Cane-cutters and their wives

The Internet guy been here last Thursday to unglitch the glooks and unbug the buggaroos.

“How’s your mother?” I ask he.

[Hm. I must be more Guyanese than I realise. When I talk to people I ask, “How is your mother?”

“How’s is your father?”

“How is your grandmother? Your grandfather? Them li’l ones?
You ol’ Auntie Dora who sick?”

I ask, just like people here.]

I know about the young technician family from talks we had the last time he been here. His mother and father live in a village far, far east of the Berbice River, in a village so small, so anonymous, it hiding behind God back, as we does say.

The last time he been here he tell me that he mother lonely and he set she up with computer and Internet to keep she busy. When she come to town he does take she around and about, she examining every dress and shoe and still not buying, he waiting patiently and wanting to laugh at the long-suffering expression o' the sales guy.

On Thursday, when I ask about she, he say again that she lonely, that she ain’t got no friends where she live.

I say, “Maybe what she can do is form a group with the other village women and do things together.”

He stop twiddling with options and connection settings and turn to tell me, “Those women are the most subjugated in Guyana. They are cane-cutters’ wives. People say that suicide in Berbice high but they don't stop to examine why.

All the cane-cutters brag amongst theyself what good treatment their wives give them. All of them exaggerate, stretch the truth, make the others jealous, and of course, this spur on the others. And they go home and demand even better treatment because the others are getting it, and they're not.”

And them po' li'l children in the cane-cutting village don't know anything else, they think cane-cutting is the only career choice they have. They does say they want to be cane-cutter ‘cause cane-cutting pay 'a lot of money'.

“When me and my brother been in school,” the technician say, “somebody ask what we want to be and we say cane-cutter.”

They father ain’t a cane-cutter though, and maybe that is why they go on to university. He brother doing he Phd. Abroad.

The technician say, “When I come to town to study at the university I used to live next door to a cane-cutter. I would sit in my veranda and hear and see everything. This man used to torment his wife. When he come home from work his wife had to follow him foot to foot. They had an outside bathroom and toilet. I see she stand up waiting outside the bathroom, she had to hand him his towel after he finish bathing, and pick up all his clothes that he drop on the ground.

One day, she cook bora and rice for his dinner and he didn't like how it taste. He fling it away and beat she. He tell she that of all the cane-cutters, he does get the worse treatment from he wife at home.”

Plenty cane-cutters’ wives commit suicide. And plenty cane cutters too.

The women watch tv the whole day, watch soap-opera when they finish they housework. And they live soap-opera lives, jump from husband to brother-in-law, to friend of brother-in-law. Cane-cutters commit suicide when they wives leave them.

“Y’know what,” I say, “Them men got very low opinion o’ theyself. That's why they ill-treat they women. And you see all them women jumping from man to man, romance to romance? Is not just love they looking for. They want somebody to make them feel good, and this way they can feel good ‘bout theyself.”

Romance is a high for them just like the rum is a high for they husband.

The technician fiddle and twiddle, fix what he got to fix. No charges, he say, is the ISP responsibility to see that they working good for customers. I give he some fruits and he say he gon share it with a co-worker.

Was just so good to gyaff...chat...with such a gentle soul, one with goals and dreams and no cynical thoughts 'bout women.