GUYANA

My ugly hands.

2008-09-05T10:35:00.003-04:00

After the beautiful grass bite-up me hands, fat blisters pop up and they join each other to make continents. On thumbs, pointing fingers and middle fingers. Look so ugly I use them for fun…might as well, otherwise I woulda bawl. While I talk to people I suddenly hold up me hands and say, ‘Look what happen,’ and watch people step back in horror.

Them blisters take weeks to go away. Couldn’t sew, couldn’t embroider, garden or sweep house with me li’l coconut broom.

Make me realise, we really take hands for granted, eh?

Well, I do. Take these hands for granted…

…me sly hands…sly yes, when me and Cousin Nan was 4 and 5 years ole in the countryside, we used to slip into the shop next door and snitch ching gum…chewing gum…from the glass bottle while the shopkeeper been at the back o’ the shop, no wonder we end up with cavities and had to go to the dentist and one o’ we holler so bad and kick the needle out from the dentist hand, I did want to scratch he face with the nails of me hands…

…me chile hands that make cards for mother, pasting pictures with cooked rice or gluey gamma cherry…

…hands that had chew-up fingers nails one year in high-school because me best friend then used to chew she nails then all them other girls start to grow theirs so I grow mine too. Then I dig them long nails into me palms to cause pain so I don’t cry at sad movies or finnerals…

…hands that itch to make rude gestures to mean drivers but they stay on the steering wheel, blasted, stupid hands…

…hands that sprinkle anti-bacterial powder on my mother after she surgery...and paint with li’l ‘Merican nephews and wipe away they eye-water when they cry…hands that craft, that pray (and plead) and give and plant and reap and know tons of secrets that the right one does scribble in me red book…

“They look scrawly, man, they proper look terrible,” my mother say one morning as she examine them blisters. Hmmph, only a mother can say something like that and get away with it.

But them ugly, hurting hands wasn’t why I ain’t blog.

I ain’t blog because I been doing extreme surgery to me manuscript, cutting out chunks of self-indulgence, removing them silly bits and re-stitching phrases and sentences and adding more life to the writing. If I did only stop to blog I woulda lose momentum an’ passion.

And all the while, it was you, dear bloggers and other folks who comment, it was you who been keeping me going with you kind words and compliments. If you only know how much support you give!

So with these hands I want to say a big thank you (applause, applause for you all).

And thank you too, Mr. Scarty from Fotland for this:

Now I want to share the award with 5 other bloggers...but before I do...rules is rules...so...for them who get nominated...

(a.) Pick five (5) blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.

(b.) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

(c.) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

(d.) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

Okay, here I go:

1. I ain’t know if, technically speaking, what he got is a ‘blog’…but anyway, Mike is the blogger of all bloggers. He does have Projects that sometimes involve other bloggers; he give lectures on what blogging is all about and post them lectures on he site; if he see a new, exciting blog, he tell everybody; and don’t forget Post of the week that he start and still run. Oh gosh, then there is Shaggy Blog Stories, he brain-chile…a book with stories by other bloggers.

2. Pat is the perfect blend of nostalgia and now. She is beautiful, stylish, graceful and boy, she can weave a good story. Plus, she does show photos of places that make me KNOW that is possible to create beauty…that we ain’t got to sit and wait for others to do it.

3. Jdid is a mix of politics and personal, Caribbean and Canada, writing in English and Creole, depending on mood and story. And depending on the mood or story, he can make you eye-water run with laughter or sadness. This fella, for me, capture a big part of we Caribbean spirit. If you get the time, find and read he public transport stories.

4. Lee, who I like to call Caribbean, is a Merican gyal livin’ in Belize. She is talented, a’ artist and photographer and a great story-teller too. She capture life there, and sometimes the language, to a ‘t’. Lee is hilarious but she is a practical woman too, writing about dreams and the stereotypical ideas people have of giving it all up and moving to the Caribbean, and what you reeeeally need to be a success.

5. Lucy, a witty Brit in Portugal. And ohhhh, she illustrations! I still remember that one she do of a bland, blank middle-class mama who go to pick up she chile at school. Lucy is satirical, ironic…just plain wicked.

I wish I can include more people because for all kinda reasons, I think you all is great…but that gon take me ‘til December…and right now, me hands got to go and vacuum this house…

...eek...

2008-08-31T20:05:00.000-04:00

...like yaxlich, i think i fo'get how to blog...

Murder

2008-07-29T09:02:00.000-04:00

of a relative.

Death of another – old age and plenty ailments.

Same time, auntie and uncle from Abroad been visiting too.

Wakes. Funerals [I go to one. On the day of the second one, I been so tired I flop down and snooze].

Teas and lunches and dinners with family.

Trip to the countryside, visiting folks, gyaffing...chatting...under a tree. Lunch at a grand ole estate house.

Collect plenty stories. Dissect, analyse, put together, dissect again.

Now, typing difficult. On Thursday I pull out long grass growing wild and free in a plant pot in the verandah. Hair or insect on grass sting, feel like fire-needles boring skin. Major allergic reaction.

Latest pastime - reading books; staring at fingers. Wish I can read me fortune in them itchy bumps. But all I can smell is Betnovate C ointment.

A strange occurrence.

2008-07-14T09:00:00.000-04:00

In all me born days, I never know it coulda happen here. Even as teeny-weenie li’l tots they teach we that some things just don’t occur on the tip of South America, they only take place in other countries. Like snow.

But…bless me soul if I lie…we got a foreign season here now!

I always thought that the only seasons we get is mango season, sapodilla season…all kinda fruits in season, rainy season and the rest o’ the year is sun.

Truth to tell, I shouldn’t doubt that this foreign season is really occurring here.

It must be true.

I see it on tee vee.

And as everybody know, everything you see on all them media is true.

One business academy advertise summer classes; one wild entertainment group promoting a fun event taking place this summer, and several small schools inviting parents to enroll they chil’ren in summer programmes.

The only problem is though, we the people can’t really tell when is actually summer. Because it all depend on when them classes or events taking place. Some last for one week in July; some happen one weekend or a day in August. Others go from July to August.

