How fi get tings finish pon di Rock!

(Or: How to get things done in Jamaica)

So I think I'm getting my rhythm here. A quick recap of today's events in town (which may seem like a long and pointless story), and how they relate to my Peace Corps experience as a whole.

Smoke from brush fires cast a dusk fog over Port Antonio yesterday.

I went into town today to get a whole heap of things done, but also to purchase and use one important item: a 5/8" drill bit. Something that looks like this:


I need this drill bit for my winemaking. When making wine, the yeast consumes the sugar from the fruit and extra sugar you add to the must (a name for unfermented wine). The yeast also expels alcohol and carbon dioxide. For cost and other reasons, I brew in plastic buckets, similar to paint buckets with lids. We want the alcohol to stay in the bucket, but we want the CO2 to escape so the pressure doesn't build up inside the bucket. We can't simply leave the bucket uncovered either, because oxygen will spoil the wine, so we drill a small hole, put a rubber bung in, and then then place an airlock in the bung.

Bung and airlock.

This allows CO2 to escape without letting oxygen back in, and is how nearly all wine and beer is made around the world. Generally speaking, this is not the way wine is made in Jamaica, as everyone has their own methods and traditions, but I'm here to try to make winemaking professional, efficient, sterile, and more cost effective. At fist, I had the airlock fixed to the bucket through a small drill hole with masking tape which was failing to provide an airtight seal. Now, to put the airlock on the wine bucket correctly, I need a drill bit to insert the bung. Yesterday I bought a 3/4" wood bit from the hardware store, but after I drilled the hole I realized it was too large and the bung will not be able to form an airtight seal. Luckily I was able to return it, saving me the $350J I spent.

Not an airtight seal.

So today, I set out to buy a 5/8" drill bit. However, this is an item that isn't commonly used, and as a result it is an item that is not commonly stocked in Jamaican hardware stores. Another thing about Jamaican hardware stores, or at least most of them, is that you cannot simply walk up and find what you're looking for. The first hardware store I went to had a wall with steel cage separating you from the staff and the hardware, and three lines. One to tell them what you're buying, one to pick up your hardware, and a third to pay for it. I waited in line 10 minutes in the first, only to have the woman tell me she didn't know if they had it and to wait in the second line to see. 5 minutes later a man came up and I told him I needed a 5/8" drill bit. Or, specifically, I said "Excuse, do you have a five eighths drill bit?" To which he replied "Me nuh undastand." A Jamaican next to me translated, and said "You have wan five eight drill bit?" This was understood and the clerk went to search for it while I stood thoroughly confused as to why I wasn't understood the fist time. While he looked for the bit, I had to repeatedly say which size I was looking for. "you wan 3/16 inch?" "Nuh, Mi a look fi five eight bit, 3/16 kyan work!" "Wi av 5/32 bit" "Nuh, you av 5/8?" Eventually the clerk sort of wandered off and started talking to another customer. I interrupted him and asked "So, you don't have the bit?" "Nuh, wi no av it." I left frustrated.

By this time I was almost late for a meeting with my new supervisor and a Peace Corps staff, so I left without going to any of the other stores. The meeting went well, and before I left my supervisor asked me how the wine was coming, so I explained how I needed the drill bit. She asked what stores I went to, and I told her the two I visited, and she rattled off three other stores and their phone numbers from memory (this woman is so connected to the town and businesses she could probably tell me what the mayor's favorite ice cream flavor is). On my way out, her husband asked me what I was looking for and I explained. He called downstairs where a contractor was putting up grills (security bars over windows and doors) to see if he had a drill bit I could borrow, but he didn't.

I walked to the first store she mentioned, and found a 1/2" machine bit. When I compared it to the bung, I realized it would work, however the machine bit had a 1/2" shaft as well, which would probably be too wide for the drill I was planning on using. A wood router bit would be better suited for the job since the shaft is smaller and would easily fit into any drill, but still I bought the bit since it was this difficult to find anything that would work.

