could be.... and the ranch house design is not an uncommon house type in Jamaica, just as in the U.S. - they were built mostly in the 50's - 70's as efficient mass-produced housing where you have just two or three predetermined floor plans to choose from.
but a house is definitely not where someone's going to be moving to if they come from country with no money and no job.
i was thinking, how did "Ranchie" McLean come by his nickname, i wonder?...
the term "ranch" probably means something else as well, just like "bleach" has two meanings. now it's going to drive me crazy.
massi massa?
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kalcidis
- Posts: 1952
- Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2005 10:24 am
Re: massi massa?
Raunchy McLean was the way I heard it the first time. Made a much more interesting name...
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Return of Jesco
- Posts: 247
- Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2009 10:29 pm
Re: massi massa?
I've met him, but I never thought of asking!
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j j
- Posts: 652
- Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2009 10:42 pm
Re: massi massa?
I would think Ranch comes into the whole western thing that was so popular in Ja. ie, Josey wales,Lee Van Cleef, Lone Ranger, Marty Robins,Skeeter Davis etc etc,
I kinda doubt it's got anything to do with a certain house design or architectual style of housing.
Country people who move to a city got to live somewhere & as we know it's far cheaper to get alot of people who are in the same situation & rent a 'Ranch" together.
j j
I kinda doubt it's got anything to do with a certain house design or architectual style of housing.
Country people who move to a city got to live somewhere & as we know it's far cheaper to get alot of people who are in the same situation & rent a 'Ranch" together.
j j
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blakbeltjonez
- Posts: 183
- Joined: Thu Jan 27, 2011 2:31 pm
Re: massi massa?
jj, that's the thing - there was nowhere for these young girls to go to back then - no landlord in their right mind is going to rent to them, even if there's a bunch of them. you'd be lucky to get a tiny room with a zinc roof and old boards and flattened tin for walls. rent is due 1st of the month, landlord or associate will be knocking on what passes for a door that morning.
anyways, for those that might not realize the depths of the scenario back then:
it was very much like the "Harder They Come" situation where Ivan comes to town, finds his way to Denham Town/Trench Town to Milk Lane and can't even stay with his mother, who can barely look after herself. he then wanders around homeless and hungry until he falls in with The Preacher, who allows him to sleep in an abandoned car in his tenement yard in return for fixing bicycles and doing odd jobs. that would have been a very typical scenario, as sleeping in the streets was, too.
this kind of poverty was not limited to run-down parts of town, there were patches of it all over - except for places like New Kingston and the nicey-nice suburbs, where riff-raff coming around the gate asking for a job/panhandling/beg yuh a food, ma'am/water, ma'am/selling things door-to-door/casing a soft target to rob/etc. were not tolerated much.
persistent or suspicious cases might be run off with a dog - or worse, threats of police, who would be quick to correct the transgressor with an abundance of physical force if necessary. job correspondence is by telephone first, thank you very much....
a lot of houses in more affluent areas had a small bedroom/bathroom with outside entrance, kind of like the "mother-in-law suite" you might see in the U.S. in older houses, or a detached small out-building in the back yard. this was for domestic help, very often that was the only type of work a country girl could realistically get and if on top of that, had nowhere else to stay. kind of a perk of the job and made it a little harder for a homeless, homesick girl to walk off from an insufferable and abusive employer (the general attitude towards domestic help/gardeners/etc. by many upper class Jamaicans was typically bad, even in the 70's when i was a kid).
back before Back-O'-Wall/Dungle was bulldozed to make way for Tivoli Gardens in the mid-60's, lots of destitute Kingstonians who had nowhere else to go squatted there. nowadays, Riverton has become the dump where there's a large squatter community of people who survives by picking through garbage.
there are "informal settlements" all around Kingston, built from zinc sheet, old boards and tarps with no running water and bandulu utilities (places like McGregor Gully & Back Bush in the east, Backtoo AKA Majesty Gardens in the west, and even Cassava Piece in the middle of Constant Springs) that sprang up because there was simply nowhere for people to live, and would otherwise be homeless.