Why this strange weather pattern happening here, you ask? Some folks would say that it is because we the people suck up all things foreign without discrimination; others say we get brain-washed by too much foreign tee vee.

But I say that it got to be because of global warming. Too much sun in we head, man, too much heat.

I decide, just in case them other foreign seasons take over here too, I gon do a calendar for we the people.

It go like this:

January. February. March.

Spring.

May. June. July.

Summer.

September.

Audum [that is, Autumn with the foreign pronunciation that we the people love].

November.

Winner [that is, Winter with the foreign pronunciation that we the people love].

This is what global integration is all about.

Another blackout.

2008-07-09T16:39:00.001-04:00

My mother slip into the verandah, settle in the rocking chair; she don’t look out for falling stars like normal people. She does keep watch for that bright red light, hoping she gon see it again.

Is the most awesome, awwwwesome thing, she does say.

More than one time she see it, a wide, broad band of red fire with a long, narrow tail curving like a’ ‘s’, coming down slow, slow, down in the night-black sky, then it fade. She see it two times in we country village, and two or three times when we move to town. Me li’l cha-cha…me father youngest brother…spot that light once in the country village too; he been so scared he pelt down the road for home.

I should haul out me guitar, sit in the living room and strum some notes, think of all them jinns, invisible beings created with smokeless fire, they live all around we and take in the show of everything we do. Nah nah nah, that too scary, lemme join my mother in the verandah.

“Mummy, I forget to tell you earlier…guess who dead?”

“ Who?”

I tell she and my mother go on a rambling tale about the family history of the deceased woman son-in-law - which merchant and he wife come from India with three daughters, who they marry, what estates they inherit and how many sons and daughters they give birth to. I know, inside-out, the love affairs of them beautiful women descendants; I hear these stories many times over.

Mind drifting, I ketch on to the tail end of a story. “One o’ they cousins love to drink, this boy always drunk,” my mother saying. “A time, he go to visit he family in we village. This boy get so drunk that when he driving home back to town, he get lost. He turn on to a track that lead to waterside, wayyy out by the sea. People had to go look for he and find he and pull out he car from mud.”

Me laugh fly out and circle ‘round the neighbourhood, so loud it was.

“Aiye, mummy, remember that young boy who use to sell fish here, he father drink so much he fly up a cokenut tree and…”

He was a fair, slim, good-lookin’ eighteen year, hard-working and willing to gut the fish for some extra dollars. Anil, I think he name was. The first time my mother see he, she say, boy, me know you face, where you come from?

He was from a village near my mother childhood village, and my mother know Anil family.

“Me father been in a’ accident,” he say. “I does help me mother to sell the fish so we can go home early, and me mother can rest. ” He father love to do two things. Drink and drive fast fast fast. “One night, me father drink and drive so fast he fly up a cokenut tree. Then he land pon top a house.”

“On top a house? How he manage that?”

“Was a flat roof house, a shack-house. Them people come out to beat he and he run ‘way and hide in a bush.”

Somehow, the father manage to sneak back later to he car. Radio gone; battery gone, other parts gone, people gone. “He trying to buy new parts,” the young boy say.

Last night, we ain’t see the big red fire in the sky, maybe another night. It appear around the same time, my mother say, between seven thirty to eight thirty. Me and my mother gyaff...chat...some more, then the phone ring and two minutes later lights come back on. My mother come inside to doze and I snuggle down to watch America’s Got Talent.

Monday! Holiday!

2008-07-07T17:13:00.000-04:00

“Happy Free Lunch Day!” I announce, reading the newspaper front page.

“No!” my mother laugh. She sound half-amused and not trusting a word I say but she voice had a li’l tone that hint, suppose, just suppose is true.

“Yes! Look!” I flip the newspaper to she, across the ole pink kitchen table that witness decades of stories, gossip, tears and jokes amongst we family and friends.

“Ha,” she give a li’l laugh. It say Happy CARICOM Day.”

“Nah man, they got it wrong.”

Caricom to some might mean Caribbean Community, but a few years ago I learn that other meaning.

A few years ago them Caricom folks had a meeting in Jamaica. A gal pal there email me. Plenty media excitement everywhere, flurry of suits, ties, important men and women hustling about and wearing relaxed smiles that look a li’l tight around the edges to imply serious business. I don’t think me friend was impressed. “Caricom is just a free lunch,” she write.

Heh. I should email me friend and tell she what happen to one of them Caribbean folks who come here to work for Caricom, in the beautiful blue-glass head-office that reflect cloud and sky.

The fella, before he move he family here, went house-hunting. Two Caricom people kerry he from north to south, east to west, up and down, in and out of Georgetown, checking out homes. At the end of the day, he go to a Guyanese friend house for dinner. Food lay out on the table like feast for a local king. Fish curry. Roti. Cripsy green bora, that is, long green beans, stir-fry with fat shrimps. Ice-cold fruit juice. The fella eat ‘til he had to open he belt.

“Lawks, I was so hungry, I didn’t have a bite all day.”

“You mean to say those guys didn’t offer you lunch?” he friends ask.

“No.”

“They were Guyanese? You mean to say, you were their guest and they didn’t offer you lunch?”

“They weren’t Guyanese, they were from two different islands.”

I should email me Jamaican gal pal and tell she, See, you’re wrong, it ain’t a free lunch for everybody.

Or maybe I should tell she about the Caricom lady who work here for a couple o’ years, finish she contract, gone back to she island and abandon she dawg. Leave it without owner or lunch. A kind lady in the neighbourhood does give it a plateful o’ food everyday.

But never mind, I like the free lunch idea. I been goin’ ‘round greeting people, Happy Free Lunch Day.

Speaking of holidays. This Guyana guvament is really falling short. Last month was a dry, dry month. Not a holiday we had. And none in sight for September either.

A little update: the book cupboard event.

2008-07-03T16:18:00.000-04:00

The cole left me on Sunday, but one tiredness ketch hold o’ me since the book cupboard event.

The book cupboard event start on Sunday. That was when my mother and Fazal decide was the right day for the flakin’ back bedroom walls to get a bright new coat.

