When You Find a Fool, Ride Him Bareback

In a previous item I described the sad events that befell Christine.   I had described them to my friend Priya.

Priya, like Christine was not a ‘bornya yardie’  (a born Jamaican)  nor had lived here among average people long enough to be a virtual ‘Yardie’.

Christine had, considering the salaries for household helpers low, decided to pay what she thought was fair. The Helper, Hazel, receiving three times what she knew she should get thought Christine an ‘idjiot’ and began to rob her blind.

Priya, thinking the same thing, had hired Desta, and was paying her what Christine paid her Hazel.

After I spoke to Priya she went home, and as Desta would be going off for the weekend asked to search her bag.  Desta froze, said she’d be right there, but went back into her room, and returned with a small and innocent bag with nothing in it.

As she got into the car to be driven home,  Priya went into Desta’s room and found everything from her husband’s cuff links to her son’s Ipad.

She called the Police who came to the house, and she showed him what she found.

The police had the car stopped, and arrested the helper.

When Priya came to work on Monday she told me what happened.   She was in a state of shock and had been all weekend.

She told me how she had paid Desta, had even paid her medical and dental bills, and when she went into the room, (with a witness) and found so much of her family’s property, she nearly fainted.   She hadn’t expected to find so much.

I told her, as I told Christine, that you have to understand a culture when you enter it.  If you don’t understand it, then you will be its victim.

The Title is the term Jamaicans use when they are ripping off someone they consider a fool.  A person who overpays, who trusts, who seems oblivious to what is going on.

Christine wouldn’t believe me, but Priya did.

Another proverb; “If you don’t hear, you will Feel”