'They call me mad because I read', says Clarendon man

Paul H. Williams, Gleaner Writer

ROCKY POINT, Clarendon:

HECTOR SANDERSON of Rocky Point, Clarendon, believes he's an outcast in his own community. According to him, people avoid him and say that he's mad because he's an opinionated, knowledgeable and well-read person, who is not a part of the fishing ethos of Rocky Point.

He has always believed he was different from most people in his community because he's not interested in fishing, doesn't engage himself in idle chats, and their issues, and the perspectives from which they discuss things are totally different from his.

"A long way different, man, a long, long way different, but they don't want to say I am different. They use some degrading terms like 'he's mad' and 'him gwaan like him know too much'," he told The Gleaner on a recent visit to Rocky Point.

Rocky Point is a well-known fishing village. It has a laid-back aura, but is devoid of rural charm. The community, said many residents, is much neglected by its political representatives and is fast becoming a haven for a variety of social ills. And apart from a career as a fisherman or fish vendor, there is not much to which young people can aspire, should they remain in one of Jamaica's southernmost communities after leaving school.

School was what Sanderson was interested in as a youngster. Not for a moment had he harboured any thought of being a fisherman, despite helping to make fish pots for two of his older brothers.

"I was more academically inclined," he said. After secondary school, he was trained in auto-mechanics in vocational school, but he has not worked in that field since.

He spent his after-school days doing a variety of things, except catching and selling fish. "I grew up around the sea, but it wasn't something that attracted me for making a living ... . I have known people who were fishermen, and when they get to a certain age, they have nothing," he said. Out of frustration, some of these people who have acquired 'nothing' from a lifetime of fishing, he said, have been resorting to drinking, some depending on their children for support when they can no longer go to sea.

But it's not entirely true that Sanderson has no interest in fishing. He loves to fish for knowledge, and loves history. He recalled going through an entire set of Encyclopaedia Britannica that his father owned. "Every article that piqued my interest, I would read them, and I would know so many things. Wow! It's another world!" he exclaimed as his face brightened. He said he would be watching TV and make utterances that would be repeated by the presenter or broadcaster. He was oftentimes scolded for talking too much.

Widespread resentment

He's of the view that many people resent him because of his awareness, and they are not willing to learn because they are in a "comfort zone". Sometimes, there are discussions in which incorrect information is passed around and he can't help but intervene. "I try to get my facts together before I try to say something," he said. Some of his "facts" he might have got from The Gleaner, which he reads every day except on Thursdays and Saturdays. But he certainly will be buying today's edition.

He displayed several scrapbooks of articles which he had cut from The Gleaner, and was able to recall some of the issues he read in The Sunday Gleaner's In Focus section. Then, is reading The Gleaner contributing to Sanderson's "madness"? Au contraire! Yet, it may have enhanced his 'outcast' status. The habit of reading The Gleaner, he said, he picked up from his father, who, as well as his mother, he said, was no dunce.

Sanderson is so focussed on learning that he reads with two dictionaries, a Webster and an Oxford. On several pieces of paper, he has written down the meanings of Latin and French terms which appear in the papers regularly. He must know what he is reading. Yet, Sanderson is in Rocky Point doing absolutely nothing with his repository of knowledge.

The place, he said, has no outlet for him to apply his knowledge and skills, which include training in information technology and Internet studies, which he acquired in the United Kingdom, where he lived from 2002 to 2007. He showed The Gleaner City and Guilds diplomas, and Oxford- and Cambridge-recommended certificates in computer literacy, Web publishing, Internet technology, word processing, Spreadsheet, ICT support systems, etc.

In his late forties, Hector Sanderson seems to have found himself stuck in a rut in a place where the point is rocky. His house is firmly located in the heart of the village, and he has nowhere else to go.