Euarton, Bauxite, etc.

I've been living in the mountain community of Ewarton for several days now and slowly but surely losing my Patios instinct. A large portion of the community is very well educated and have been taught from an early age not to speak the once-perceived-as-inferior Patois. I'm staying with Nurse Bowe, her husband who works in agriculture with the orange groves nearby, and their live-in helper Lorna who looks 34 but is older than my parents. They have 4 dogs that can smell food a mile away and posess a diverse set of vocal talents with which they serenade me into the wee hours of the morning. The Hellshirians warned that I would be bored out of my mind because Ewarton was all farms. There is a lot more fresh produce and gardens. Mi nyam ackee an pawpaw yessideh. Di fruit dem come fram di trees backa wi ouse. (I ate ackee and papaya from the trees behind our house yesterday.) However, Ewarton has a small town with restaurants, a bakery, supermarket, and several shops which seems like a bustling metropolis compared with Hellshire. In fact, Ewarton has the feel of a small industrial town rather than a farming community. Large cane laden, diesel guzzling, horn honking trucks barrel down the main road throughout the day. Up until recently a main employer of the town was the Bauxite factory located just tapside of Ewarton (tapside=patois for up the mountain and next to).

Bauxite is processed to form aluminum, and constitutes a major part of Jamaica's economy along with tourism and agriculture. Jamaica has the second largest bauxite industry in the world behind Australia. Bauxite is strip-mined in St. Ann and transported by rail to a processing facility similar to the one in Ewarton where it is heated with a basic solution to dissolve the aluminum.

This process produces a lot of red ferruginous sludge which is deposited via trucks and conveyor belts in nearby pits. Due to the global recession and increasing government levies, the plant stopped production last year and laid off many of its remaining employees last week. However, under normal operation the plant is very much a part of people's lives with its overpowering smell and alumina dust in the air. One of the more active agriculturists in Ewarton, thinks that there are a disproportionately high number of children with asthma in the area due to the dust.

Ewarton's Alumina Factory

Bauxite Industry Waste Pit

Yesterday was the first time I've seen rain in Jamaica and the Ewarton farmers were very grateful for the end of a long drought. Driving through the countryside today brought the effects of the drought into full view. Rivers that usually flow over a foot deep are dry (below) and brush fires have been common as flames from burning trash catches and spreads through a field. The fruits are less abundant and dwarfed. Many houses have had to use their reserve tanks of water stored on their roofs or go without water during the past weeks. Fortunately, the gravilicious (patios for greedy) plants were able to quench part of their thirst between yesterday and this afternoon.