Posts from — February 2011

Dreams and visions are what give us hope and purpose in life. All the important moments of our lives whether it is education achievement, a home, a wedding, a church building, a funeral needed resources to power them to a satisfactory achievement.

Most of us however are faced with the short money month syndrome, where the month is always whipping the duration of the money. Well, although this may seem to be a modern challenge, our for-bearers invented an ingenious means to use community collaboration to overcome the money challenge and realize the dream.

A Pardner is an agreement among people to save collectively. Usually an established member of a community manages the pardnership and is referred to as “the banker”. The pardners contribute a regular sum on a time basis decided by the pardners. At the agreed upon time frame, one member of the pardner receives the total amount contributed by the pardners over that period., less the equivalent of one contribution, which is given to the banker as payment for the banker’s services. The banker determines the order in which members can make their draw.

Deanne’s website

You can then imagine my excitement when I saw the newly published book, Pardner Money Stories by Deanne Heron. Deanne possess two important ingredients of great writers, passion and skill. Maybe you have seen some her many stories published by the Jamaican Observer. Well in this new work she skillfully uses the social contract of the Pardner as a backdrop to share the richness of Jamaican family life in Britain.

Deanne was kind enough to enter into a conversation with us and share what motivated the publication and what pleasure we can expect to gain from it.

Click to listen to her wisdom.

Maybe you like me can trace your success journey to a pardner. Many times, it was the pardner monies that paid my tuition to Howard University. It was vital in my parents acquiring their first home. My mom was a banker and I clearly remember the many envelopes dropped through the mail slot.

O if we could just restore this level of social trust on a broad basis. New dreams and visions will be realized instead of festering like raisins in the sun. I would highly recommend getting a copy of Deanne’s fine work and give your dreams a fighting chance.

Quick!!
Which books shaped your moral sensitivities in high school?

Sure the Bible of course, but were there other authors whose work fired your imagination and caused you to read by flashlight or a lamp, when everyone else was asleep?
Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, were two authors who took me on the journey of Victorian living and the rugged demands of living in that era.

Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Bleak House, The Pickwick Papers were just some of the novels that molded by imagination about being a young man.
Then there was Mark Twain. Huck Finn, and Tom Sawyer took me on many boyish adventures.

Ah, the power of the novel to shape our thinking. The novel is a fictional piece written in a narrative style. They tell stories, which are typically defined as a series of events. The novel has been a part of human culture estimated over a thousand years. This powerful literary device has been used to cleverly emotionally move the reader in ways not possible with a full frontal delivery of truth.

The stratification of the Jamaican society is reflected in its language, and skin color dilemmas, but there are treated as the elephant in the room that no one seem to notice.

Well Diana McCaulay has entered the orb of the novelist by deploying this literary device to bring us to a place to deal with some of our unspoken societal issues. In her first novel, Dog-Heart, she skillfully deals with the complexities of race and class in Jamaica.

We had the distinct opportunity to catch up with her and understand the motivation behind her award winning novel.
Click to listen to Diana’s wisdom.
Find out why her two national awards are much deserved.
This her debut novel, Dog-Heart, won a highly commended award in the National Book Development Council of Jamaica’s National Literary Awards in 2006, a Gold Medal in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission’s National Creative Writing Competition in 2008 and was published by Peepal Tree Press in March 2010.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
Albert Einstein

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