My Jamaican passport photo taken when I was 10 years old in 1989.

No. 10, Selling tangerines

I was six years old, and in my last year at Basic School in Jamaica, when I had my first enterprising idea.

It was simple really. I asked my classmates if they would like to join in with me and put 10 cents each towards a large packet of Excelsior Water Crackers, which we would buy after school and share between us.

Most agreed and we bought the packet, shared it and promised to do the same again the next day. But when I got to school, everyone else wanted to be leader of the cracker buying and had grouped off into little cliques. This meant that we couldn’t buy crackers as we were all short, which left many disappointed and some went crying to the teacher, who promptly banned it.

If we couldn’t work together, then no one would be getting any crackers.

Annoyed, I vowed never to share my ideas with large groups of people ever again. Unless of course it becomes part of one’s creative.

My next venture was with my best friend Solomie, selling limes, picked from the tree in her yard. We had seen a cartoon one day where one of the characters was selling lemonade at the front of their house. But since we didn’t have any 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 care as we were about to make some money to buy sweets, D&G sodas, CheeseTrix, and bun and cheese.

Not long after setting up our stall, the bread van came by and the driver asked us how much for our limes and we told him. Turns out limes was scarce, as not everyone had a tree, so he said he would buy all of our stock. He gave us 10 dollars, which was a lot of money at the time. 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 down on the Rattan chair where he spent most of his time, as he couldn’t use his legs.

But even without being able to use the lower part of his body, Mr Ferdie was very resourceful. He had built the family home with the help of a 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 dollars. He then asked us for the money and said it was his money as we didn’t ask him permission to sell his fruit. But 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 got home I told my mum, expecting her to go down to Mr Ferdie’s yard to demand my share of the 10 dollars, but she agreed with Solomie’s grandad. She said next time you want to sell fruit, sell them from your own yard.

At primary school one year during assembly, we were told about a school trip to the Christmas pantomime in town for the senior students. If they wanted to attend, then they would have to bring in their money weekly to pay 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 bother them with the burden of paying for the ticket. So my brother and I hatched a plan to sell tangerines from our fruit tree to raise the money.

Also, it would be fun and a lovely little challenge we thought.

Our tangerine tree was a social one as once the fruit was ripe, we would invite our friends to join us in it and 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 below.

Everyone agreed our tangerines were the sweetest.

The plan was to sell our stock in the mornings on the way to school, filling a scandal bag, so-called because it was see-through and so scandalised your groceries. But for our purposes it meant our potential customers could see our fruit in the bags, and ask us about them, so we didn’t mind.

First morning we set out and we sold off all our tangerines before we had made it half-way to school. We were excited and thought this is going to be easy and 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 that we couldn’t sell all our tangerines before we got to school and had to sell our remaining fruit to the stall holders at the gate at a reduced price.

Annoyed, my brother and I reasoned on what to do 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 about how sweet our tangerines were.

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

Not long after, we made all 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 play.

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

What fun times.

Jamaica, we are here.

Time, to create our new futures.

Best wishes,

Kenisha (her)

Sherry-Ann Collins

Sherry (her / us)

Sherry Collins

Jamaican Freedom Fighter

Fighting for the creative freedom of the Jamaican peopledem.™

Watch on Pitch TV.