Paying respects to the Jamaican legend who would now be a senior citizen
Jamaica’s famous son Robert Nesta Marley was born 60 years ago on February 6 in the tiny, ramshackle village of Nine Mile, where he lived for the first five years of his life and is entombed in a mausoleum in his backyard. In Ethiopia – birthplace of former emperor and Rastafarian god Haile Selassie and the country that Marley considered his spiritual home – a month-long celebration marking Marley’s birthday is under way. News agencies have even been reporting that his body could be transferred there, adding some controversy to the anniversary, although Jamaican papers have scotched the stories.
On the Sunday in December when I went to pay my respects there were no birthday parties or body scandals, but no official tours, either. Yet everything in Jamaica is “no problam, mon”. One call to Mr Collins and his airconditioned 4WD van was good to go. On the three-hour return trip, he sang along to Marley on the CD while I gazed at the rundown houses outside the resorts.
The road wound through Fern Gully, a five-kilometre incline that once held a rushing river. Rickety huts nestled into the side of the road were stocked with handcrafts, including proud phallic sculptures that tourists stop to photograph – for a tip, of course. Whenever a cruise ship is in town, stalls and shops are thrown open, and it is baskets, Rastafarian tea-cosy hats, gigantic conch sells and freshly cooked jerk chicken and pork as far as the eye can see. But today it was just me and the singing Mr Collins weaving past the locals who walked along the road in their Sunday best.
Jamaica holds the world record for the most churches per mile and we whizzed past ornate and humble buildings representing every denomination, while parishioners leapt out of the way.
We pulled up at the guarded gates and beeped the horn – apparently the password for dreadlocked men to put down their joints and spring into action. Life was, and still is, tough here. Nine Mile, in the parish of St Ann, has no running water and there isn’t much to do except play soccer in the street and smoke. The Rastafarian “holy herb” is sold by the plastic shopping bag.
I entered a wooden building bursting with souvenirs of every description, in red, green, yellow and black – posters, beach towels, racks of and T-shirts, plastic ashtrays and ornaments. Omnipresent, Marley crooned through the speakers.
I paid $10 for Benjy to show me around. “This is where Bob was born,” he said, with a glazed look in his eyes, pointing to a building behind a wall. “No, we can’t go in there, it’s still the family home.”
It turns out that Marley’s mother, Ciddy, lives here when she’s in Jamaica and has been known to chat with visitors. On this day, however, she was in Ghana for the build-up to his 60th-birthday celebrations.
We wandered through another building with a bar where Mr Collins parked himself in front of a TV that was playing Marley’s life story. A man hanging over the wall offered us joints for $5. My friends back at the resort were expecting little treats, but imagining the sniffer dogs in Miami kept me well clear.
There are two buildings where Marley lived. Three others have been built, from which to sell knick-knacks and food to tourists. About 100 metres up a grass track is a tiny two-roomed cottage and the mausoleum.
We took off our shoes: Benjy repeatedly punctuated his spaced-out narration with “respect”. He also sang songs that Marley wrote about this place. The “Mt Zion rock” behind the cottage was his meditation spot and Benjy stretched himself out on the “rock pillow” from “Talking Blues” and gave us a rendition.
We stepped inside the silent mausoleum, which smells of incense. Devotees have left photographs and notes. A soccer ball on a table is surrounded by pictures and a guitar stands in the corner. Paintings and photographs of Marley with famous people hang on the walls and his marble tomb is draped in fabric as the sun dances through leadlight windows depicting elements of several faiths.
In 1977, Marley was diagnosed with cancer in his big toe after an injury. Doctors recommended that it be removed, but he refused, saying that it was against his Rastafarian beliefs. The cancer spread to his liver, stomach and eventually his brain. He died in May 1981 at the age of 36.