GUYANA

The snake in the loo: (confessions of a coward, part 2)

2012-01-17T09:48:00.002-04:00

It was she fault, that gal sitting next to me last month at the drivers’ license office. She was a pretty coloured girl with long, curly hair, skin like cream and a sprinkle o’ cocoa. She had this friendly way, like she would talk to anybody.

She talk to me.

It is she fault yes, encouraging me, making me mouth run like Helena Koker.

Open Helena Koker… whoooosh…everything pour through sluice-gate into ocean. My mother say I been that way since I was a child. Don’t get me wrong…I learn to keep secrets sacred now.

But two or three years ago, I decide to embrace me Inner Coward. And to embrace me Inner Coward, I know I had to come out from the shadows under which I been cringing, and shout out me true self to the public.

“Goodness knows, I must be mad to renew my driver's license with those mini-bus drivers out there," I mutter to the gal. "Damn murderers on wheels."

The gal say something. I swear, it sound like, Open Sesame. Or maybe, Open, Helena Koker.

Me words gush like flood-water, mini-bus drivers spill your blood gut gore, your Humpty Dumpty, hospitals can’t put you back together again…

…girl, I am so afraid of doctors, don’t lemme tell you…I only see a needle, I faint.

The gal say something about making up mind to be brave.

I swear! She was encouraging me to reveal me true self right there, in front of every silent person wrap-up in red tape in that drivers’ license office, where the strict police-woman at the door could hear every word we utter.

I draw breath. “Girl, I am such a coward. When cowardice was being shared out, I was at the front of the line, middle of the line, back of the line.…”

Something on me left was shaking. Undaunted, I continue.

“…I am scared of the dark, I don’t know what’s waiting under the bed to bite my ankle…”

The shaking on me left shake mo’ hard.

I stop.

The shaking shakeshakeshake.

I turn me head. A man-stranger, a big coloured guy, was convulsing with laughs.

Stage-fright is a terrible thing. It can grab your tongue and push you into silence.

I didn’t even get to talk about the snake in the loo with the six-inch long fangs…

Confessions of a coward.

2012-01-12T16:32:00.002-04:00

You would think that, by now, I know the size and shape of me own shadow. It ain’t huge ‘n’ hag-like with horns, leering on we house walls in the dark like a long-teeth lech.

But the other evening, more like twilight, I almost jump outta me skin again. That big-boluptious hag been lurking as I slink past a bedroom door.

Then nothing.

Nothing ain’t go rrrAAArrrghhh and bite me neck.

Only a puny shadow been trying to cower just like me.

“Ooops, hehe,” I giggle. “Sorry dear li’l shadow, it’s only you.”

Thinking about this incident later, joy and sadness grip me.

Joy because I am one with the world. I ain’t alone - this earth is crowd-up with cowards. In every corner, crack ‘n’ crevice, one is quivering.

There’s them that’s afraid of relationships, and stingy ones terrified o’ being poor; there’s them who think if they lose control, they gon fall apart. There’s cowards scared to speak up and cowards terrified of people seeing them less than perfect and cowards who like to terrify others; there’s cowards afraid to change their life; cowards scared to be different, who don’t dare harbour opinion different from the crowd.

These cowards, a lot o’ people take seriously.

In fact, if it wasn’t for these fraidy-cats, a lot of people wouldn’t make money.

The sad part is…I ain’t one o’ these.

I’s afflicted with the kinda cringing-minging-tiptoeing timidity that people don’t take seriously.

They roll on the floor and laugh.

I know this even when I ain’t there.

“When your mother was here, she was telling us about you and the rat…you should see how everybody was rolling on the floor laughing.”

Somebody in Florida who I love dearly report this to me over the phone, I ain’t saying who. I did notice, though she did try to sound serious, she voice had that certain wobble, when people’s laughing but trying not to show it.

I was really glad that she did tell me. It was then, that morning two or three years ago, after I hang up the phone, I decide to embrace me Inner Coward, to talk openly about she...

…to be continued…

Mangoes or papaya, oranges and lemons…?

2012-01-10T10:42:00.001-04:00

“We are investing in corruption, Mr. Roper.” Han in Enter The Dragon.

And to invest, you got to pay your dues.

Self-righteous people does call it “bribe.”

I don’t know what is wrong with me, I balk ‘n’ squawk against paying the staff in the birth certificate office.