Days before that my mother and Fazal been watching the rain, waiting for the sun. Not good to paint on a wet day. Early o’ clock every morning my mother phone Fazal. If rain fall or if he got to work elsewhere, she say, If sun come out tomorrow...

One day last week Fazal also known as gardener also known as handyman also known as painter scrape off crumbly paint from the bedroom walls and clean them flakes from the floor. He say when he ready to scrape and paint behind the book cupboard he gon move it.

“How you gon move this cupboard, Fazal?” I ask.

The book cupboard is heavy like a pregnant cow. It is five feet, six inches tall, four feet wide and three books deep…that is to say, each shelf does hold three rows of books - back, middle, front. The book cupboard got twelve shelves in all behind two doors.

Fazal laugh like a schoolboy, teeth shine, eyes glimmer. He is a happy-chappie who don’t worry about nothing. “When the time come we gon see,” he say.

“Aw man, just shuve the roller behind the cupboard and paint it without scraping off ole paint,” I say. I been thinking, horror spreading like weed, if he only empty that book cupboard guess who gon get the job to repack.

Guess who get the job to repack on Monday.

Because guess who did promise she mother she gon clean the cupboard one day. Also, because my mother and Fazal empty the cupboard on Sunday afternoon so he can scrape and paint the wall at the back.

I been watching tee vee when Fazal come to the living room. “G, you can come help me empty this cupboard?”

“Me nah move,” I declare.

Ten minutes later, conscience and curiosity kerry me into the room to see how they progressing with the emptying of the cupboard, and to help.

It take me the whole of Monday to vacuum them shelves, repack them books according to writers, throw out ancient car manuals, old text books, crumbling novels, and to clean that entire room.

Dust. If you see dust. I swear it was in that cupboard that Africa and Arabia originate.

I don’t want to say how many books we got in that cupboard or you gon accuse me of exaggerating. Lemme just say, is plenty. Books stand three rows deep on twelve shelves, each shelf is two feet wide, each book is between one to two inches thick; one or two o’ them is fat like A Suitable Boy and The Pickwick Papers; some got the size of Things Fall Apart and Short Stories by Chekhov. Do the math yourself, I tired.

In the middle of this cleaning-up tamasha, a strange letter arrive from a literary agency Abroad. But that is a gyaff for another day. I tired.

Sdiffle.

2008-06-26T08:38:00.000-04:00

I ketch a cole. Rehada the cleadid girl brig it. Either that, or I ketch it walkid id the raid - everybody id Guyada doh that raid got bacteria ad virus.

Yes, I doh, I doh, adother cole, I had a cole last year already. But I did read sobwhere that asthbatic people does ketch cole bore quick thad other folks.

Yesterday I tell Addie that I feel like a ole, ole latrid that aid get clead for years. Addie say ha ha ha.

Oh doh! I just rebeber! I bid skippid the asthbatic bedicatiod recedly like if I ab sob bacho bad, I dote doh how that goid to affect by breathig with this cole.

(Sdiffle).

I goid to lie dowg to thik about by fate…

Rat-at-tat.

2008-06-20T16:12:00.005-04:00

I spot the swinjey…ole, dry-up…potato skin suddenly the other morning on we kitchen window sill. Horror swell-up in me like music in a dramatical movie, slow, rising to a crescendo. “Mummyyyyyyyyy,” I scream. “If you keep putting food-things here I gon pack up me traps and move out, I can’t take it no more.”

“I want to plant it, man,” my mother say in a nonchalant tone.

“I ain’t care, don’t leave it there, it gon attract…attract…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. “I leaving…gone…”

By no measuring stick you can say me is a bad daughter. Threatening my mother with such a drastic measure, that I gon skip town and country all because of one ole piece o’ potato skin, might make me sound like a dreadful daughter, but hear me out, hear me plight.

First, let me explain. When I say I gon flee, I am being typical product of me society. This is flight or fright territory. As soon as a two-legged rat, that is, a bandit, walk too bold people does say, I gon pack up me traps and migrate. It was a four-legged rat that had me in the grip of terror the other morning. Or rather, the memory of it.

The tamasha...trouble...start up late last year, just before my mother go back Abroad. Then, signs of a rat in the house appear like signs of somebody doing obeah…black magic…to a’ enemy. Here, a plantain get bite-up. There, a papaya get chomp-up in vicious chunks, like a’ whole hungry army been feeding. My mother buy a trap, I set it, the food vanish and the trap mysteriously end up in a different spot.

Me and Rehanna (cleaning-girl) smell the creature in hide-away corners. It was a high-stinking smell, like a dead-man bussing through a crack in a grave. But we can’t see the creature.

Rehanna say, “G, how me scared. I does think, what I gon do if I see it.”

I feel good when she say so because, as we all know, misery love company. The good feeling didn’t last though.

Cry and the whole world does laugh at you.

I learn this late last year soon after the signs of the rat. In me grief I couldn’t finish me breakfast. I push away the last bit of toast. Maybe if I exhibit enough horror my mother gon change she mind about going Abroad; she gon stay here and baby sit me, keep me safe from the rat.

My mother look at the last piece o’ toast. “You leaving that for your boyfriend?”

“Eh?”

“The rat. You leaving that piece o’ bread for he?”

Lis confirm this snickering-like behaviour that very same day. “Ow, the poor ole rat is in love with you,” she say in a’ email. “He musta say, ow, look a nice girl in this house, let me stay here and rest me ole eyes by gazing at she.”

Me sister didn’t exactly laugh. “Talk to it, apologise to it,” she email. “You got to get rid of it, yes, because rats does spread disease. Feed it poison but apologise to it and explain why you got to do that.” She is such a softie, a real bleeding-heart.

Some people take to naming the creature. Me best friend in the whole wide world call it The Midnight Rambler.

Me second brother ask me on the phone, “How is Al Zaquari?”

“Eh?”

“The rat. Isn’t it terrorising you? Oh, oh, I have a suggestion. Put up signs around the house that say BEWARE OF BAD CAT. And the rat gon read it and get really scared and run away.”

If I wasn’t so horrified I woulda give it a name too. Bolo. Everybody in Guyana know Bolo. He is the big, bad, bullying, bone-breaking character in them Chinese movies.

