Marley's ghost to welcome fans for Cricket World Cup
KINGSTON, Jamaica: At Bob Marley's old home in Trench Town, a rough part of this capital city that is far off the tourist route, Benjamin Cole sits in the shade and waits.
When the occasional visitor shows up, Cole, a Rastafarian who goes by the name Benjie, hops up from his stool and, after a bit of negotiation over the cost of his services, conducts a tour of the "government yard," or the public housing project that Marley made famous in his hit song "No Woman, No Cry."
Cole, 55, who claims to have met Marley when the singer was 12, said on a recent day that he expected that his visitors' book would fill up fast in March. In fact, all of Kingston is planning for a flood of arrivals as the Caribbean prepares to be the host for the Cricket World Cup, one of the world's largest sporting events.
Ranking behind the Olympics and World Cup soccer but not much else, the cricket competition is expected to bring tens of thousands of people to the Caribbean in March and April. Jamaica is one of the nine nations that have banded together to serve as the hosts for the matches.
Whether the sites will be as ready as Cole for the onslaught of outsiders is still unknown. Across the West Indies, a region that plays up its go-slow attitude to tourists, work crews are hustling to revamp stadiums and beautify urban centers in time for the tournament, which begins March 5 with warm-up matches. An opening ceremony is set for March 11, and the tournament runs until the end of April. In a recent assessment, organizers found that only St. Kitts and Nevis had met the Dec. 31 deadline for completing their sites. Other countries have the bulk of the work done but are finishing sewers, electricity supplies and — quite important in this part of the world — air-conditioning systems.
The two biggest concerns are a roof going up over a stadium in Barbados and work on the spectators' areas at the stadium in Trinidad and Tobago. "We need Trinidad to step up to the plate with every resource in spite of Carnival season," Donald Lockerbie, who is in charge of stadium construction for the tournament, said in mid-February.
In Jamaica, which will be the host for the opening ceremony as well as four warm-ups, six group matches and a semifinal, a major face-lift is under way. However, few expect the street paving and other renovation work to conceal the fact that the capital, one of the Caribbean's largest cities, has been crumbling for years.
Organizers say, as Marley once sang, that every little thing is going to be all right. "It has been quite a task to build 12 stadiums, but they are going to be ready in time," assured Chris Dehring, managing director of the Cricket World Cup organizing committee. Still, he acknowledged, "there is a lot of work to be done."
One of the benefits of the tournament that has already materialized, Dehring said, is the unity it has helped create among the scattered islands. Many Caribbean states have been planning for years to merge their small economies and create a common currency. But the tournament has forced the countries to come together to pass common legislation dealing with foreign visitors and security. For the tournament, one visa will be good for all the islands, which have grouped themselves into one big, albeit temporary, jurisdiction.
In Trench Town, where street gangs battle over turf and where people live in shacks about the size of the garages at the glorious homes in the hills, expectations for the cricket tournament are high.
Community leaders will have tour guides at the ready to take visitors around a neighborhood they say has a proud past. Bob Marley is just one of many popular Jamaican musicians to emerge from Trench Town.
Another local, Hugh Sherlock, wrote Jamaica's national anthem. And the West Indies cricket team owes some of its success over the years to Trench Town players, like the noted Collie Smith.
The neighborhood, in western Kingston, is as cricket crazy a place as it is a violent one. Those two distinguishing features came together in January, when gunshots rang out during a local match just off Collie Smith Drive, forcing players and fans to duck for cover.
Whether foreign visitors will come to Trench Town is unclear, just as it is anyone's guess whether the tournament will be the economic shot in the arm that organizers predict.
"Economists will argue for many years to come about the economic benefits," Dehring said. "We have to make sure the expectations are realistic. Clearly, this cannot eradicate poverty."
Still, Cole said he hoped it would help lessen his hard times. He has been in a dispute of late over who ought to control the revenues that come into the old neighborhood of Marley, who died in 1981. The house Marley lived in has been renovated with donations from many sources, and admission fees go to a community group. But Cole contends that people who actually knew Marley, like himself, ought to be the ones greeting visitors and sharing in the fees.
"Bob told me in the 70s, 'People are going to come, and you tell them about me,' " Cole said.
And he does. Marley used to sit here and practice his lyrics, Cole said, pointing to a stool. Georgie, a neighbor who was mentioned in "No Woman, No Cry," lived over there. Look at his guitar, at his cooking pots, at his single bed.
In the background, Cole has reggae songs playing at full volume, among them Marley's "Trench Town Rock."
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