Goodies for you.

Bloggers, I just taking a break from editing, eating and grumbling to say hey and to share some goodies with you.

Dip into scrumptious blogs, sweet blogs, sours ones, some that tart and some that spicy, and some that bittersweet like dark chocolate…you can nominate them to win recognition…and is a great way for other people to discover you!

Is all here at Post Of The Week, courtesy of Mike. Oh, you can be a guest judge too.

Go on, you know you can’t resist feeding that blog-addiction of yours.

(I gone back to mumble-grumbling about li’l annoyances mmb-bmm-grmm-argh…sun beating down, place hot 'n' humid, I want to sleep, I polishing up manuscript…coming back soon…)

The Plant People

The Anguish, the Horror in me mother, they leap at me as if they want to claw me conscience. I peep through the front door. Me mother in the dark bending over the bleddy orchid with them two bruk stalks.

Wrong and Strong is a good trait to own...you do wrong, you act strong. All Guyanese carry it by the barrow full. “Mummy!” I exclaim. “In the dark you looking at plants?!?”

I turn to Mr. Abdool. He is accustomed to me and me mother’s mad word plays, they does amuse he no end. I jab out me hand, palm up, fingers pointing towards she. I shake me head, roll me eyes, smile.

Mr. Abdool say, “Heh heh heh,” quietly, he black eyes glowing more black.

But for all me Wrong and Strongness, Guilt had more power. It grab me conscience and give it one good shame, make me tongue stammer explanations full-up with abject cringing, sorrow and mollifying.

Me mother straighten up, come inside, no more plant talks.

Calm settle over we ole home.

Suddenly, the next day, late morning. Anguish. Horror. Anger fly up from downstairs, interrupting the clakka-clakka of me keyboard.

“G.G. My other orchid stalk is missing!” Me mother, by some miracle, reach from downstairs to upstairs before she end that one sentence.

“What other orchid stalk?” Lawd have mercy, you mean to tell me it had more orchid about to bloom and I ain’t know and I ain’t take care of it?

“The one by the back fence. That stalk grow before I go away, and it gon get flower any day now. Fazal cut me orchid.”

“No he didn’t.”

“Yes! He did!”

Huh! My good name as caretaker of family home at stake here. I defend the gardener. “Somebody musta thief it,” I say.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Got to be Somebody from Somewhere, they jump the back fence and thief it.”

“Why would somebody thief a flower stalk?”

“I dunno,” I shrug. “You know how people in this country do strange things.”

Calm settle over, upon, in we ole home.

After lunch me mother announce, “I find the orchid stalk, the one by the back fence. It so long it droop down. I got to brace it up.”

Horror push aside me relief. No, I holler. I haul out all persuasion skills to let she know how she heart gon bruk if, when, she break the stalk.

“Awright man, me nah gon touch it,” she agree.

More calm settle on we ole home. Joy fill me heart. I think about how I love the orchid too, I love it so much I don’t want to see it bruk, and I save it. Then a frightening thought ketch hold of me. It now growing thicker than ivy on a ivy league wall.

I am surrounded by Plant People, family, neighbours, friends, acquaintances who love plants. No, more than love. They obsessed with plants. Obsessed like how Ira Levin’s Stepford Wives been about housework, and they make all new women in the neighbourhood obsessed with it too...

Recently, worms and cow dung been sounding very appealing to me.

The plant lady

Was a accident, I swear. I been trying to be careful with them orchids just like a mother with a baby, just like the plant lady with she green children.

While the plant lady been Abroad, she give care instructions over the phone. “How Fazal?” she ask about she gardener. “If he kill me orchids me gon…” The thought of she orchids dying make she choke, she couldn’t complete she sentence.

“Them orchids doing fine,” I report. Everyday I been eyeing up two new, super long, slender stalks that gon soon spray showers of tiny yellow flowers. What a lovely surprise it gon be for the plant lady.

Then one afternoon I notice them stalks not standing tall, they so long they drooping to the ground. Thinking kind thoughts, I raise them to brace them against a tall plant.

Snap.

Like spite.

Just one week before the plant lady return.

Them two orchid stalks break.

I shout oh crap, ohhhh crap to the winds. I chook them stalks in the soil. Please grow, I beg. And I swear, they start to grow, I see new buds.