Soon after my mother gone Abroad, Zaquari-Bolo start to torment me.

(To be continued…I gone to lie down people, remembering this rat make me have ten nervous breakdowns…)

A - a - a - a..........................

2008-06-18T19:34:00.000-04:00

WAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO * * *

* *

*

* * *

*

*

oops

sorry

allergies

Where have all the good boys gone?

2008-06-16T12:43:00.000-04:00

There we was, me and Annie, gyaffing…chatting on the phone; we solve the problems of the world – pollution, starvation, politicians – everything we sort out but we couldn’t resolve the shortage of good boys here. Plenty pretty, smart girls going around, but not enough boys to match them girls.

Annie tell me how one day she been discussing this with she friend Kamini. They both want boys who is interested in things other than electronics, cars and rum.

Kamini, with all the yearning in she heart, confess, “Girl Annie, you know what I does dream about…what I does fantasize about? I walk into a room full o’ boys and I can pick, choose, refuse…”

And that wicked gyal Annie, in she usual dry manner declare, “Kamini, you need to go to Camp Street jail!”

Camp Street jail is pack-up wall to wall with fellas varying in age, size, shape, colour.

Marriage and babies.

2008-06-11T21:07:00.007-04:00

“Gyal, hoo much pickney you got?” Girl, how many chil’ren you have?

A hand, soft but very firm, grab me wrist as I been walking by. The voice sound like a’ ole lady voice, with a quake and a quiver that age bring, but not even time coulda wear down the iron in it. It demand a’ answer Now.

Glance around me, then down. A very ole lady been sitting in, filling up, a big, white plastic chair. Next to she is my mother forty-something year old cousin who nickname is Babbie.

Babbie don’t disturb equilibrium, don’t like raising dust. When she enter a yard you don’t notice she until you suddenly find she sitting near you, asking soft, soft with a smile, how you do. I meet she for the first time a month or two ago, at a family gathering like this one. Out of the corner o’ me eye I notice Babbie half-smiling, eyes wide, wondering how I gon deal with this. She know I ain’t married or have chil’ren. What she ain’t know is that, depending on who ask me, it used to affect me mood.

When a stranger ask, I used to think, what the hell that is to you? If relatives who don’t know me well enough ask…but if them is relatives I cotton on to and like…I tell them I ain’t ready. Then I change the subject by starting a discussion about them wutliss…no good…choices knocking around the place. Family who know what I want outta life, they don’t ask. Caribbean friends don’t give a hoot. Guyanese gal-pals on the other hand does try to tell me where I should be. The caustic remark on the tip of me tongue does give me a fight while I try to hold it back.

It is a shock to some people system, nice, nice gyal like you ain’t married yet? A gyal should not walk around unfettered by man. Wha’ you mean, you nah married? Find wan bai and married am. What you mean, you ain’t married? Find a boy and marry he. What you waitin’ for? You want to get ole, ole and nah gat nobaddy? You want to grow ole, ole without anybody?

No point explaining to some people. That ain’t cutting the ice with them even in this sweltering, global warming heat. Girls must marry and make babies. That is the sum total of we worth.

That is what Naz, a stranger at a countryside function five years ago, try to tell me. First thing she ask, “You married?”

“No,” I reply, knowing what coming next.

Bang on cue, Naz had the audacity to be scandalised. She lecture and she lecture, you should marry. She pompous tone did make me want to ask, “Why? Misery loves company?” But polite as usual, I didn’t say it. I shoulda. It was close to the truth and I didn’t even know it then. A couple o’ years later Naz leave she husband for the glamour of Canada after he had a stroke.

Weeks after Naz, I rehearse cutting comments that I coulda, shoulda make. Then a’ older woman, acquaintance more than family friend, phone my mother. She know a man in America who wife die; he need a new wife; he got two or three chil’ren.

“No,” my mother say.

“Damn man looking for a free house-keeper, child minder,” I say.

“Just that,” my mother agree.

“Why these people always think that everybody want to live in America or Canada or England so bad they gon marry just for that?” I suck me teeth.

“I don’t know,” my mother say.

It wasn’t the match-making that did annoy me though because, truth to tell, I believe everybody got a right to try to find a mate; I believe in loving marriages and romance and being with a wonderful man and growing old together. It was the woman persistence on the phone, she refusal to back off, that irritate me. Fortunately, my mother cut the call short. “Islam says you must never force your daughters to marry.”

Inevitably in this small community, I meet the woman at a religious function. She sit near me and start up she chant without melody, why aren’t you getting married?

Why you don’t fix up the man in America with your daughter who husband cheat on she and leave she for the girl who work in your office? I thought. But didn’t ask.

Suddenly, the imp inside me pinch. You really should just learn to have fun with them presumptuous people.

“Y’know, I hhhhhhhate men,” I blurt out. Everybody know this ain’t true.

Not this woman though. She face grow stiff with shock. She try to shock me back. “Why? Are you a lesbian?”

“Nahhh! I imagine waking up next to a greasy, stubbly face with stinky morning breath…ewwww. Oh, tell me, what is it about married women who try to get other women to marry? They know they’re miserable...why do they want other women to be miserable too?”

Mumble, mumble, the woman say, not all marriages are miserable. Then she grow quiet.

This Sunday afternoon gone, as I stare at the ole lady with the firm hand, stare into them fierce, observant eyes ringed with grey, it did feel like the crowd of relatives and visitors did vanish from the yard under the blue tent, only me and she leave, fighting it out.

The thing that amuse me about she question was how different it been. It assume that I been married therefore have chil’ren. What to tell she? I ain’t married? Eh? As if I want to bring hell down on me that good Sunday.

Hoo much pickney you got? How many chil’ren you have?

When people ask you very personal things, make up big, big story, me first brother, the master-exaggerator, did tell me. After we father die a woman relative been trying to nose out how much money he leave for we. Me brother give she a glorious, sumptuously over-bloated figure.

“I have forty chil’ren,” I announce to the ole lady.

She grip me hand mo’ tight. Out of the corner of me eye, I see Babbie shaking up, breaking up with laughs. I start to laugh too, can’t stop grinning.

