'Keep your seats, please'

ARE YOU cracking an egg this Holy Thursday night? One of our long-time Easter traditions in Jamaica is that if you place the egg white in water tonight, by tomorrow, Good Friday, it will form a shape that can predict your future. That explains the usual reported shortage of eggs on Easter weekends. It's not from the baking, it must be the Caymanas punters or the lotto buyers breaking dozens of eggs to find out which horse to buy, or which number to call.

There goes another tradition. Our Jamaican myths and legends are fast disappearing. My favourite was the sworn testament of elders in the village that if you cut the bark of a physic nut tree on Good Friday it would bleed, with the sap signifying the blood of Jesus. That one held me for many years, although no matter how hard I tried I couldn't see the red.

The Easter lily remains, however, and Easter services would not be the same without these beautiful trumpet-shaped flowers adorning church altars and decorating the aisles. It is a worldwide tradition, and it is said that the lilies sprung up in the Garden of Gethsemane on the spots where Christ's blood fell during his agony on the night of the betrayal.

Enter the Jamaican bun and cheese, one tradition that thankfully will not go away. This is the time of the year when we saturate ourselves with those gigantic Easter buns throughout the season. The custom may have come down to us from the hot cross buns of the British. In my childhood, the buns baked at home were actually draped with crispy crosses that were themselves a tasty mouthful and added character to the taste.

welcomed easter break

Governments of today and yesterday have always been glad to welcome the Easter break, which usually coincides with the Budget presentation. This year is no exception, and Minister Audley Shaw has been given time to work some more magic into his Budget speech to be presented after the holidays. In spite of other famous diversions, the Government has done well to hold the economy together during and following the recession. The nation, weighted down by bun and cheese, will be well sedated come Budget time, and it is my bet that for this round of debates Mr Shaw and his colleagues will be able to hold their own.

The Government will also be riding the euphoria of that remarkable comeback of the railroad service, albeit depending on favourable circumstances including economies of scale. It's a bold and creative move, and Minister Mike Henry must be congratulated for his tenacity and confidence. The sight of the train, dressed in black, green and gold, and lumbering across the countryside as glimpsed from the highway on the Old Harbour leg, or those photo moments as it rides the cliff side through the Bog Walk gorge, is a real shot in the arm for Jamaica.

past remembered

The test run to Linstead last Saturday conjured up images of the official opening of the Jamaica railway on November 21, 1845. It was the first railway constructed in any English-speaking country outside of Europe and North America. My understanding is that Spanish-speaking Cuba had beaten us to it with a 27.5 kilometre line from Havana to Bejucal, opened in 1837.

That first passage, from Kingston to Angels, conveyed an official party headed by the governor, Lord Elgin. According to the Illustrated London News, " the company's new engines, the Patriot and the Projector, started on the first railway excursion in the British West Indies, with the excellent band of the West Indies Regiment taking its stand in the last carriage and playing some lovely airs."

It returned to base as safely as did Mr Henry's run on Saturday, and was viewed by "a dense throng of hundreds who loudly cheered the exhibition as it passed by".

"We perceive that the spirit of Railway enterprise is rife in Jamaica", said the News. It still is today, judging from the reception. May the carriages be filled and the track hold good, as a long line of conductors from the past return to remind us to "keep your seats, please".

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