Is the US turning into Jamaica?
This is the main question I have been mulling over the last week.
The correlation's I am thinking about are:
-Lack of accountability on corporate/government corruption
-Huge disparities in income/wealth
- Road repair/ entrepreneurial sprit
In 1999, I spent 3 weeks in Jamaica as the team lead for a Global Volunteers project.
www.Globalvolunteers.org ("At the request of local leaders and indigenous host organizations, Global Volunteers mobilizes teams of volunteers to live and work with local people on human and economic development projects identified by the community as important to its long-term development. ")
We lived and worked in a village of 60 people called MountVernon which is perched on the top of the Blue Mountains located east of Kingston in a very Non-Tourist section of Jamaica. The driving direction provided to me stated- " you know you have arrived after you have driven through three rivers and the road ends"
We were there to complete the next section of the second foot bridge over one of the three rivers. The footbridges were needed because during the rainy season people were unable to safely walk through the rivers. Students couldn't walk to school, adults couldn't get to down to the market in Morant Bay to sell their vegetables and the closest phone is half way down the mountain.... (I will not flush out the wonders and anomalies of coordinating a group of US and Canadian volunteers in this setting, during this post.... but if I ever get this tool figured out, I will post the team journal from the trip)
Mount Vernon Statistics-
Population- 60
Income-Coffee farming 90% bananas & other vegetables 10%
Cars- Zero
Phone- Zero
Post office- open twice a week
Church- one
School- one Pre-6th grade -
Water - from river piped into house via garden hose.
Corruption: The farmers are paid 50 cents per pound for their coffee, which is sold for 50-60 DOLLARS per pound in the U.S. and Japan. In response to this drastic difference, the farmers formed a coffee cooperative to try to receive a better price. They hired an ex government official from Kingston to negotiate their international sales. (Few people in Jamaica can afford to drink coffee- no versions are even for sale in the area where we stayed- much to the disgust of my team of volunteers!) Long story short-THE guy ended up selling three years of their coffee crop in advance, pocketing the money, and leaving them obligated to deliver 3 years of harvest and he is back in a government post - without any consequences...
Income Disparity:
The flight I was scheduled to fly home on was canceled at the last minute so the airline put me up at a luxury hotel in Kingston. Needless to say, there was a huge contrast in amenities-driving by woman washing their clothes in streams to sitting beside an Olympic size pool sipping a martini... I ended up chatting with two of my fellow hotel guests who were in Jamaica for a polo tournament. Extremes- no telephones, no vehicles- to discussing the flight experience of their polo ponies. Gated compounds compared to coffee cooperatives..... (See the Nytimes article from today on income distribution www.nytimes.com/2003/05/15/opinion/15SHIL.htm - The political argument is true in at least one sense, however: this change will become only more difficult as inequality becomes more pronounced. When the top tenth of the population has attained such a high percentage of society's wealth that it can effectively block any reform, it can be counted on to use its power to keep its riches. America ought to act now to make to sure this never comes to pass.
Road repair/ entrepreneurial sprit- I was provided with an Isuzu jeep for transport- this seemed like a good idea based on the directions saying I would need to drive through three rivers... the astounding thing was that I needed the off road capacity as soon as I drove off the airport grounds! The roads have not been tended in many many years.... (at the time, I thought this was the case only in this part of Jamaica - I have since visited as a tourist and discovered it to be the case everywhere) We are talking about an obstacle course with 4-foot wide two feet deep holes that are around any and every curve.. in addition to wandering cows, goats and chickens. Note: they drive on the other side of the road and the driver sits is on the right!
But the most interesting part of the driving experience was the man that I encountered one day as I was driving down the mountain to go to the market to purchase groceries for our team. I came upon a man shoveling rocks into one of the massive holes. I was thrilled to see this endeavor occurring! When I got close to him, he started waving me over and I saw that he had a sign leaning against his pail of rocks. I do not remember the exact wording but it said something about accepting donations..... He did not have a job and therefore was filling the holes and charging a "toll" as cars passed... I was an easy mark as the lone white girl driving up and down the mountain every few days .. Transporting bags of cement for the bridge building and groceries and making phone calls on behalf of the team members... (Note: you do feel like a movie star: I even received more than one hand written marriage proposal, handed to me by total strangers ......
US questions - have you all noticed the deterioration of our roads here inspite of the supposed incredible wealth generated during the preceding ten years? Do we have still have the will to accomplish collective community endeavors?
My financial status/ unemployment situation is reduced from making about one and half to twice the average US amount down to me thinking about acquiring my own shovel and pail .... Do you thing the federal of state administrations or my neighbors would appreciate my entrepreneurial sprit?
11:57:22 AM 
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