Click on the different times to see what
Mary is doing.
Mary gets up
soon after 5 am for family prayers. She and Lanlie
then milk the cows in the dairy.
Cows need to be milked early in the morning.
The family are Seventh-Day Adventists, and their
religion plays a big part in their lives. They
spend a lot of time each week at their church,
where they are active members.
The milk is poured
into a milk cooler to keep it fresh.
The milk is cooled and filtered to remove any
impurities.
Mary feeds the
calves, and Lanlie the chickens. Meanwhile, everyone
else is up and about, getting their own breakfast.
Often they have fried plantain and bread for breakfast.
Lanlie and Mary eat after Mary has come back from
the school run.
Mary takes Bruce
and Georgette to Balaclava Primary School.
The school is six miles away. Lorri-Ann and LaVeta
have even longer journeys – Lorri-Ann's
school is 20 miles away, and it takes LaVeta at
least an hour to get to college. Mary is very
keen for her children to get a good education.
A tanker arrives
to collect the milk.
The tanker belongs to the Jamaican Dairy Farmers'
Federation (JDFF) and is on loan to the St Elizabeth
Dairy Co-operative. Mary is a member of both organisations.
She sits on the board of the JDFF and is involved
in discussions about the problems faced by Jamaican
dairy farmers.
The milk is tested
for quality.
Mary and Lanlie produce 'A' grade milk, which
sells for more than 'B' grade milk.
Mary sells her
milk to the St Elizabeth Dairy Development Co-operative.
The main office of the co-operative, with its
farm stores and milk collection station, is five
miles from Mary's farm. The co-operative pays
farmers for their milk, which is then sold to
a processor (Nestlé International). Nestlé
is importing cheap milk powder into the island,
and buying less fresh milk from farmers like Mary.
Mary spends much
of her day doing other jobs around the farm.
For example, she needs to cut back trees and bushes
from the grazing land. In the tropical climate,
things grow quickly. She has a rest in the afternoon,
when it is usually very hot.
Mary and Lanlie
milk the cows again.
It takes them an hour to do the milking, including
cleaning-up time. Mary used to milk with a milking
machine, but it took her another half an hour
to clean the machine, and her electricity costs
were much higher. She and Lanlie decided to go
back to milking by hand, as it is cheaper and
quicker.
The children
come back from school and college.
Bruce and Georgette help out a little, but most
of the cooking and cleaning is done by La Veta
and Lorri-Ann. Sometimes La Veta goes to visit
friends after college but Lorri-Ann doesn't go
out much.
The children
finish their homework after dinner. Twice a week,
they go to church.
The children are encouraged to do their homework,
because it's difficult to get a good job without
qualifications. They also watch television and
read.