Everybody know how my mother love she plants. When Neighbour hear that she returning from Abroad she say, “I hope you didn’t kill her plants.” Even the new foreign neighbour tell he Guyanese wife that he does call my mother the plant lady, he does see she watering the jungle, inspecting every leaf.

On Sunday morning Cousin-in-law visit. We sit downstairs, surrounded by cool, rustling green. “As soon as Auntie come back she gon inspect she plants,” Cousin-in-law say, he eyes brimming wet with laugh.

I tell he about them bruk stems. We speculate. How long it gon take she to discover them?

The plant lady reach home at 11 p.m. Me and Mr. Abdool, the hire-car driver, haul luggage through the front door.

My mother waiting patiently outside not far from the front door, light falling in sections of the yard, not touching everywhere completely.

Suddenly the plant lady cry out, “Who bruk this?”

Five days

How, in such a small place, so much can bubble up, and time feel like it melt down and disappear to the bottom of the pot?

Since Friday evening I been digging into a pot of activity and conversation – making craft things for birthday party of li’l girl-chile; picking cherries from we tree with li’l girl-chile; gyaffing with cousin-in-law; going to the airport for me mother who been Abroad; staring at photos of them li’l nephews in ‘Merica…how can li’l boys be so beautiful, I want to know; listening to stories about them; learning more about VAT; gyaffing with Cousin Yasmeen in she corner shop as she measure out me rice; meeting new neighbour…

Slow, slow, time rising to the surface again, I can scoop up some again…oops, I see a business letter coming up, I got to type and print it…

Wake-up call

Twit twitter get out of bed, twit, a bird sing soft. Cheer cheer cheerryy, another cry in a voice slather-up with honey and cream. A small plane buzzing like a super-size bee over we house. Traffic roaring over the ocean sound.

Me eyes fly open, sunlight clear like white-gold wine sparkling on, around me, my goodness what time is it? Plip plip, bare feet on cold wood floor, plip towards clock, oh my gosh, is 7, I oversleep.

Kraw kraw karouw a flock of parrots laugh raucous, karouw karouw. Heaven knows what mischief they been up to, snitching fruits, carousing at dawn.

Kiss-kiss-ka-dee, them kiskadee birds sing, come kiss this life, come kiss this life.

Almost every morning, if the rain ain't fall, this is me wake-up call. Sometimes I hear only them grumbles in me head. But some mornings like this morning I hear the song.

What's in a name?

Sleep do a thing to me last night that it ain’t do in a year of moons, it play hide and seek. I turn this side, that side looking for it; I bring up every thought that I hope would tease sleep back. Suddenly, a strange thought pop up.

I wonder what happen to that truck with that…name?

It had a name no adjective can define, the only word that come close is ‘onomatopoeic’. That name make you hear the truck giddyupping through a jungle road, rumbling towards Rupununi.

The first person who tell we about it was Auntie Baba, she stop in on she way home from university for tea and gyaff. Auntie come from a family where aunties, sisters and gyal cousins outnumber men, she does dramatise a li’l bit. But many suns later, I see the truck.

Was a dark blue truck, sitting quiet and clean in Main Street one Saturday morning. The open back wood-and-metal tray was so long, it long like landscape. On the side of the tray was the name, that glorious name, it paint on in bolloptous, bright yellow letters, spreading far and wide like sunshine in deep blue sky. One giant letter on each wood square, in between metal supports.

T D J O N G O L O N G O.

At that thought, sleep was so delighted, it run off to the jungle and start playing with howler monkeys, leave me here searching for it. It ain’t come back ‘til after two, tired and happy.

I need a hammock, I ain’t sure what name to give it though.

The Brown Book

The Brown Book does make me heart race, make me pulse go wooshwoosh. The Brown Book does make me wobba-wobba like coke-a-nut jelly. It does turn me knee-bones soft like puhtuh-puhtuh mud.

No, The Brown Book ain’t some secret local Lolita book, it ain’t no foreign Harlequin or Mills & Boons.

The Brown Book is the Boo Keeping Book.

No, it ain’t keeping the boo of jumbies…ghosts…that terrify the poop outta you.

