The Tangerine Tree

The Tangerine Tree

I was six years old and in my last year at pre-school in Jamaica when I had my first enterprising idea.

It was simple.

I asked my classmates if they would like to join me and contribute 10 cents each to a large packet of Excelsior Water Crackers, which we would buy after school and share.

Most agreed, and we bought the packet, shared it and promised to buy the same again the next day.

However, when I returned to school, everyone else wanted to be the leader of the cracker-buying and had grouped off into little cliques.

This meant we couldn’t buy crackers as we were all short, leaving many disappointed, and some went crying to the teacher, who promptly banned them.

If we couldn’t work together, no one would get any crackers.

Annoyed, I vowed never to share my ideas with large groups of people again.

Unless, of course, it becomes part of one’s creativity.

My next venture was with my best friend, Solomie, selling limes picked from the tree in her yard.

One day, we saw a cartoon where one of the characters was selling lemonade at the front of their house. But since we didn’t have lemons, we decided to brave the prickly lime tree and sell them instead.

We set off and picked, and picked, and picked, and picked, and picked, getting scratched to pieces, in the hot sun. But we didn’t mind, as we were feeling happy about making some money to buy sweets, D&G sodas, CheeseTrix, and bun and cheese.

Not long after we set up our stall, the bread van came by. The driver asked how much our limes were, and we told him. It turned out limes were scarce, as not everyone had a tree, so he said he would buy our stock. He gave us $10, which was a lot of money then. It meant we could buy snacks for a whole week.

After the van drove off, we ran excitedly back up the yard with our money ready to spend it, but Mr Ferdie, Solomie’s grandad, called us over to the veranda. He was sitting on the Rattan chair where he spent most of his time, as he couldn’t use his legs.

Mr Ferdie was very resourceful. He had built the family home with the help of his cousin, Mr Sendry, who lived in a small room on their land, and he was also one of Mum’s best friends in the district.

Mr Ferdie asked us about our sale, and we told him about our $10. He then asked us for the money and said it was his, since we hadn’t asked for permission to sell his fruit.

However, we could have some sweeties from his shop for our troubles.

Sucking our Busta sweeties hard against our teeth, Solomie and I sat glumly in the yard, nursing our scratches, vexed.

When I returned home, I told my mum, expecting her to visit Mr Ferdie’s yard to ask for my share of the $10, but she agreed with Solomie’s grandad.

She said, “Kenisha, next time you want to sell fruit, sell it from your own yard.”

One year, during assembly at school, we were told about a trip to the Christmas pantomime in town to see a play with actor and comedian Oliver Samuels, for the senior students.

And if they wanted to attend, they would have to bring in their money each week to pay for their share of the ticket and fare.

My older brother was a senior, and knowing that our parents, although life-rich, were cash-poor, we didn’t want to burden them with the cost of the trip.

So, my brother and I hatched a plan to sell tangerines from our fruit tree to raise the money. We thought it would be fun and a lovely little challenge.

Our tangerine tree was a social one.

Once the fruit was ripe, we would invite our friends to join us. We would sit on the branches and eat tangerines, sometimes all day.

Chatting and laughing with each other, we would also take turns on the swing my dad had strung up on one of its branches.

Everyone agreed our tangerines were the sweetest.

The plan was to sell our fruit in the mornings on the way to school, filling a few scandal bags, so-called because they were see-through and scandalised your groceries.

But for our purposes, it meant our potential customers could see our tangerines in the bags and ask us about them, so we didn’t mind.

On the first morning, we set out and sold our tangerines before we made it halfway to school. We were excited, thinking this would be easy and that we would raise our money in no time.

The next day, though, kids from the other district started selling oranges and tangerines too. This meant we couldn’t sell all our tangerines before we arrived at school and had to sell our remaining fruit at a reduced price to the stallholders at the gate.

My brother and I reasoned about how to solve the problem, and then we had an idea. We would ask our friends who ate our tangerines to talk around the school about what they thought of our fruit.

And so, Solomie, Omar, and Andrea, our fellow tangerine eaters, told everyone how sweet our tangerines were.

After that, we had no problem selling our tangerines. And those selling their fruit bought from us to see what the fuss was about. They agreed that our tangerines were sweeter.

Not long after, we made the money for my brother’s school trip. Our parents gave him his pocket money, and we sent him off with a promise to try and remember everything about the pantomime.

Upon his return, us kids sat excitedly and listened as he told jokes from the show. We laughed so much that we almost fell out of the tangerine tree.

Life Lessons Learned.

Best wishes,

Sherry Collins, I am her.

Jamaican Freedom Fighter, for the people.

Fighting for the creative freedom of the Jamaican peopledem and Pitch Futures, our future creative talent.

I am human. I create from my own visions and ideas, reading culture and the world.™

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Life Lessons Learned.

The birth of a Jamaican Freedom Fighter.