Sure enough when I got back the bit was too large for the drill. I remembered seeing a drill press by one of the metalworkers on the main road, and took the bit and the bucket lid to see if I could use the press just for the one hole. On my way to the shop I ran into my landlady's son, who introduced me to the blacksmith and asked on my behalf if he could drill a hole in the bucket lid for me. 15 seconds later I had my lid with the right size hole, huzzah! I talk to my landlady's son, and he tells me how great a guy the blacksmith is and what good work he does. Then I remembered that Jerry, another volunteer, needed to find a welding machine he could use for his students in the welding and fiberglass repair course, so I started talking to the blacksmith. The conversation went something like this:

"Thanks again for letting me use the drill press. I'm a Peace Corps volunteer, and I notice you have a welder. There's another volunteer who is teaching some students, and I was wondering if they could use your welder?"
"No, no, no, I'm too busy! I can't manage that."
"Yeah yeah, mi hear you. Hey, those grills you make look really nice, if I need you fi mek up somtin can I come back so?"
"Yeah mon! Anytime!"

Now, I didn't fully realize what happened in that conversation until afterwords, but that short bit of dialogue really encompassed the difficulty of volunteer work in Jamaica. Before we talked, the blacksmith did me a seemingly small favor that ended up saving me a whole mess of a headache, and he did it for free. This is rare, and I knew I just found a great resource I want to keep on good terms with for the time that I'm here. I pushed a bit too far however when I asked for his help with the welding students. Anytime I walk past his shop, he is working. This means any time he spends working with students would be time and money he is losing, so I should have known what his response would have been before I asked him. When I was walking back with my supervisor's son, he told me "He's a good guy, but he knows whenever people ask for help with things like this it keeps growing and growing, and it's a big headache and he looses a lot of money."

This also relates to an interesting phenomenon: there is no tipping in Jamaica, or at least there isn't outside of the tourist and uptown Kingston establishments. When you seek services, you are given a set price, but it shouldn't be more. The flipside of this is that everything has a price, including things which in America would be assumed included in the price. A Jamaican comedian we listened to during training had a bit where "You know here you can see a shop, and it has a sign that say 'Chicken sandwich $200, with bread $250. With Chicken $350." With the blacksmith, I wanted to ensure that he knows I am not expecting him to do everything for free, so I made sure he knew I appreciated his help and would be coming back soon (I have a bike that I would like a basket made for). After I said this, he perked up, aware that I wasn't just expecting freebies from him.

On the way back to the school I was stopped by the contractor working on the grills, who wanted to know if I got what I was looking for. I held up the bucket lid with the hole drilled in it, to which he replied simply "Yeah mon!" I like that even though he didn't know who I was or what I was doing, he was happy that I got what I was looking for. I had a similar exchange with the lady who runs the shop upstairs, happy that I got what I was looking for but probably just humoring me when I explained to her why it was so important.

By the time I got upstairs to the school I was drenched in sweat, having walked back and forth in town all day. But, I was able to put the lid on the bucket with the fermenting wine and attached the airlock, making that batch of wine safe from being contaminated by flies or bacteria. Anyone looking at that bucket before with the airlock attached with masking tape and the same bucket after with the right size drill hole and bung would probably not notice or care about the effort that went into getting that damn hole put there, or the importance of that damn hole and airtight seal, or what the whole experience says about life here, but hopefully now just a few more will.

So overall, I needed to drill a hole, a relatively simple operation. In the process I got frustrated with a security-crazy customer-unfriendly store (which many Jamaicans deal with on a daily basis), used local knowledge and resources to find what I need (but not necessarily what I went out to find initially), explored the interrelationships between volunteerism, capitalism, and altruism, and enjoyed a bit of local camaraderie for my small success towards my goal of creating attainable small business ventures for Jamaican farmers and prospective winemakers. Honestly, this was one of my most successful days, and if I can keep this up who knows what I'll be able to accomplish with my counterparts.