Bikers making life easier for residents in Gordon Town
As the driver of a Toyota Townace minibus pulled up sunday to the breakaway on the Gordon Town main road in st Andrew and his passengers disembarked, he beckoned to one of the four motorcyclists on the other side of the road to come closer.
He pointed to the 10 bags of cement that were in his vehicle and without missing a beat, the young biker promptly shouted “hundred dollar a bag”. The driver, after unloading the cement, turned his vehicle around, making way for other motorists to pick up and drop off people and goods at what has now become a major transit point in the rural community.
It has been a full month since heavy rains associated with Hurricane Eta caused the massive breakaway on the Gordon Town main road, and it will be at least another three weeks until an alternative route, now under construction, is expected to be completed. However, residents of the communities beyond the breakaway are determined that life must go on. Albeit a Sunday, the area was abuzz with human and vehicular traffic as people walked back and forth the footpath to continue their journey on the opposite end.
Those travelling lightly, such as a new mother who walked meticulously across with her newborn who she was heading to church to have christened, could manage getting across on their own, with the assistance of a handrail on the hillside. Those transporting much heavier loads, however, had to make sure they have money to pay the bikers to help them across.
“From it bruk weh a ya so wi de inno. We a help the people them get across with them load, and wi a make a ting too,” one of the bikers, Romaine, told the Jamaica Observer. “You shoulda see all yesterday [Saturday] when the people a come from market.”
For Romaine, and many of his friends, who were not formally employed, the breakaway has temporarily bridged a financial gap for them, as they are able to “hustle up” some money in time for the holidays.
“A masks mi did a sell a Half-way-tree ino, but mi stop now. Mi see say a thing can gwaan up here so, so me a dweet,” he said. He said that although things were a bit slower than usual for them on a Sunday, he could easily make five or six thousand dollars a day by helping people to move their goods across the narrow roadway.
“A di fuss mi a come out pon a Sunday still, and it kinda slow, but people still a travel,” he said.
Romaine also bemoaned that a few greedy transporters were causing the oasis to dry up quickly for them all, as people were becoming reluctant to request their services.
“Some people a say some a di bike man dem and the trolley man dem a thief, and them a miss them goods. So them a make it bad fi all a wi, and a some man weh not even come from bout here,” the Craig Hill resident said.
But even without these crooks, Romaine knows that it is only a matter of time before this income stream is no longer available as Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Saturday announced that he is looking to repair the breakaway at a cost of $200 million, with a $60million detour through Savage Pen expected to be completed within three weeks.
While Romaine was having fun with his peers making a living transporting loads of goods for residents, he anticipated that he will have to change course yet again when the cash stops flowing there.
“Mi nuh know weh mi ago do yet,” he said. “Maybe mi can go find a bearer work or something, if mi can get one.”