“Well, sit there and wait,” people who pay does tell me. “You gon never get that birth certificate.” Then they rant against corruption.

And the irony, thick like metal bars on windows, but invisible now after being there so many years, don’t ever poke nobody in their minds.

But maybe they’re right, we can’t fight it. Maybe I gon have to pay a “small piece” to get that birth certificate.

Hmmm, I wonder if they gon take mangoes or papaya, oranges and lemons, instead of dough.

Travels.

2012-01-02T08:23:00.003-04:00

I been to where a tree refuse to die, and it kill men who try to chop it down; I been to where old woman take off she skin, spin into a ball o’ fire and suck the blood of new-born babies. I pass between the legs of the sky-tall moon-gazer who straddle roads, stare at the moon, wait to squeeze victims to death with he mile-long legs.

All these places we did visit on Christmas afternoon, with me foreign-friend relaxing in we verandah lounger, and I next to she in the white-wood rocking chair. Mamma in the other rocking chair was co-pilot.

Me and mammy spin travels all afternoon, telling we friend from Chekhov-country, tales about this here land. And she listen with she hands fold on she belly which mammy did feed with bhounjal liver, dhal puri, and mauby with ice.

Dear Reader, you won’t believe the places I been to right here this past week gone, without a single plane ticket.

I been to…brrr, shiverRrrRRr…houses that residents flee as misfortune after misfortune topple down ‘pon them.

Foreman, working on the house across the road where them Brazilians used to live, trawl over to we yard to gyaff while he wait for the landlord to come. He tell me these stories as I, spade in hand, dig up mud-sludge that the rain leave on we driveway.

Voices whisper, he say, and things go thump at night and young Merican woman in one house couldn’t sleep, the foreman say. And in another home more south, a white man spirit in a cork-hat used to wait ‘til a young Guyanese woman sleep at nights and he do wicked-wicked things to she. Cork hat? That is from the old slave-master days, I exclaim. Later I think, can you imagine what that man used to do when he was alive, and the spirits today still imitate he? Talk about we deeds living on!

Oh, yeah, I been to a place where the ocean serve up tea and milk, coffee and cream, mud and froff. Standing on the sea-wall, I remember my mother telling we visitor about them lead coffins that the sea is hiding now, how mammy and she children come to know about them, and why the lagoon is gone, and about the boy-child that some criminals did kidnap and hide out there.

Reader, so many things I re-discover about this place where I sometimes think nothing does happen. So much I discover in me while worrying about mammy, waiting for the biopsy result…didn’t know I had the humour, the patience, the courage. Courage in a coward! Imagine that!

And that is what I wish for you all this new year. Discoveries right where you sit, walk, live. Discoveries about you, in you. Courage you never know you had, and patience. Energy, strength, good health and humour too. And imagination to make your life spring up, shake up ‘n’ jiggle like a bird in fresh rain-water.

Gerry Goveia and the egg-pelters.

2011-12-21T10:48:00.004-04:00

“G, them people go outside Gerry Goveia guest-house the other night and break eggs.”

Me cell-phone nearly fall out from me hands. That is the last thing I did expect to hear on a dozy Sunday midday, inaction drifting like dry leaves in a non-breeze.

I let out a laugh like scandal bustin’ loose. “Break eggs? Where they get eggs from? I thought they say they wuz hungry.”

“Ow,” Annie reply.

Don’t know what Annie mean by “ow”, if she was saying she was sorry for them egg-pelters or if she was sorry for Gerry Goveia.

“What they was doing, Annie? Working black magic on Goveia?”

Annie didn’t know. We speculate 'til me cell-phone credit drop to 18 cents and we get disconnected. To add insult to injury, the cell-phone company text me a message...I could talk for one dollar per minute for the rest of the day.

"Huh, If I had eggs, instead o’ pelting business-place with them, I would bake cakes and sell, make money and buy more credits," I joke to mammy.

Waiting for me Eastern-Europe friend to visit, rocking like ole folk in the white chair, I open the newspaper and suddenly! A letter fling out the most mad, bright words that fill the sunshine with more light, I swear.

I laugh ‘til we neighbours musta wonder what scandal it was for sure. “Aiye, Mummy, Gerry Goveia write a letter about the egg-pelting...this is the best part.“

Mammy rocking in she chair, let me interrupt she perusal of the other papers for once.