Humour is a funny thing.

According to my mother who know the ole lady from she childhood village, the ole lady response was laced with irony.

As I turn to walk away, to talk to somebody else, the ole lady move she head like she been in a daze. “Gyal, me proper like how you look so good with so much pickney,” she say.

Big Boss Man.

2008-06-05T14:53:00.001-04:00

Big Boss Man, staff and security man been going to a community far from the city, across one river, out to sea, then down another river.

When I say river, I ain’t mean them li’l narrow ribbons that wind softly through green fields. I mean giant, brown South American water that stretch so wide, in some parts not even binoculars on one bank can help you see the other side.

The mode of transportation was a launch, but not any and every rusty affair that you see all over the place with peeling paint and wood seat that corn you bahind and roof that draw more heat than cool you down. Even though this was in them days when hardships was more regular than rocks, Big Boss was a Man with great wealth at he disposal, so you know he ain’t going nowhere without he comforts. Cushions, food, drinks been on hand for he.

Staff too pack they food. The place they going to was far, they wouldn’t get back home ‘til way after night fall. And like I say, this happen in the Seventies when hardship was more frequent than rocks. Shortages make it very necessary that, when you going long distances, you must walk with your own food, as we would say. Walk with enough to last you the whole day, plus.

Lunchtime make everybody belly rumble. They pull out whatever they wife or mother or gyal-friend pack for them.

Young security man open he ole-fashion tin food-carrier, one like what them rice farmers used to fetch they lunch with into the fields. The carrier got different sections for different food. Security man open the two containers of he carrier. The food smelling hat an’ nice…hot and tasty. He take a piece from first pan, dip it into second pan.

Before he could say Bismillah like Mulims do before they take they first bite, Big Boss Man say, “What do you have there, boy?”

The young security man say, “Chicken curry and roti.”

“How many do you have?” Big Boss man ask.

“Four roti, Sir.”

“Who cooked for you?”

“My wife, Sir.”

“Give it to me. Here, you eat this.”

Big Boss Man eat out…finish off…them four roti and all the curry chicken there and then.

Mr. Abdool tell we this story the night he take my mother to the airport, and I went along too.

My mother ask, “And what he give the young man to eat?”

“Fry rice,” Mr. Abdool say.

When my mother hear this she blow a hot puff. “But eh-ehhhh! Look at that man, eh? He nah care if the young man want to eat fry rice or not. He nah care if it got haram meat or not.” Haram meat is forbidden meat; it is meat that is not kosher (as the Jews would say). Not good, not blessed, the blood not drain-out properly.

“That is how that man did stay,” Mr. Abdool say. That is how that man was. “If I tell you more what I hear about that man, you gon cry.”

Yesterday morning, reading the papers, for no reason at all I remember the story of Big Boss Man. “Aiye, mummy, imagine what can happen to poor li’l countries that have role models and leaders like Big Boss Man.”

My mother stop reading she paper, stare into the distance. “Mm-hm,” she say and continue to read.

I stare back at me paper, trying to make head and tail of what I reading. The president of Guyana accuse the EU of bullying them African, Caribbean and Pacific countries into making some agreement or the other. I fling down the paper and leave the living-room to sweep the house, some things are just too hard to understand, especially in the pre-rain, sticky heat.

Frog Watch.

2008-06-03T12:15:00.001-04:00

As I was walkin’ down de street…

…down de street…

…mornin’ is cool like ice meltin’ in the tropics – warm with a touch of cool. These past few days, the ice from far away lands that thaw since spring blow this way and pffftt down on we; either that or one hundred ice maidens been whizzin’ down on we from above. But this mornin’ though it is grey and cool there ain’t no rain, so I walk on down de street, down de street and not one single pretty boy I did meet, only Senhor with the preference for Lolitas.

Further down de street, a red and white food box I did see, resting at the foot of a neighbour tree by the roadside - litteratti on he way home, eat and walk, eat and walk and fling it there when he done. Sitting squat in front of the red and white box was a frog as still as a stone. Frog open he eye and glare at me.

“Huh, you think I am afraid of you?” I say to the frog and step closer fearlessly like Indiana Jones. Inside the red and white box was a little clump of soakin’ wet rice and some split peas that swell-up with rain. “Since when frogs does eat dhal and rice,” I wonder. “Oh, I see, flies on the rice and that is your feast. Well, perform for me you fat frog you, I never see a frog in action before. Zap that tongue and show me your action.” I circle the frog, waiting to see some motion.

The other stone-eye of the fat frog open more wide. “Take one step closer and I gon zap you with my tongue, dissolve you and swallow you whole,” the hard stone-eye of the frog say.

So I hurry on up the street, up the street, back to my safe ol’ home, so much for this being World Environment Week and man being in tune with nature and all o’ that…

We the bloggers.

2008-05-29T05:31:00.000-04:00

Before I take one step further on my blog this good day here, I want to mention something that been scratching at me for a while.

Some weeks ago one of we newspapers editors write a' article comparing news-blogs and newspapers. Yes, I understand that he was talking mainly about news-bloggers as news-makers. Yet the article leave me a bit confused.

You know that feeling you get when somebody compliment you but they slip in a few digs, so you end up puzzled, asking youself what really is going on?

Even though, at the end of the article the editor acknowledge that news-blogs can be good, I couldn't stop thinking that I detect a bit o’ scorn for blogs and bloggers. It was the repetition of "amateurs" that pinch me. And the comparison of bloggers to "seventeenth century English pamphleteers." And a few other remarks.

The editorial leave me asking, what is the role of newspapers in a developing country...is it only to impart news? What about the other stuff, the arts, science, finances? Sure, sure, yeah yeah, this paper does write long columns about these. But the language is so weighty that ordinary folks can’t get a hold of it.

That is one of the reasons I decide to blog. To experiment with the language of the "ordinary" people, to see how far I can stretch it, to see what and what I can write about, using it. To see if I can describe the life and thoughts of we the people here, to show all sides - the good, the ugly, the in-between. And the beautiful.