The Brown Book got worse than that.

The Brown Book got numbers. Business-keeping numbers. Yah Boo Maths.

My mother love The Brown Book. Sometimes, she does make me crunch numbers in The Brown Book, she think is a treat to me.

Everybody who know we, know The Brown Book. One day, I been telling me cousin them li’l family-business things I had to do. When I done she say, “You put it in The Brown Book? You better make sure you put it in The Brown Book.”

I ain’t hate The Brown Book. I know The Brown Book mean discipline, accounting, don’t spend like a fool. I ain’t no fool.

But The Brown Book take me for a fool. It does say, write 5, you got to write 5 here. Then it does say, Ooops, you supposed to write 7.

Ever try to turn a fat, round 5 into a skinny 7? I does got to scratch out, ennggenngg and what a mess.

When I read about accountants cooking books I does imagine that they get so vex with they Brown Book they does reach boiling point and when they touch the book, it boil too, and that is how the book get cook.

Use the computer to do Boo Keeping? What? Turn this beautiful writing machine that harbour shugahlicious thoughts into a number-crunching animal?

I gon just try to wrestle with The Brown Book and win.

The pen

Was the usual people-trying-not-to-bump-into-people scene at the small, shiny supermarket this Saturday gone. I was the silent, immobile one, glaring at the tea section. No green tea. Second supermarket in one week, no green tea.

Red Rose tea grinning at me, sharing a simper or two with Tetley tea, Earl Grey and bergamot flavoured tea, teas from exotic places, snob teas, trendy teas - Cinnamon, Chamomile, Apple and Honey, and that pretend one, Iced Tea mix.

Me eyes drop to the shelf below. Every time I shop for tea here some strange boxes of brew does stare at me from that shelf. I always shift away, too nervous to look. This time I look, green tea might be hiding there.

Ohhh me mooma, Lawd oh, Gawd ohhhh. I know we got all kinda tea in Guyana but. Them teas there take the cake and drown it.

I got to get them names right! I never know when I gon need them in a story! I slide out me li’l notebook and pen from me handbag.

Anti-diabetes tea, anti-cold tea, anti-hepatitis, anti-malaria tea, Long Life tea, Blood fat reducing tea, blood sugar reducing tea, Jasmine Slim tea.

Outta the corner of me right eye I spy a bright blue shirt on a dark bulk moving from the stool against the wall.

Heh. The security man. Out of all them people buzzing about, he notice me. Aiye, fame at last.

I scribble some more, I could be writing me shopping list for all y'know, but the man getting very excited. I can read he body language - never mind she look 'nice', you got to watch out for these kinda people, them’s the ones who does steal, they only try to look 'nice' as a cover.

Either he excited, or them li’l shugah ants biting he in he pants. Or he wee heself and it too hot to bear. He shift to the left, he shift to the right.

I want to march up to he, li’l dawg challenging big dawg, yap yap, look, I ain’t a thief, I just writing, okay, just writing, yappety-yap.

But he might haul me into the manager’s office for questioning, I might end up on tee vee, as headline in newspaper, hands-upping against police car, they pushing me head down to go in the car. Gyal arrested for suspicious behaviour.

Something about people scribbling like that does create suspicion in this country, and from what me gather about people, suspicion stem from fear. We got this fear that the pen gon jook we and injure we. I discover this a couple o’ years back.

A couple o’ years back I been in a bookstore in town. Now, as far as me know, universally, bookstores is for browsing ‘n’ reading before you decide to buy. I flip through a book. I want to remember the name of the publisher. Instead of jotting it down in me mind I write it on paper.

A sales woman appear. She bristling like wire brush from she head to she foot. “What’re you doing?”

I explain. Them bristles on she turn to barb wire. “You can’t do that,” she forbid. I slink out without buying a leaf.

Now, in the supermarket, the blue shirt move closer. I don’t really want a discussion with he so I pack up me notebook and pen and wheel over to the pasta section.

He shift over to the pasta section. I swear me pen in me handbag snicker then give a li’l sob.

I like sharing me experiences to hear what others got to say; it does help me to understand things better. That evening I tell me cousin and she friend Annie. They confirm the man suspicion. Annie with she lush lips mutter, “Y’know G.G. what you shoulda do was take out you torchlight and start peering in them shelves...”