“The supporters of the People’s National Congress began their demonstrations in front of Duke Lodge and the Embassy of the United States of America by pretending to be followers of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour by singing religious songs, shouting my name out loudly just before they began pontificating and demonstrating a strange ritual in words and action. They began the breaking of eggs on the bridge of Duke Lodge, the breaking of coconuts and chanting repetitively and loudly, making sounds of horror with their vocal chords. Some of them were dressed in white gowns like the evil people of the Ku Klux Klan. They did not damage my property nor harm me or my staff, but it was unpleasant!”

No-bady, noooobady can do politics like Turd Whirl people. We should call it Frolitics.

Lumpectomy.

2011-12-17T09:01:00.000-04:00

Mammy.

Hospital. Doctors, nurses. Tests. Surgery.

Waiting...praying...

Nutty and nice.

2011-12-07T11:42:00.002-04:00

I suppose, somewhere in we indentured-immigrants past, there was a man with a mean wife. One evening, in the old, bruka-down wooden logie where the man, he wife and family did dwell with plenty others, he did feel like showing he was the boss.

“Wife, what you cookin’ for dinner tonight?” he demand.

She turn to he and snarl, “You go get katahar tonight.” You getting nothing!

Had to be a’ incident like-a that. Otherwise, how you can explain why food so delightful can symbolize “nothing” today?

All this run through me mind as I sit on the stool, at the pink kitchen –table, cracking katahar seeds. They taste like chestnut, my mother say. I eat so much, I feel big like Santa.

Katahar for Christmas.

I tell my mother the story I make up about the man and he wife, and maybe that is why katahar mean “nothing” today.

And she tell me a true one so sad, I could feel me heart pump tears into me blood.

In mammy young days, a neighbor-family across the backyard paling had a father mo’ mean than Scrooge. Them neighbour-chil’ren used to go over to my grandparents yard to play. And my mother, then 12 or 14 years old, used to bathe the chil’ren, de-louse them, make little dresses for them and feed them.

One Christmas, one o’ them neighbour-girl chile, five years old, announce with excitement to she mama, “Christmas ah come, daddy ah-go buy presents fo’ ahbeedees.” Christmas is coming, daddy gon buy presents for we.

“Presents?” reply the mama, dragging out she voice in a cynical way...she suffer so much from the meanness of she husband. “Ahyuh go get katahar.” Presents? All of you gon get katahar. Nothing.

Katahar for coolies.

Crackin’ mo’ katahar seeds mo’ days later, rockin’ in the white wood and iron chair in the veranda, I feel shame.

I think…maybe there is another reason why katahar mean “nothing”.

Katahar curry musta been one o’ the favourite food of the post-indentured-immigrant, uneducated coolie-people - the impoverished, unpolished East Indian folk that better-off citizens scoff at. They cut up the cabbage part…dig out the nuts to boil later…and curry the cabbage part, eat it with roti, tear into it with fingers, not a civilized spoon or knife and fork.

Rock, rock, in the rocking chair, contemplating all o’ this. Shame wash down on me.

I look into the bowl in me lap. Mostly empty shells and a li’l bit o’ nuts remaining. I console me conscience that mammy really did say she was happy with the few she had…

Gold, diamonds. And katahar.

Shame?

Nah, nah, don’t talk about shame when it comes to loving this common-man food. Lemme tell you how bold and brazen you must be, and proud too, relishing it.

One fine morning, Cousin Lis, [when she was living in Guyana,] been perusing rings in the toppest jewellery store in town.

Suddenly she smell katahar curry.

“I smell katahar curry!” Them words fall from she beautiful lips as if she was saying look at this huge diamond.

“My boss is having lunch in his office,” the sales-girl say.

Katahar curry? This near? Cousin Lis huge brown eyes grow mo’ big and bright like a shine-eye girl who get necklace encrusted with precious stones. “Oh my gosh oh my gosh tell him I love katahar curry.”

And before you could say, Hurry Harry, cook the curry, the ole man send out a small bowl of vegetarian katahar curry for Cousin Lis.

my mother...

2011-12-02T13:51:00.000-04:00

...is on a cleaning binge

help

help

help

When all is said and done…

2011-11-30T11:42:00.000-04:00

Same old sun in the same old sky.

They’s still counting votes.

Men gon rise and men gon fall; egos gon inflate and egos gon deflate. Some might forget that they ain’t God, they gon want to dictate how the poor and the rich must live or die, how days must end and darkness begin.