I might not, as a blogger, break news in no part of the world; I might not bring about the downfall of important figures with my words. That was never my intention. I only want to do exactly what I do here. And when I stumble upon interpretations like this, about what I write, I know everything I do here is worth it.

To add honey to me cream, Michelle include me in a list of "blogs that constantly challenge their readers to use their brains as well as their eyes - to think as well as read."

Toot toot parp parp!

Go on, you bloggahs you, blow that trumpet, and give yourself a pat for being so entertaining, for sharing your stories, histories, thoughts, art, photos, gardens, home repairs, newts and quilts and romance and pubs and for bringing world-citizens a teeny-eeny bit closer in a way only we the people can.

Om in the home.

2008-05-21T12:22:00.000-04:00

Rain is beatin’ bhangra on zinc roofs, every now and then a chorus does join in with a wah, wah. In one neighbour yard, cokenut tree swooonging like Polynesian dancer. Outside me bedroom window, tall sugarcane leaves can’t compete with that slow, cokenut grace, they flingin’ up they long pointy leaves when plump raindrops plops ‘pon them.

My mother, back from a one-week stay in the US, is gyaffing on the phone. She bring bags o’ news from over there about sister, brother, aunties, cousins, chil'ren. Like hungry-dawg I tear open every piece she tell me, wrap them up again then later, I peel them open slow and savour every li’l word.

And things, she bring a few things too, that family send for me. Two cotton, beaded blouses from India, bath things, two skirts. I know these things can’t fill this space that gouge out in me when family did go away to live Abroad but, aiye, lemme tell you, I make the best of what I got. And what I got is them folks laughing on the phone with me, I got my mother filling me ears with wild family stories. And today, every bit of me is dancin’ to that wicked Om Shanti Om CD my sister send.

For a while, I can shut out bleak stuff that we news-people seem to believe is the only events bashing-up here.

I know in plenty other homes too they shuttin’ out the bleddy gloom too. Plenty folks I meet, they manage to accomplish what some of them so-called thinkers and opinionists here can’t grasp. You got to do something before something do you, some folks say.

They don’t wait for big guys to do for them. They dig they drains and farm, sell they produce; cook, sell food; blend green seasoning...thyme, shallots, basil and more, market it here and overseas. Them is the people I learnin’ from.

So when you see me movin’ to this rhythm, please don’t label me or try to fit me into political or race slots (like what some of we thinkers and opinionists here do to people here). When you see me movin’ to this riddim, I am simply livin’ and appreciatin’.

How to win and get away with it.

2008-05-16T05:36:00.002-04:00

Governments would do well to employ a certain type of mama to negotiate with the *enemy* for them. It might be a’ unfair battle though. The *enemy* ain’t got a chance. With just a few well-chosen words, these mamas gon make the *enemy* repent, give up in no time at all. Problem done.

Trouble does only happen when these mamas produce daughters just like they selves…daughters who want to wrest sweet victory from they mamas. And to top it all, the daughters want to assert Independence. A daughter can move wayyy across the country.

But no matter how far she go, the mother gon get she.

Don’t get me wrong, it ain’t as if these mamas does order you to do anything. Is just that they know how to make honey drip from they voice; is just that certain way they ask.

If you refuse though, you gon hear the thing you dread.

“Is alright..I gon do it...don’t worry. I can do it myself.”

No university degree in the world does prepare you to deal with this. As Lis say, “Arghtlbggghh! WHY! WHO teach dem to be so??? WHO?! Show me de person. SHOW dem to me.” Lis got two universities degrees.

Now, if you, the daughter, point out this guilt trip behaviour to your mother, she gon look at you, innocence shining all over she face.

But wait.

Look in she eyes.

What you see?

Eh?

Tell me what you see?

Bold shamelessness.

And a li’l smirk.

On Friday when my mother ask me, in that special voice, to drive to the supermarket to buy the Secret Ingredient for she pepper sauce, I couldn’t refuse.

But I had to say no!

I ain’t risking me life, fighting in that 9 a.m. traffic to get one li’l bottle of Secret Ingredient. No way. Not if she can get it later when she go to the lawyer.

But I couldn’t refuse.

Not after listening to that Mighty Sparrow song the day before. A song about a wutliss…good-for-nothing…son who couldn’t pay he mother doctor bill but when she dead, he looking to buy the best coffin. When that song play on the radio last week, I weep like a gyal watching Indian movie. Ow, I gon never be like that bad son, no, no, I vow. To add to me melotrauma, the radio then play a maudlin Sundar Popo song. A mother love will never diiiiiie…

How could I refuse after all o’ this? Plus Sunday would be Mother’s Day. And yes, yes, me is the hypocrite who does say Everyday should be Mother’s Day.

Me and me big mouth.

Suddenly I get a brainwave. The corner shop! Just ten minutes walk! Maybe they have the Secret Ingredient. But suppose I walk all that way and they ain’t have it?

Another brainwave.

I gon phone the shop.

Ow me Lawd, I don’t know the number.

Another brainwave…brainwaves does come fast when I am desperate.

I phone a friend. “Friend, whaz the telephone number of the people you do business with, next door to Mrs. Seeta shop?”

Now, I call the people me friend do business with. “Hello, can you do me a li’l favour, please?” For some reason, the voice I use sound a bit familiar. I can’t imagine where I learn this sweet-talkin’, manipulative tone from.

“Y-y-yes,” the man reply, nervous. He don’t know me from Eve to Jezebel.

“Please, please, can you check out the phone number on the sign on Mrs. Seeta shop, please?”

“Okay, hold on one minute.” I think I hear a heavy sigh, but never mind, you got to block out these things to get what you want. I thank the man very graciously when he return with the number.

Mrs. Seeta the shop-owner say yes, she got the Secret Ingredient.

“Yipeeee!” I holler.

“In five pound containers,” Mrs. Seeta say.

My mother only need a few drops.

Well people, lemme tell you. The secret to winning is to let the other person think they win.

I wasn’t going to drive in no snarly traffic right away, now, this minute. And I wasn’t going to walk with no heavy five pound container in that briling, scorching sun, so hot it can bar-b-cue you, and you can have yourself for lunch.

