RESIDENTS OF KENT VILLAGE IN JAMAICA INVENT PULLEY BRIDGE TO CROSS RIVER!

By Akeem Masters

A few residents of Kent Village, near the Bog Walk Gorge, have come up with an ingenious way to cross the treacherous currents of the Rio Cobre.

They use what they call a ‘trolley’. This is made from board, metal, ropes, cables and wheels and operates like a moving bridge, on which one person can travel.

By standing on the board and pulling on the rope, an individual can move the trolley with each tug of the rope.

The wheels run on the cables attached to the top of the metals. The cables are connected to two huge trees on either side of the river.

“About six years now dem build it. Dem used to have a raft weh dem use go ova deh but di riva get low so them build this,” said one resident.

Member of Parliament for St Catherine North Central, Natalie Neita-Headley, said although she have never seen the ‘trolley’, she is aware that persons who live in the vicinity of the Rio Cobre, “have been coming up with innovative ways in getting across”.

However, she wants persons to be cautious if they have to cross the river.

“Some of the ways we don’t encourage, but for some of them, it is tradition. They have been doing it even very long before I got there,” she said.

Neita-Headley said she has been engaging the authorities to have a formal bridge constructed in some sections of the Rio Cobre for persons to use.

“There several other communities. There is one down by Content which is close to Dam Head and they have to be crossing the Rio Cobre and I have been advocating for a bridge for them for years and the NWA has come and done measurement,” she said.