I get up soon o’ clock and pray to the Lord of the dawn.

It is nearly mid-day; the sun is almost directly overhead.

I listen to Songbird and rise above it all.

Low-grade fever for several days got me poorly, make me know that when all is said and done, good health and love is the only things that matter.

For tomorrow and the days after.

2011-11-27T17:55:00.000-04:00

A thin thread o’ fear been tightening ‘round town since election date announce.

Veggie vendor tell me in pure Creolese, Me nah wha’ go happen to ahbee. I don’t know what will happen to us.

What gon happen if the government party win and some people who don’t like the result take to protesting, beating up citizens, burning shops, looting and so on and so forth.

In front of the bank on Wedneday morning, I talk to the nun, the deputy head-mistress of me ol’ high-school. She is frail now, like paper in the wind. She look more white than she used to be, and the bright is gone from she blue eyes. She ‘Merican twang is still sharp and young, though age erode the edges.

“I hope nothing happens,” she say. “Pray, we must pray,” she say. “We are having a prayer vigil on Friday night.”

My friends from foreign places tell me that they’s terrified. They look at what happen in other countries, where people from their homeland get injured. They been getting advice from bosses on how to stay safe.

Suddenly, it dawn on me that I ain’t scared.

“Nothing bad is going to happen,” I tell one friend.

“How do you know?” she ask.

“Because the people who used to promote the violence are now sick or getting sick; others have one leg in life and the next leg in the grave, and others are dead. Besides, the young people of this country are just not into that sort of behaviour.”

“How do you know,” she ask again.

“They are way too cool and way too hip, and they’re friends with each other, lots of intermarrying going on now. They don’t have time for that sort of nonsense. And look at the political parties today. All mixed up racially. Besides, our last elections was so peaceful, not a sign of trouble.”

I say all this knowing that I can be wrong. But I say it with hope, with that Peace Train song running in me head, with this Rabindranath Tagore prayer in me heart:

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.

Laptop & Mammogram.

2011-11-21T09:47:00.000-04:00

While the laptop been to the doctor because of burnout, I decide to do a mammogram!

Aiye yai yai!

I never do one in me whole born life.

From the day I make that decision, to the minute I enter that white sterile room, I thought the world come to a’ end.

The day before I make the appointment, I tell my mother I might chicken out.

Behind me back, she make the appointment.

Mrs. Nizam always say she does pray that while she is in the middle of doing a mammogram, the lady operating the machine don’t drop down and leave she there.

We in Guyana better pray we don’t get a powercut in the middle of

Haha, jokes, there wasn’t no powercut, no bad news, and life feel just right!

Any good news?

Anybody fall in love, marry, win something, move to a new home, get a baby, new job, celebrate something good, while I been gone?

Mr. Wrong! Car!

2011-11-02T07:35:00.004-04:00

I pick up the wrong key yesterday morning and it open up one big flood o’ crazy stuff, whoosh-oooo…

“Wrong! Key!” I laugh, trying to sound like the lean man outside the bread-shop near Bourda.

That man does look as if road and earth did create he without thought, then they shove he out to the world like he wasn’t their child. But they can’t deny he, he got them all over he skin.

He hair look like thin, dark coils, as if, when earth been giving birth to he, she push so hard, he yank out some o’ she roots.

On top of all that, he cloak the trunk of he body with a sack and attach to it all them treasures that road offer – pins, plastic bottles, ribbons, key rings, plastic coils, metal coils, bottle corks, pieces o’ yellow, pink and rust; pieces o’ blue and grease; he twine some in he hair too. He is so completely doll-up, you can’t figure out if he is wearing clothes underneath or not.

When you see he, you does feel weird. Girls does tease one another, or their divorce-mothers, or widow-mothers, “Look you’ future husband there.” But they always make sure they don’t go three feet near he.

I did hear a rumour though that tourists does pay he to take he photo. Hm. Maybe this, and what my mother discover, is proof of civility. Or something.

One lunch time, my mother come home looking like amusement seize she and wouldn’t let go.

She leave the bread-shop, she say, and head to the other side of the road. Prip-prip, she click the car-alarm button. The car door ain’t opening. Prip-prip.

Eh-eh, what is happening here, she wonder.

