This Old House - Not a Jamaican Concept

The first rule of Jamaica is we do not do Maintenance, it is also the second and third rule.

On Friday | January 29, 2021 | 12:29 AM The Jamaica Gleaner published a story about the state of an old building being used as a post office since 1950 within a community.

"The community of Benbow, situated about one and a half miles from Guy’s Hill, St Catherine, has had a postal agency serving residents of adjoining communities dating back to the early 1950s. The building has fallen into disrepair over the years, and no attempt has been made to improve the facility which serves residents of communities such as Middlesex, Copper, Bonnet and Moreland."

The reaction of my country men was mostly predictable. To them the existence of the dilapidated building was an embarrassment, it was an old wooden structure and needed to be replaced with something new, modern, and metropolitan to fit their foreign minded mental state.

The first thing that came to my mind was, a nice, lovely quaint rustic little cottage. Expressing that I wish I could pick it up and put it on a lovely rural homestead. I declared it is badly in need of repairs and some loving but that could be a lovely get away cottage in the mountains or a rustic eco-friendly Airbnb type mountain retreat.

“This building has been around since the ‘40s. I born come see it. I think it was first used for a postal agency in the ‘50s. People are used to having this service here. I remembered seeing men riding around delivering telegrams back in the day when I was going to school. Right now, a lot of seniors collect their pension, bills and other benefits here, so the facility is needed, even if the main office in Guy’s Hill is functioning,” Hinds declared. “What I would suggest is that they find another building in the community to use, and establish this one as a historical monument for the community,” he opined.

I have been looking for an ideal piece of isolated self sufficient mountain property homestead and every time I describe to the realtors what I want, I would tell them about 40 acres, water on property and a few small little old cottages, scattered over the property to complement the main dwelling. The cottages are for eco-tourism, or just weekend getaway cottages. I love those tough old houses and my dream is to fix them up into lovely cozy, homely cottages tucked away in various parts of my homestead.

The average Jamaican knows the Price of everything and the true value of nothing!

Well this did not sit well with my people, now I am elitist and love white people because I find value in an old Jamaican built building that is still standing.

Almost everyone wants the building condemned and replaced by a new fancy modern building. As far as they are concern to hell with History! Everyone going crazy how the politicians do not respect the people but to me the people do not even respect themselves.

It amazes me that the people living in the community, would sit and watch this building become derelict even though it has been standing since 1940s and serving them since 1950. They would not fix up that building, not even for a Labour Day Project. The building serving the community as a post office and not even a community meeting to organize a day of cook up and fix up. It is not the biggest building in the world, far from it but with some Loving, Imagination and Innovation, it could become once again a functioning heart of the community.

On my travels around some developed first world countries, people take pleasure pointing out how old this and that building was. That is the oldest post office or that is the oldest pub standing since 1251. The difference is they respect and maintain their History. Jamaicans have a first world metropolitan mentality on a poor suffering beggar’s budget. To them development is defined one way and that is New York City like Concrete Jungle Skyline. All over the world people are fighting hard to hold on to a piece of their history but in Jamaica we want it gone.

The fact that the community allowed this building to get to this state of disrepair, tells me even if they tear down that building and replace it with a new shiny one, before long it would become derelict, mash up just like this old building simply because of the mentality of the people. If you put lipstick on a pig, it is still a pig and a new building would be like pearls before swine.

Each time I drive through a small village or a town in Jamaica, I try to imagine how that village or town might have looked like back in its heydays, how vibrant it must have been. Some of our villages and town are full of centuries old architecture that have survived the test of time, however no thanks to the people who see no value in them and who have been trying to destroy them for decades.

If we could somehow renovate these dilapidated small villages and towns, a restoration process to recapture their beauty and vitality then we could have a countryside everyone would be proud of. A countryside that attracts people from all over the world. A countryside that forces people to stop and engage the local community on many levels. People need a reason to stop. But we have leaders and people without vision.

I am told this old building would drop down on my head, but it has been standing since 1940s and survived everything nature and the community throw at it, many hurricanes and bad weather, while new buildings are dropping down after some rain. But this small building, was built in 1940s and survived every hurricane, storm and bad weather since then. Just imagine it survived all the following, and it is STILL STANDING! (incomplete list)