Tony Deyal | Moonlick and Mini Mokes

I have never driven in Jamaica, and the reason is that having been conveyed in cars, buses, taxis, 'robots', vans, jeeps, jitneys and pickups to Hellshire and back, distraction, destruction and sundry other places of penance and punishment, I know my limitations, and while as a passenger, I can close my eyes and pray, I cannot do so while manipulating the precipices, potholes and simultaneously the antics of the drivers coming towards, or those behind, me.

What I like, though, and perhaps the real reason I plead fear, is my enchantment with the signs of Jamaica. My friends kindly and sympathetically drive me in relative comfort despite the occasional bouts of shut-eye.

'Any goats found on these premises will be curried', 'Dutty Car Wash - Soon Come', 'Remove False Teeth - Bumpy Road Ahead', 'No Unortherised Parking', 'Our Public Bar Is Not Open Because It Is Closed' and 'Far Wood Fer Sale' are some well-known ones.

On one of my trips, I saw a store advertising not a sell-out or a closing-down, but a 'lick-down' sale.

In Trinidad, to 'lick down' somebody is generally to prostrate them with a weapon or missile of some sort, friendly or unfriendly, but in Jamaica, 'lick' can also mean 'light' as in 'Moonlick', the name given to a series of monthly jazz concerts once held on moonlit nights at the old Noel Coward estate, Firefly, at St Mary on the north coast of the island.

One of the most interesting signs I ever got in Jamaica was from a boatman who cruised outside my hotel veranda overlooking the beach in Ocho Rios. I had been looking at all the glass-bottomed boats taking tourists out to the reef when he came by on this fishing boat.

 

Weird behaviour

 

He waved at me and blew what, initially, I thought was a kiss. Knowing this sort of behaviour is not appreciated in Jamaica, I looked angrily at him. He did it again and again, not just to me, but the other guests in the other rooms.

Later, I was told that he was asking me if I wanted to buy some ganja and the sign was a smoking rather than a kissing motion. Instead of a trip to the reef on a glass-bottomed boat, he was offering a trip on a reefer in a grass-bottomed vessel.

In Barbados, though, the signs are strictly utilitarian, purposeful and focused.

My favourites and the ones I used most during the many years I lived there were signs repeated everywhere, 'To City' and 'Out Of City'. I had arrived in Barbados as a communications consultant with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), and one of my first actions was to buy a vehicle to take me to work and back and to help me explore one of the most beautiful and certainly the most organised country in the Caribbean.

You might have noticed that I did not use the word 'car' or even 'automobile' because what I bought was a Mini Moke, a very small vehicle with a canvas top and no doors or windows, which lived up to the Australian meaning of its name, "mule or donkey in poor condition".

I paid BDS$1,000 for it, and when I was told that insuring my Mini Moke would cost me BDS$1,500, I realised that the only option I had was to sell the vehicle in order to afford the insurance.

Fortunately, I found the cash and the beauty of Barbados at the same time. Interestingly, unlike motorbike riders in Trinidad and elsewhere, I never had to park under a bridge or covered space when it was raining because the weather in those days was generally good, and the showers were short and intermittent. I never used a map but followed the 'Out Of City' sign to explore the country and then the 'To City' sign to return to Bridgetown.

What I also found out was that many of the roads were so linked that you could never completely lose your way in Barbados. If there was an accident blocking one road, there were others that you could use to bypass the problem. My greatest fear was being bitten by a dog. Maybe because of its small size and the large man sitting behind the steering, the dogs wherever I went were always attracted and never hesitated to attack with as much gusto as fierceness.

I used to worry that if one of the big mutts, almost as large as my car and certainly big enough to reach my ankle or even jump into the Moke, bit me and I had to go to the hospital, I would not have an explanation that any nurse would believe. I imagined the dialogue:

"Sir (Barbados nurses are very mannerly), what happen?"

Me: "A dog bite me."

Nurse: "How that happen?"

Me: "Well, I was driving my car, and somewhere between Coverly and Newton, I came to a plantation and a big dog rush out, jump into my car and bite me."

Nurse: "Balls."

Me: "No, ankle."

Nurse: "No, the place you get bite. Balls."

Me (not knowing that Balls is the name of the village or plantation and not an anatomical reference): "Nurse, not there. My ankle is where I get bite."

Anyhow, I started to write for the Nation News in April 1993, and so , my weekly newspaper column, now called Saturday's Child but originally named New Man In Town and featuring me in my Moke being chased by dogs, celebrated 25 great years in a country that was good for me in many ways. I ended up living in a house next to the Sugar Cane Breeding Station and, after having two children in rapid succession, deciding that whatever was there was catching, so, sadly, we left to experience life without a Moke and driver-friendly signs that encourage exploration.

My last thought on leaving was that perhaps the dogs never got into the Moke because they were worried that if they caught it, they did not know how to drive it.

- Tony Deyal was last seen driving in Trinidad, and noting that everywhere he went, he saw a road sign that summed up productivity in that country: 'SLOW MEN AT WORK'.