When I was much younger my family had a cottage in the hills of the Parish of St. Catherine. It's cool up there. We had expansive views to the North, received radio signals fron Cuba, grew coffee bushes and enjoyed the uncommon fruit of the Rose Apple trees.
The nearest town is Sligoville, said to be the first village peopled by freed slaves in mid-1830's Jamaica. History here is very close to the surface of contemporary observation and one can feel colonialism in the mists that regularly cosset this mountaintop.
The verdant vegetation was/is tropical and lush, with ferns of various description growing like weeds in the fertile soil.
One day, and several days thereafter, while fulfilling my gardening chores cutting back an encroaching fern thicket adjacent to our stony driveway, I happened upon what probably used to be someone's refuse heap. Whoever it was had a predilection for European preserves and Irish beverages, judging by containers I found clustered just below the surface of the dark earth.
My interest in archaeology was nascent at the time, but rooted enough in my sensibilities for me to cherish the finds to this day. I share them here without too much verbal embellishment for they speak loudly by themselves, as tangible vestiges of the colonial yesteryear I frequently reflect on in my musings.
Worthy of note is the prone, round-bottomed bottle embossed with the "Medicated Aerated Waters, Belfast, Ireland" assertion, and the salt-glazed crockware jar which simply proclaims that it once held I. C. Hoffmann's "Rassberry Jam."(sic.).
I often wonder if that early spelling of Raspberry influenced the development of well known, colorful Jamaican expressions.
Ackeelover Chronicles will continue ...
