From street vendor to law student
“Panty and brassiere!” Panty and brassiere!
Teenager Taniesha Haye shouted at the top of her voice to get the attention of shoppers on a busy Saturday afternoon in downtown Kingston.
As she surveyed the crowd shopping, hoping to scope out prospective buyers that Saturday, Taniesha spotted two of her classmates from Merl Grove high. They were approaching her. If she had wanted to, there was no place to run. Now, all her school friends would know that Taniesha was a downtown higgler. Supposedly, not the thing for a nice girl, especially one attending a well-known uptown high school.
But Taniesha was not embarrassed by her reality. And the behaviour of her friends that day wasn’t demeaning.
“One of them said, ‘Taniesha, we didn’t know that you sell downtown?'” she recalled recently. “I said, ‘Yes, this is what I do to survive’. They just looked at me and said, ‘Okay, bye…'”
Taniesha: “When I attended school I did not feel anyway. Within myself I had already planned my life and this was what I had to do to help me achieve my goals. I knew that it was not what I was going to do for the rest of my life. It was a means to an end.”
Taniesha Haye is now a first year law student at Cambridge University in England. But the route to university for this orphan from the rough inner-city community of Rema has been a rocky one.
“My first school was Boys’ Town Basic School in Rema,” she explained. “Then I attended Boys’ Town All-Age School where I later became the headgirl.”
Her father, Samuel, was shot and killed in the turbulent 1980 election campaign when Jamaica was close to a civil war. Taniesha was just two months old. She was raised by relatives and did not meet her mother until she was 10.
“I was told that he was a member of the West Indies Youth cricket team,” said Taniesha of her father. “I was brought up by the extended family of my father’s side. Because of financial strain I had to begin to work from the early age of six.”
Said Taniesha: “I used to sell escallion and thyme down at Coronation Market on Saturdays. Other times I sell bag juice and bag ice water to make sure I had lunch money for the coming week.”
But juggling school and vending in the early days was extremely difficult. In the circumstance, it is understandable she failed her first sitting of the then common entrance examination, which used to be the measure for children, in the 11 to 12-year range, to enter high school.
“One of the main reasons I was not successful at the Common Entrance Examination was because I had to do everything for myself, especially thinking about my financial, social and spiritual survival,” she said.
But extraordinarily for one so young, Taniesha was fiercely ambitious, absolutely clear that education would be the best vehicle for advancement. Having failed the Common Entrance while at Boys’ Town All-Age, she put her mind to the Grade Nine Achievement Test and passed for Merl Grove High.
Said Taniesha: “I had no one to pay my school fees so I went into a partner with a lady in the area (Rema). At age 15, that was the tactic I used to come up with my school fees while I was attending Merl Grove. I did not attend school on Fridays. Instead on Fridays and Saturdays I used to sell downtown.
“Even some of my teachers… would pass and patronise me.”
At Merl Grove she became vice-captain of the netball team. It was in her second year there, however, that she had to make a major change in her life.
“…My uncle and his family got notice to vacate the premises where we were living. My uncle told me that he tried with me and did enough and it was time for my mother to take up where he left off,” she recalled.
For Taniesha this was devastating news.
“I knew my mother had no interest in education, so I went to the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Washington Gardens,” she recounted. “There I met someone with my surname and we developed a rapport. After explaining my position to them I was invited to go to Portland to live. This was how I attended Titchfield.”
Initially at Titchfield, Taniesha had to dig deep inside to get the motivation to start all over again.
She told AllWoman: “At Titchfield, I used my past as self-motivation. I tried not to focus on the dark days of my life. I used it to motivate myself.
“I told myself, ‘Taniesha, you are going to be a lawyer and you are not going to leave law school as an ordinary graduate but as an exceptional graduate.
“At Titchfield, I noticed that leadership skills were embedded in me. I realised that I am not only going to become a lawyer but the first female Prime Minister of Jamaica and the second in the Caribbean.”
But her move to Portland also put her under more financial pressure. She was still selling underwear and many times had to go to Kingston to buy them for resale in Portland.
“At times I had to sell on the school’s campus,” she said. “Imagine, I was senior prefect going around with bags of underwear selling. I still did not feel any way.”
At Titchfield she sat eight subjects in the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) and was successful in seven. She also passed three subjects at GCE ‘A’ level although she sat four.
While preparing A levels Taniesha was planning the next step.
“After (fifth form)at Titchfield, I decided that I was not going for a normal job and go off to work because of my current financial problem,” she said. “I sat and I thought about my situation carefully. I noticed that I needed money to achieve my goals.
“At the end of the first year in sixth form at Titchfield, I got someone to plant an acre of sweet potato. I was told that the crop would value over $85,000,” she said, Sadly, at harvest she was cheated out of the crop.
It was a hard blow from which to recover, especially as the ‘A” level exams were fast approaching and the fees had to be paid.
“I went to look work,” she said. “Most of the time it was part-time. Whenever I worked I saved for my future studies.”
This year March, Taniesha Haye was accepted to do Law at Cambridge. She subsequently entered England, but had to return to Jamaica to fulfil certain visa requirements. She has now returned to England.
Asked what her major focus in law would be, Taniesha told All Woman: “I am interested in commercial/international law. I will not restrict myself to working in Jamaica. Commercial and International law will open more opportunities for me in this global age.
“One of the reasons why I want to go abroad is that I want to have a good understanding of the international trade community. Additionally, while I am studying there I will seek opportunities to work in the field of international and commercial law. After having these academic and work experiences I shall return home to enter into politics.”
Taneisha has advice for people who have academic or other goals which they believe are unattainable because of the lack of money.
“First, whether you want to be a doctor, nurse or teacher, you have to sit down and carefully develop a plan. The first question is where are you going to get the money,” she said.
“Well, whatever your financial situation, there is always a solution. The situation may be that you have to speak out. Speak to somebody and socialise with people who have common goals like yourself. If you want to be a teacher, speak to teachers. Ask them how they achieved their goals; share your plans with them.
“If you want to be a lawyer, a doctor, speak to someone in that field. The onus is upon you. Nobody owes you anything. In order for someone to render assistance to you, first they have to see that you are interested to go the extra mile.
“Always believe in yourself and put God first. With God all things are possible.”
The interview with Taniesha Haye was done by Louis EA Moyston.
