is no passing and one cannot get by. It gets worse all the way into Lacovia. Holland Bamboo, mangled, more sky than plants; too many houses and other structures in Brampton are flattened, roofless.

Never made it into Black River. It seemed both impossible and impassable. Pictures and videos look like the aftermath of a bomb attack or heavy shelling.

In all my years, I have seen nothing like it. By the time I reached the church in Brampton, my face was wet and tears were flowing down my cheeks. There is almost a kind of survivor’s guilt, because not even my banana trees at home were touched. So much human suffering.

Reading the data is one thing. True, it gives an overview of the extent of the catastrophe, but statistics do not measure the deep emotional and physical impact of the disaster on individuals.

When communication was restored, some of my friends, for whom I was praying and very worried, started popping up both literally and figuratively from the mud. A grown man sheltering under his bed or heavy furniture while the houseslowly falls apart around him. A dreadlocks, not sure how Rastafarian he is, admits to chanting and bawling out and while the identity of “Lawd God” might be ambiguous, it is suspected that he absolutely knew whom he was calling as he screamed, “Jezas Crise!”

Imagine being locked in a closet with your child for eight hours as the hurricane kept working a double shift, surpassing the daily duty hours of security workers. It was no joke.

Wednesday last was a year. Many places and persons have put it behind them. Normality has been restored. Electricity is back.

Reports of the restoration across the island, amid the jousting between the Government and the Opposition, give the impression that there is either widespread neglect correlated to the political hue of the constituents or, on the other hand, a government that is trying its best, pulling out all the stops to be as accountable as possible, to complete the unwieldy tasks. Very likely, the truth lies somewhere in-between. But, for those on the ground, victims still untouched by the hands of restoration, there is no joy in listening to the politics.

Darliston has me feeling a bizarre combination of excitement and trepidation. Middle Quarters is recovering, had my peanut porridge and two ‘granny flaw flaw’ from ‘The Garage’. Long Road; nice surface, a few spots, but the roar of the N20 twin turbo navigating the curves lulled me into a delusion that, after Newmarket, the road surface would prevail in the same condition.

Almost missed the innocuous turn to Cottage. ‘E road’ is not just the way the natives say “the street”. It is a description. A female driver travelling in the opposite direction met me in a pothole. I joke that the potholes have a lot of road. One particular stretch reminded me of a journey through Kenya’s Maasai Mara.

Lennox Bigwoods had too much of an eponymous sound for me, so forgive me the discomfort in bypassing it.

At Enfield finally. People pouring in. “Man in Black!” and some of those in the lines to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security booth are incredulous, having given their names before. Others remark that it is not enough. Some say they got nothing.

After the end of the broadcast, Miss Lovie and Ms D took me on a tour of the town. “Jah Jah!” in some places, “a so-so foundation”. Shipping containers now back in place after being blown downhill off their bases. A word sounding like fabric made from the flora in Holland threatens to escape.

Yet, the real story is absolutely not Hurricane Melissa. Neither is it about what is being done for them by the Government. The residents of Darliston are not victims. They are fighters and survivors. The Ras is selling food from his van. Lovie is putting up her shops, having lost all three. Mr Brown’s bakery ‘a gwaan’. Police are functioning miraculously in a place that requires a discussion with high command. But they are committed. A good-humoured set of post office workers make light of their cramped quarters.

This is the essence of one of the first free villages in Jamaica. By the way, the name means ‘my dear friend’s settlement’. Injured but not destroyed, Maud McLeod High’s motto epitomises the spirit of Darliston: “Determination is the Cornerstone to Success”.

Stay strong!

Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.