Phone Cousin Yasmeen; yes, she shop does sell small bottles. I tramp down the road, sun so fiery, you can make leather shoes out of me now. But on the way there, I stop in at The Sour Lady shop where I try not to patronise. Praises be, they sell small bottles.

Triumphant, I bring home a li’l bottle of the Secret Ingredient.

My mother blend it into she pepper sauce, smiling in that pleased way.

Is okay, I can be magnanimous, let she think she win, I don’t mind. She don’t have to know that I win…I didn’t have to drive to the supermarket like she did ask me to.

Pili-pili hoho.

2008-05-13T09:05:00.004-04:00

In Kenya, they got a pepper so hot, they does call it pili-pili ho ho. But my mother does use good ole Guyana peppers to make pepper sauce so fiery, it does burn out that ho ho from your mouth and make pili pili taste pale in comparison. According to me brother-in-law, my mother pepper sauce is so hot, it should be illegal. It is wanted by families in several countries, Kenya too.

Last week my mother decide she gon make pepper sauce. “I gon make pili-pili hee hee,” she tell me.

“It name pili-pili ho ho, mummy. And it is a pepper in Kenya, not the name of a pepper sauce.”

“Ahh man, whatever.”

She buy two kinda peppers on Thursday afternoon. On Friday morning, Rehana we cleaning girl don gloves, wash peppers. My mother start to blend.

Was a good day, sun shining, birds singing, domesticity humming all around, fish frying smells wafting in the air. I retire to me throne. That is the place where I does dump all me worries, solve problems, save the world. I am humming too, examining me toes, oh what cute li’l toes, haha, I wonder if I should grow me toenails so long they can cut…chak…any bandit arteries.

“G…?” my mother call in a soft, pleading voice, outside the toilet door.

Uh-oh.

When she use that voice, you’re dead, me sister would say.

“Yes?” I ask with trepidation.

“You can do me a BIG favour please?”

“I’m in the looooo, mummy.”

“When you done. You can go to the supermarket and buy some Secret Ingredient for the pepper sauce?”

Horror seize me, if I did have constipation, it woulda done right there and then. This is nine a.m. I don’t drive at nine a.m. I hate fighting traffic at nine a.m. I does wait until ten before I venture out, when traffic ease up. Imagine! My mother is willing to sacrifice me, she love-child, for pepper sauce.

I try to fight like a man going down. “Mummy, you need it now? Now, now, now? When you go to see the lawyer later, you can’t get it?”

“No,” the small voice say. “I need it now. I got to blend it in now. Awright, is okay, I gon go meself.”

As me sister would say, I dead. I ain’t got a choice now.

East Indian mothers got a skill that I hear Jewish and Italian mothers got. Chinese mothers too. They can make you do anything you don’t want to do, don’t feel like doing right now, this minute. I ain’t know if is something they develop as mothers…or if they got it in they genes. Whatever, they come armed with a set of sweet talk; harsh commands that don’t brook no arguments; tears - this one they save for dire times; guilt trips. Sometimes they fire all at once. No use fighting.

“Okay, okay, I gon go.”

But the horror of traffic still had me in its grip. I can’t give in so easy, I realise. I pelt out of the loo, towards the kitchen. With one last gasp, I say something about wasting gas.

“Well, YOU said you would go,” mother declare in a firm voice. And whirrrr went the blender.

“Ararararara,” I try to continue the argument but the blender roar more loud than me. Rehana looking on with amused smile twitching she lips. My mother got a sweet, calm look on she face, she smiling lovingly. At the pepper sauce.

(…to be continued, I run outta time and got to go do some craft-planning...place bets on who win...or rather, who get the last laff...)

Stop.

2008-05-11T06:42:00.001-04:00

Recently, I discover a strange idea here.

It puzzle me. How can this, just doing this, help anybody? Besides, I don’t have any grand ideas of meself, that I can accomplish fantastic feats like what these women trying to do. Save the world? This mean changing people. Nah, nah, not me. In fact, sometimes, even changing me own bad habits does take tremendous effort. Too much like trying to heave a huge rock out o’ a deep hole. Me against that big stone...it does leave me flat on the ground sometimes, crying with frustration.

But the idea follow me like a child nagging to go outside and play. "Go away, I got too much to do," I scold. Got to ketch up with the news. I pick up some recent newspapers. Some protesters been in we streets again, banging empty pots and pans, quarrelling about high cost o’ living. On Friday, Rehana we cleaning girl did ask me, "G how that gon help anybody? It ain’t better they go and plant two bora?"

I put down them papers. Yeah, how making noise can help? Nobody ever hear that proverb about empty barrels...? Why people don't stop and think? If we want change, the first step towards it is to think. Because thinking...clear and clean, uncluttered by a mangle of activities, conniption and kakafony...can make you see right down to the depths of you. And as ole Ghandi did say, be the change...

Then it whop me. Oh, thaz what them women did say. "During the silence, please think about what you individually and we collectively can do..."

Today, at 1 p.m. I gon stop, stand and think. About thinking. About one o' my favourite poems, and what it saying to me as a’ individual.

Mind Without Fear

by Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action,
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

For Kamal.

2008-05-07T12:40:00.003-04:00

The Conversation Tree at the t-junction by the sea-wall road been get mash-up, bruk-up in the final years; it did look like a thin, brown, shrivel-up creature waiting to draw last breath. Them asymmetrical, wind-blown leaves drop off and baldness take over. Then one day some months ago the thing dead. Dead, dead, deader dan dead, not even jumbie want to haunt there no more.

Only a dry stump been in that triangle patch of earth with wild grass shimmying-up in the wind. Buses, cars, trucks, even horse carts zoops by. I don’t know if anybody notice the demise of that ancient meeting tree. In them ole days, plenty, plenty years ago, before this li’l, shrivel-up tree, a giant tree did grow; there people use to share news and views as they wait for transportation; boys and girls use to flirt and who knows what romance did blossom.

Not long after, a letter and photo get publish in one o’ we newspapers. The photo was dramatical, Conversation Tree in dialogue with Full Moon some years ago. If you put your ear to the photo you coulda almost hear the ocean across them roads going whoosha-whashaa; if you look close you coulda see magic.