and still occasionally you read in the Observer or Gleaner about a group of people who get kicked out, or a fire burns them out of their rental units - and have nowhere to go. Portmore barely existed up until the 60's, now it has nearly 170k residents... that should tell you about how crowded the Kingston area is.
if anyone wants to read a great novel that details the trials of life of the poor in 1950's Kingston, check out "Children Of Sisyphus" by Orlando Patterson... it's somewhat of a Jamaican classic.
sorry for my old man rambling...
anyways, for those that might not realize the depths of the scenario back then:
it was very much like the "Harder They Come" situation where Ivan comes to town, finds his way to Denham Town/Trench Town to Milk Lane and can't even stay with his mother, who can barely look after herself. he then wanders around homeless and hungry until he falls in with The Preacher, who allows him to sleep in an abandoned car in his tenement yard in return for fixing bicycles and doing odd jobs. that would have been a very typical scenario, as sleeping in the streets was, too.
this kind of poverty was not limited to run-down parts of town, there were patches of it all over - except for places like New Kingston and the nicey-nice suburbs, where riff-raff coming around the gate asking for a job/panhandling/beg yuh a food, ma'am/water, ma'am/selling things door-to-door/casing a soft target to rob/etc. were not tolerated much.
persistent or suspicious cases might be run off with a dog - or worse, threats of police, who would be quick to correct the transgressor with an abundance of physical force if necessary. job correspondence is by telephone first, thank you very much....
a lot of houses in more affluent areas had a small bedroom/bathroom with outside entrance, kind of like the "mother-in-law suite" you might see in the U.S. in older houses, or a detached small out-building in the back yard. this was for domestic help, very often that was the only type of work a country girl could realistically get and if on top of that, had nowhere else to stay. kind of a perk of the job and made it a little harder for a homeless, homesick girl to walk off from an insufferable and abusive employer (the general attitude towards domestic help/gardeners/etc. by many upper class Jamaicans was typically bad, even in the 70's when i was a kid).
back before Back-O'-Wall/Dungle was bulldozed to make way for Tivoli Gardens in the mid-60's, lots of destitute Kingstonians who had nowhere else to go squatted there. nowadays, Riverton has become the dump where there's a large squatter community of people who survives by picking through garbage.
there are "informal settlements" all around Kingston, built from zinc sheet, old boards and tarps with no running water and bandulu utilities (places like McGregor Gully & Back Bush in the east, Backtoo AKA Majesty Gardens in the west, and even Cassava Piece in the middle of Constant Springs) that sprang up because there was simply nowhere for people to live, and would otherwise be homeless.
and still occasionally you read in the Observer or Gleaner about a group of people who get kicked out, or a fire burns them out of their rental units - and have nowhere to go. Portmore barely existed up until the 60's, now it has nearly 170k residents... that should tell you about how crowded the Kingston area is.
if anyone wants to read a great novel that details the trials of life of the poor in 1950's Kingston, check out "Children Of Sisyphus" by Orlando Patterson... it's somewhat of a Jamaican classic.
sorry for my old man rambling...
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j j
- Posts: 652
- Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2009 10:42 pm
Re: massi massa?
Sure i understand that blakbelt, but i'm sure some people from country found a house to live in even if it was made of zinc, flattened tin & boards.
I can understand that a third world country like Jamaica wouldn't be able to offer all it's citizens a nice new house to live in of course.
But we don't know exactly who the person or persons are that are being sung about in the song mentioned in the original post, so maybe somewhere in kingston at that time a landlord did rent a ranch to a group of hungry jamaican country woman?
stranger things have happened......
p.s Re: old man ramblings. I always find your posts extremely interesting Blakbelt. Your insights of life/ living in jamaica make for wonderful reading. I Look forward to reading many more
cheers
j j
I can understand that a third world country like Jamaica wouldn't be able to offer all it's citizens a nice new house to live in of course.
But we don't know exactly who the person or persons are that are being sung about in the song mentioned in the original post, so maybe somewhere in kingston at that time a landlord did rent a ranch to a group of hungry jamaican country woman?
stranger things have happened......
p.s Re: old man ramblings. I always find your posts extremely interesting Blakbelt. Your insights of life/ living in jamaica make for wonderful reading. I Look forward to reading many more
cheers
j j