This morning Rehana say, “He must be think you from the tax office.”

I laugh with mucho gusto, but a quiet sob lurking somewhere inside. Who create this fear and when? They say fear does start in you youth. The blue shirt man and the bookstore lady, they in they forties, fifties. Big people, nervous about a li’l pen.

Bloggers and journalists [2]

Remember the vex I did have about how the journalist treat the girl blogger?

Zinnia write a post that address the media issue. For a gyal with a Huge Rage, she write it in a most articulate manner.

I guess some Guyanese people gon ask, whaz the big deal, whaz that got to do with Guyana, is foreign folks' business.

But I don't see the world that way.

The world divide up yes, cut into geography, cut by borders; I can live with that.

But when we cut we minds away from different thoughts, uncommon concepts, new ideas...I got terrible trouble dealing with that. Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave, I hear in we home.

Besides, I can never say enough how we media here need improvement, and maybe they might read Zinnia post, and learn something.

Bloggers, you might want to see this too.

[Thanks Zoe, thanks Mike].

Babysitting

I ain’t sure, when li’l chil’ren grow into big people, what thoughts they gon have of me. I am accustom to chil’ren, to being with them. I laugh with them, run with them, play. But then, I does get into strife with them.

Like the time in Florida, when I break a oats ‘n’ yoghurt bar in two to share with me li’l nephew. He want the slightly bigger half. I want the slightly bigger half. He holler. I holler back, you eyes bigger than you belly. And indeed, the chile got the hugest eyes a child could have, mischievous dark brown with black eyelashes long like cokenut frond. That ain’t melt me, though. I make he take the slightly smaller half. When he done eat it, he belly full.

“See,” I say, “you couldn’t eat the bigger half.” Sad but true, I relish them li’l victories. I ain’t a perfect auntie or babysitter.

So on Wednesday night, when we doctor friend phone to ask me to babysit they six year old girl-chile, a li’l tremor of trepidation rumble through me. I does never know what chil’ren of friends gon tell they parents. What bad influence things Auntie G.G. say.

She arrive early yesterday afternoon in she uniform, sticky, smelling o’ school and sweaty socks. She got homework, she daddy say. Thirty days hath September, etc.

On post-it note I write, “30 DAYS. September, April, June and November.” I chant this, imitating a man from India. She giggle and learn it in a zip, a zap, a zoop, in between Shrek 1, Shrek 2, one tangerine each, pasta, one chawklit sweet for she, one dark chawklit square for me, juice for she, water for me.

“Let we go for a walk,” I say.

“Rain coming,” she resist. She don’t like going for walks. I ain’t know why. I cochore…sweet-talk…she. We go downstairs. We dawdle to the gate. She ain’t want to move.

“Come,” I cochore some more. “It got a dead frog on the road, a fat, juicy dead frog.”

She green-brown eyes light up. We hurry to the fat, juicy dead frog and stare. I can’t help meself, them words pop out from me mouth.

“Mmm, we can take it home and eat it, sluuupp sluuuup sluuurrp.”

Oh no, oh no, what this chile gon tell she mummy? She mummy is from a East Europe country, different culture and all that, I ain’t know, I hope is okay. Maybe the parents like me only ’cause they really love my mother, oh Gawd, I should not tell people chil'ren things like this, it gon traumatise them.

The chile scrunch up she face, shake she head, smile and say, “Mm-mmnh......People in some countries eat frog, y’know.”

Writers and writing

Thanks to Piu Piu, film maker, I discover a speech yesterday morning that set me head and heart on fire...the 2006 Nobel lecture by Orhan Pamuk, writer.

I ain’t gon say more...I just want to share it with all them writers out there who ever feel...well, you know all your thoughts and torment.

Go on...read it here.

Market

Nominations, hurry, hurry, get you Nominations for the 2007 Bloggies award here. They free, and is fun. Nominate me, nominate you, nominate you bes' friend. All kinda categories available.

Heh. I did always want to shout about something in the same way them vendors in Bourda Market does shout.

