How a Barrel Became Part of Caribbean Family Life

There was a particular kind of excitement that came with opening a barrel from foreign.

Before you even got to the good stuff, there was the smell.

Soap. Toothpaste. Food. Everything packed tightly together for the journey.

Then you started digging.

My father sent me a couple of barrels when I was a teenager in Jamaica, and technically, they were for me.

There would be things he knew I liked.

Extra crunchy peanut butter.

Cereal.

Name-brand clothes.

Soap and toothpaste.

Things that felt a little more special because they had come from foreign, but also because somebody had picked them specifically for you.

But I grew up in a house with 21 people.

So you can probably see where this is going.

There were things that were mine.

And then there were the essentials.

Rice. Flour. Sugar.

Those got shared.

There might be something for Grandma that I had to take to her. Other things got divided where they could.

My father may have packed the barrel for his daughter.

By the time we finished unpacking it, it had entered an entire family system.

And I think that's what makes the Caribbean barrel more interesting than the stuff inside it.

It became one of the ways families took care of each other across an ocean.

As Caribbean families migrated to the United States, Canada, Britain and elsewhere, the barrel became part of the connection between people abroad and people back home.

Food.

Clothes.

Toiletries.

School supplies.

Household goods.

Things somebody requested and things somebody simply thought you might need.

But a good barrel wasn't packed randomly.

Somebody had been paying attention.

Money could help you buy groceries.

A barrel could say:

I remembered which peanut butter you like.

That's different.

Packing one was also practically an art form.

Use every inch.

Put the heavy things where they belong.

Keep the strongly scented soap away from the food unless you want your cereal arriving with a hint of bath soap.

And absolutely do not pay to ship air.

Opening the barrel was part of the experience.

You pulled things out.

You found yours.

You found somebody else's.

You figured out what was being shared.

In our house there was definitely a difference between:

This is for Tami.

and

This came in Tami's barrel.

Some things stayed mine.

The staples entered the household.

Grandma got what was meant for Grandma.

The barrel almost became a little distribution center.

And that tells you something about Caribbean family life too.

Migration might move one person thousands of miles away, but family responsibilities don't necessarily travel with them.

The person abroad could still be helping a child, parent, sibling, grandparent or another relative back home.

The barrel made that relationship physical.

There is another Jamaican phrase that complicates this story:

"Barrel pickney."

It has been used for children whose parents migrated overseas while they remained in Jamaica, often with grandparents or other relatives, receiving money, clothes and barrels from abroad.

And that's worth acknowledging because the barrel isn't only a cute piece of Caribbean nostalgia.

Sometimes it existed because somebody you loved was somewhere else.

A barrel could mean opportunity.

Sacrifice.

Provision.

Separation.

Love.

Long-distance parenting.

Sometimes several of those things at once.

A barrel could carry an incredible amount.

But it couldn't carry a parent home.

We kept the barrel.

Of course we did.

The cereal finished.

The rice finished.

The flour finished.

The toothpaste got squeezed down to nothing.

But now you had a perfectly good barrel.

Ours became storage.

Or a water drum.

Because apparently after crossing an ocean and supplying a household, the barrel still hadn't completed its duties.

I love that part of the story.

There is something deeply familiar about looking at an empty container and thinking:

We're not throwing that away.

It has another job.

Years later, after I moved to the United States, I packed a barrel for my mom.

And suddenly I understood those barrels my father sent me differently.

You don't necessarily go out and buy everything at once.

The barrel sits there.

You see something on sale and think:

Mom could use that.

In it goes.

You start thinking about the best time to buy certain things.

What costs more back home.

What she likes.

What she needs.

What makes sense to send.

You keep dropping things in.

Then you look inside and realize there is still space.

And again, we are not paying to ship air.

So you add something else.

You rearrange things.

Fill the gaps.

Make sure everything fits.

Eventually the barrel is full.

Then comes the shipping.

Getting it where it needs to go.

Paying for it.

Waiting.

Knowing there is still another process on the other side before your family actually gets it.

Packing that barrel made me appreciate the ones I received as a teenager in a way I couldn't have understood then.

Because when you're the one opening it, you see the cereal.

The peanut butter.

The clothes.

The soap.

When you're the one packing it, you see something else:

All the little decisions that happened before the barrel ever reached you.

Sending money is easier now.

You can transfer it from your phone. People can shop online. Many things that once felt distinctly "foreign" are easier to find in Jamaica.

But there's something different about a barrel.

Someone had to think about you over and over again to fill one.

My father had to know I liked extra crunchy peanut butter.

Someone had to remember Grandma.

Someone had to buy the rice and flour.

Someone had to look at the empty spaces and decide what else might be useful.

I didn't fully appreciate that when I was the teenager digging through everything.

I understood it when I became the person standing over an unfinished barrel thinking:

What else does Mom need?

Maybe that's what a barrel really carried.

Not just things from foreign.

Evidence of all the little moments somebody thought about home.

I thought about you.

Let's make sense of it.

Until next time,
Tami
Founder and Curious Editor
Roots & Rhythms