‘Rain come wet we, sun come bun we’ - Vendors lament slow progress in restoring burnt-out May Pen market

A year after a section of the May Pen Market was gutted by a huge blaze, dislocated vendors are chiding the Clarendon Municipal Corporation for not doing more to rebuild the shops so they can operate in a better environment.

“A one year now and nutten. Rain come wet we, sun come bun we, and we cyaa hear nutten,” lamented Chin, a vendor, at the market. “Everything fi me burn up in the fire – money and everything. A start me a start all over again. Me nuh see no Christmas yet.”

Chin told The Gleaner that daily transportation costs to move her goods to and from the market were eating into her earnings.

“Me affi pay the cart man dem all $800. Sometimes me load all drop and mash up. It get to me now. Right now, me confused. One year now and nutten. It very stressing – stressing bad. All them a say meeting, meeting, them soon come and nutten,” she said.

Seventy-two-year-old hat vendor Patsy Miller, who also lost all her merchandise in the inferno, told The Gleaner that her heart is heavily set on a proper structure as a dust nuisance is causing damage to her goods.

Miller, who now sells her hats and other miscellaneous items under a tarpaulin, recounted the day tragedy unfolded.

“I was coming from church and I see the smoke, and by I look, my stall was finishing. I get so weak, and when I look and see other people stall, to know them a sufferer like me, I start to cry. Me never have no Christmas,” she said.

Among the charred rubble were items some of her customers had already paid for.

“Them see with me and them bear some of the loss,” said Miller, who has been selling at the market since the early 1970s and was losing her merchandise to fire for the third time.

“This market always have fire, but this time was the worse,” she told The Gleaner.

And sales have been slow this year, Miller said, “because church nah keep so frequent again”.

Rough 2019

Another vendor Icilda Grant described Christmas 2019 as rough.

“We never have no Christmas. ... Me never have anywhere to sell, so every evening I have to pack to take them home or pay someone to put them up,” said Grant.

According to the vendors, promises of containers for vending by the municipal corporation have not materialised.

“They promised that they would rent us a container and it’s been a year and nothing like that. For those who can afford to buy, they give them a 10 by 10 space, but for those who can’t afford it, we are out in the sun and the rain,” said Natalie Walters, who has had to limit sale days at the market to limit transportation costs as she does not have a proper vending structure.

Market supervisor Andrew Tabois told The Gleaner that plans are afoot to rebuild the shops, but that the process was lengthy.

“The [Clarendon Municipal Corporation] is doing everything to assist. They had to restructure the area, asphalt the place and so forth, and that takes some time. We wanted the vendors to use containers, but some of them can’t afford it, so we came up with a different decision to use the metal sheeting instead,” he said.

He added that reconstruction of vending shops began in August, adding that some dislocated vendors were not able to take up offers of spaces made available because of financial challenges.

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