When we was teens, me and me cousin Sam used to go to Bourda Market for we mothers. In them days, vendors used to shout a whole lot more. Mostly, was women shrieking in a special vendor voice, more high-pitch than a bagpipe, yet each one o’ them doing it with rhythm. I think they been to Vendor Shrieking School.

“Buy you Boulanger here Bora Banana Mango what you buying love come get you Pepper here.”

All them names of all them vegetables, fruits and herbs rise into the air, come together in you ears ‘til it sound like one hullabaloo, but sometimes you hear somebody yelling out the price of Married-Man Poke, or, a shorter version, Married-Man, which is actually that innocent herb, Basil.

Long squash with quiet greenie-white skin, pumpkin with the loudest orange colour; yam and cassava still with soft, fresh earth, waiting in front of vendors in row after row of wood stalls. Watermelon, sapodilla, sugar apple, fruits all colour calling to you from li’l wood stalls on the roadside. Itinerant vendors pass by too with baskets of produce, or some roam with they greens in they bare hands.

One Saturday, me and Cousin Sam hurrying to get out from the biting sun. We heaving heavy baskets, skipping from point A to point B to avoid them mukky puddles which gather even in the heat, on the road and in the market itself, because vendors does sprinkle clean water on they produce the whole day to keep them fresh.

“Snicker snicker,” say Cousin Sam.

“What?” I ask she.

“Snicker snicker. Listen to that fella with them limes, let we pass he again.”

We head towards he, fella with a short, short, picky-picky afro, he clothes clean and he ain’t sweating one single drop, he walkin’ slow like snail and holding plenty shiny green limes in he two hands.

As we pass, he lips barely moving, and the sound muttering out from six feet under he breath. I had to stretch me ears long to hear.

“Lime lime. Lime lime.”

He attitude say, I ain’t able with this shouting business, why I should holler when you can see what I got in me hands, and too besides, who can compete with them bagpipes all around me? Mutter mutter, lime lime, lime lime.

“Snicker, snicker,” Cousin Sam say. “Y’never know what you gon hear in this market.”

Nowadays them vendors don’t shriek so much anymore. But even so, occasionally you does hear one, two, three o’ them shouting out Boulanger, Tomatoes, get you Married-Man here.

Bloggers and Journalists

Not so long ago Mad Bull, Stephen Bess and Jamaican writer, Geoffrey Philp did ask, can blogging can make changes?

I din't know what to say. In Communications school we used to discuss Lofty Ideas like The Important Role of The Media, Can the Media Make Changes, What Is Truth, Objectivity.

Maybe, yes, no, I used to think, if the media use they voice wisely.

Later on, all I end up knowing is that some journalists can proper do some wutliss things...like what one journalist do to a fellow blogger.

I ain't gon go into me usual rant about the misuse of media power...I gon just point you to some other blogs that speak out against the blackmail:

Nicholas Hellen should not mess with Bloggers.

Nicholas Hellen is the new Serenata Flowers.

Follow them links, form you own opinion.

Like I say, I ain't know if bloggers can make changes, but I sure know this, blogging give we a voice.

Stillness

Every now and then I need to sit still.

To freeze the frame, to pinpoint thoughts, goals, tasks.

Otherwise I does feel like I in one place, busy, dizzy.

But is so much easier to spin than to be still.

Ain't that the truth?

First day

I watch the Punjabi movie Waris Shah on tee vee and shout at them people in the story, they ain't hearing what I telling them to do. Movie done, darn stubborn people, they refuse to listen even though I holler.

I stumble to the kitchen, one year older, sleep-deprived. Put two slices o’ bread to toast, put the kettle on, pour hot water in mug with cocoa. I plonk the hot kettle on the cupboard instead of on the stove. I plop the pot-holder on the stove.

Sniff sniff.

Sniff?!?

Toast burning. Stchuups, I ain’t feel like making new toast, too much time it gon take. I pick up them burn slices, scrape, scrape, scrape, I smile at what my best friend in the whole wide world did tell me - the new year feel just like the old year. I know what he mean…look at all the fuss we make about the changing of the calendar as if by magic things gon be different.

I coat me toast with peanut butter and dunk it in the hot, milky, sweet cocoa. Crunch, mmm, so good.

Happy new toast.

I gone to do some other scraping...burn-out thoughts and habits…coat them with something delicious.