And lo…a voice reply like it read she mind. It talk like a professor. Well-modulated. Calm, cool, slow, like it know English-English.

“Wrong! Car!”

Mother look up.

The man is facing north, staring straight ahead, he back turn to she. He ain’t turn to the left, he ain’t twitch to the right. He body still like concrete. But she know it was he who did talk.

Mother hear a laugh somewhere else. Near to she, across the grass and narrow gutter, in a yard of a’ old house, a young man washing he car is shaking-up with laugh. “You trying to open the wrong car, eh?” he say to mother. He and she ain’t say boo to the man.

After this, the man begin to look very human to me. If I used to wonder about he life before, I think about it even more now. What can turn a human into this? Who is he family? I give he a name. Mr. Wrong. Car. He didn’t make me nervous no more.

Mr. Wrong. Car. suddenly disappear.

What happen to he, me and ma ask each other. Truth to tell, I secretly admit to meself that I was glad he was gone. He does scare me. Not that he ever shout at me, curse, or jump at customers or beg.

Weeks later, Mr. Wrong. Car. re-appear in front o’ the bread-shop as usual.

I fool meself again that he don’t give me the heebie-jeebies. ‘Til a small incident recently make me realize how quick a mind can trip back.

Mr. Wrong. Car. pop-up like a solid shadow in front o’ me, near we car door. He hold out he hand.

He suddenness, nearness and begging jolt me like electric zap. I shake me head hurry-hurry to say I ain’t have no change. Don’t know if I was telling the truth. I was too busy planning how to dive into the car and bladam-shut the door.

As I shake me head, a garbage truck rumble-tumble by, leaking rusty-orange goo.

Nervousness, trying to distract the man from me, make me holler out. “Shees, that garbage truck stink bad!”

The man look at the truck. He turn back to me.

Me eyes and he eyes “make four” as we does say.

If I did want to run when he first appear, I did want to fly now. I still don’t know if that cold resentment I did see in them eyes was real. Don’t know if he was vex because I ain’t give he money. Or if he think I insult he boutique.

Mr. Wrong. Car. disappear from the bread-shop again.

A couple o’ weeks ago, I spot he walking around on the screaming hot road outside the supermarket not far from the bread-shop.

Not a soul don’t seem to notice he. Guyanese, Brazilians, Russians, British, Americans, Canadians, more foreigners, head off into steel and chrome on rubber wheels, carrying plastic bags load-up with food and drinks in plastic and metal.

Birthday Boy.

2011-10-28T08:51:00.004-04:00

In the small country-village, the boy, nineteen and dapper, shut he eyes, raise he smile to the sky, hug he imaginary partner and waltz down the dusty, red-roadside. I’m so young and you’re so old…ohhhh sweet, Diana, the duke-box blare from he mother sweets ‘n’ cakes shop. Nah, he wasn’t drunk or in love with a’ older gal, he was just a lad who heart and feet been shakka-shakkin' with the exuberance of livin'.

This is one o’ me favourite stories mammy does tell me about me father li’l brother.

He is in America now, settle into a place so quiet, you can hear ants toe-ing 'n' fro-ing through the cracks in the walls.

He visit me ‘n’ mammy in July, tumble out bags of opinions, ideas and wild stories. After he leave, a thought knock me past the boundaries for six. In the core of the man, the artist is waltzin’ up to now.

Huh, artist? Some o’ them academic relatives would ask. Yeah, artist. I did live and work long enough amongst creative folks in The Island to recognize the real thing when I see it now.

This here uncle got enough talent to flow with the Amazon. He can take a piece o’ plain driftwood, lash it up, wing it and wang it and whiee-whiee-whiee it into one interesting piece o’ furniture.

For a long time I did say, if he did have the opportunity, if he did live in the right place, a brilliant photographer woulda emerge…the kind who tell stories full o’ mood and innocence and character in he pikchas.

Gee, he sure can spin a good story.

As me first big brother say, “When he tell you something, you don’t know what to believe. One time, he want to tell we that where they used to grow rice had plenty-plenty snake. But he ain’t say that. Instead, he say when they plough the field…the plough dig them up, cutting them up, and the air thick-thick with snake and the field full up with snake blood…”

If nature-lovers only know! They would want to station themselves in he house, to ketch every leaf and stick that fall from he mouth.