The letter wasn’t a long psychobabbling piece like plenty letters to we newspapers. Was just a few lines about the death of the tree. Yet in them spaces between them lines I read sadness for the loss of beauty. The letter writer sign, Kamal Ramkarran. I ain’t know he, but when you live in a small place you learn li’l things about them folks you share oxygen with; he is a lawyer in he late twenties, a decent chap. Maybe he letter gon influence somebody.

Tides come and tides go. One morning, a man appear at the junction, he straight, frail hair fluttering in the breeze. He could pass in a crowd of East Indian grandfathers anywhere. The bucket in he hand on a very public road make me notice he. A younger, sturdier man been digging away with a spade. They plant a tender, green limb with two young shoots. I assume they put in the new, makeshift wood fence around the plant.

Well! History, as all o’ we know, looooove to repeat itself.

In the past, every time somebody put fence or wall around the ole tree, the barricade get bang-down at nights by drunks driving fast cars.

The new wood fence get knock down.

Except this time, it happen in brazen daylight. A truck park he bahind to the tree. The truck look stuck, constipated on the grass slope. A small group o’ men giving directions to the driver.

“Mammy, stop,” I ask as we approach the scene on the East Coast Road.

“Don’t say anything, they gon cuss you,” my mother say. My mother live in fear of men here cussing me, attacking me.

“Noooo, just stop man, stop being so fearful.”

She slow down the car.

“Y’all knock down the thing,” I chide, putting on me worriedest face.

They fix-up the fence.

“See? Nothin’ to fret about,” I tell mammy.

Too hard a knock, too much rain, the new tree get poorly, look like it lost marbles, pennies and possibilities.

The man with the bucket, the spade and the gardener reappear.

The wood fence disappear.

White-painted boulders pop-up around the triangle patch of earth.

Heh. Funny how drunk people NEVER drive into big white boulders, even at nights.

Now, the tree is slender, tall, tie on to a wood stake. Frilly-frilly leaves, pale green and delicate, flutter-flutter in the sea breeze. I think is a flambouyante tree. I can’t wait for it to mature. In May-June, flambouyante trees all over the land does blaze with flame-red flowers.

Thinking of the tree, I remember a quote I did read somewhere, is from the Talmud. “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, Grow, grow.” I hope them angels whisper to we Conversation Tree.

Facebook, how the heck…?!?

2008-05-06T10:19:00.000-04:00

Friday afternoon, searching the net for literary agents, I read a’ interview with one.

Sister pop up on MSN chat.

“Look the lit. agent I want from the year 0,” I tell she.

I give she the link to the interview page.

She take a peek at the page, we talk about courage and doing what I must do, then we chat about other things.

Next morning, I see a’ offline MSN message from me sister. A chunk of the interview with the literary agent get pasted on to she facebook page. “Can you believe this?” she say. “You been talkin’ about he and I open face book and he there…”

Can somebody please tell me how this happen…?!?

You know it is love when…

2008-05-03T08:01:00.002-04:00

Friday afternoon and the dry heat in the living room is bakin’ me skin, I can feel me blood boilin’ too. Annie on the phone, she telling me about them fellas at Buddy’s Nite Club, trendy East Indian boys wearing gold chain around they neck, if you don’t recognize the vanity you gon see it as a symbol of success. Boys in they late twenties, thirties, great jobs, live in good places, buffing-up they bodies at gyms. Boys who know that them is highly prized in this country where girls don’t have many options or don’t see theyselves as having many options, so a good-lookin’ husband who come with dreams of air-conditioned home, travel and beautiful babies, dinners and society parties, is the best thing evah.

One boy dance with a girl, he give she he phone number, escort she out to she car. He return, gyaff with two other girls, he hands moving in the air like fast-action animation; he dance with a girl. Now, it is late, she ready to go home, he give she he number, escort she out, make sure she get a cab. And so on and so forth the whole night, so it go with he and the chosen ones.

Annie know he, she say he is sweet and young and just havin’ fun. What a lovely game. I wonder which naïve, craving heart he gon play with next. But Annie say some o’ them fellas come right out and tell you that they married or got a girl on the side. If you choose to play with them, that is your hard-boil corn, you either try to chew and swallow, or spit and run.

I need to escape from this oven, turn me eyes to the window. “Annie, I just see this kisskadee on the electric wire, he ketch a vinvinee…”

Kisskadee, yellow-dark brown bird with the white warrior band around he head, try to swallow the whole dragonfly. It fall out from he mouth and he swoop, ketch it in mid-air. He stuffing it in, tongue and throat muscles working like machine, hauling the vinvinee in, it going down, down, into the throat. Gossamer wings shimmering, quivering outside the hard, dark beak.

“Annie, he is such a Pig…look, he mate sitting right near he while he gobble the vinvinee…look how he stuffing it, damn greedy pig…Oh look, he give she half…awww…”

“Awww, G, that is love. Is like what Lis say. She say you know is love if she share she peanut punch…”

“Peanut punch? Oh yeah, that girl love peanut punch bad, I never know that before last year. She buy boxes of it when she been here.”

“You never know? She like peanut punch baaaad, she say she gon know is love if somebody give she peanut punch and she share it.”

I agree with Annie then but later, thinking about it, I change me mind.

I love my cousin Lis and I would give she all the peanut punch in the world, and I wouldn’t want she to share it with me. I just worry that some Buddy’s Nite Club kinda boy, in another part of the world, would buy gallons of peanut punch for she, and she, besotted, would share it with he. I fear for she after the betrayal and the stealing and she divorce, I don’t care what the cold hard world say about people got to live and go through they own experiences and get hurt.

This morning, me head is foggy from heat and humidity. At breakfast I tell my mother some of what Annie and me been gyaffing about.

“Mammy, you know what I think love is? It ain’t the giving of things. A fella can buy the most expensive things for a gyal. And then he gon buy for another one. And another one. It is when he is willing to give heself to me and me alone, not share heself all over the place like cheap goods in them Regent Street stores.”

Annie say them boys is young and sweet and just want to have fun. I wonder who and who hearts they gon play draughts with this holiday weekend, jumping and gobbling.