Brother say, “When cha-cha describe wild hogs running through the bush, he say they cut a clear, clean path for miles better than a bulldozer…snakes, all them animals, fly outta they way. If you get ketch up in a tree and they down at the bottom, you better know how to jump from one tree to another to get away ‘cause they does dig down the tree with you in it.”

Anthropologists who study life...I wonder if they ever discover lessons in a place like this, where a white cloth turn black with louse!

The Birthday Boy turn seventy-five yesterday. Me li’l sister say that in that quiet place in America where he live now, when nobody ain’t at home, when all them neighbours gone to work, we uncle does turn up them Bollywood tunes to high volume.

Keep dancin’ dear uncle!

I want you to know that you are truly loved by me, me li’l sister and me two big brothers.

My friend's aunty.

2011-10-25T12:36:00.000-04:00

My friend Narda, visiting from Overseas, sorta, kinda let the days slip by, then the hours sneak away so completely there was absolutely not even one second left to call she aunty.

And Narda return to life Abroad, leaving me here thinking.

I hope I never let meself become one of them aunties who nephews and nieces find painful to speak to.

What happens when toilet paper expires?

2011-10-19T09:20:00.005-04:00

Huh? Toilet paper does expire?

Look good, look again.

Yes, there it is, in dotted print, on the white, above the pretty lilac picture.

FAB 08/06/11 EXP 08/06/15

Wow, what gon happen after 08/06/15? The loo paper gon turn to dry, brown leaf?

Rehana the cleaning girl want to know if it gon make we itch.

I say, I wonder if it gon crumble in we hands or fall to pieces when...well, let we not think about that...

Just around the day I discover that toilet-paper can expire, I read a piece o’ news that the bored would say is stale and ain’t relevant no more.

The government in England want to take a new look at expiry dates on food because people throw away too much, there is too much waste.

Waste. Don’t mention that word to my cousin Dee who work for the wealthy in A Big Country Abroad. She gon sit with she light-brown eyes in a daze, saying over and over, The waste, G., the waste. It is shocking, G. Them rich people don’t wait for coats and thousand dollar shirts and dresses to get even one month old, she say. They throw them away after they wear them two, three times. She does secretly sort out the clothing and give them to doormen, watchmen, maids, people in shelters. One day, she take a blanket, carry she long-legged self across the street and give it to a soul shivering on the winter pavement.

Let we not get too righteous in poor countries though. Fazal, gardener- tree-trimmer-grass-cutter-handyman say that in the gardens of the wealthy here, fruits grow plump and ripe and not a soul in the home does pick them.

Older folks though, them ones who grow up during World War 2, then survive post-colonial times, and soap shortages, flour, sugar, butter, toilet-paper shortage-times – does still say, “Nah waste.” Don’t waste.

While younger ones scoff. Few years ago, I used to giggle when my mother wash plastic bags to use again.

But the hands of the news-clock is turning back. And even the old bread plenty folks grab now.

In 2015, when the toilet paper expire, I wonder if by then the recession ‘round the world gon be done and waste gon come back. Or if the young gon be like the old.

The Mars people.

2011-10-17T11:03:00.000-04:00

Girls who grow up with boys know this…

…if boys know that a gal is afraid of (((insert fear here))), it is a guarantee…they gon find a joke and tease she with it.

The confusion I come to is…thank goodness for them.

Watching them Occupy Wall Street I remember…

2011-10-13T09:10:00.001-04:00

“You shouldn’t work for other people,” my father did tell me. “Always work for yourself. When you work for other people, you got to put up with all kinda t’ings. And you only filling their pocket.”

I been younger then, so, of course, I did know more than he. I been working in The Island, full o’ experience and stories about handling prima donna camera crews, about travels to expensive places and interviewing important men. When I take holiday-leave, I always come back home. And somehow, me and my father used to talk about business.

“That’s not true y’know, daddy,” I say. “Working for other people can give you good experience, you can learn a lot. Besides, you ain’t doing anybody a favour, you getting paid for your skills.”

He insist on being right, and though I didn’t agree I quell meself; don’t remember how or why, maybe we did both agree to disagree.

Over the years, I hear he life story. He was a country-boy learning a trade from a man who take them village boys’ labour for almost free.

The meaning of he experience finally mesh itself with mine many pay-cheques later. Back-stabbers in The Island offices did completely shred the rosy film from me eyes.

Through we eyes now, and through the eyes of plenty people in me homeland, I can feel, I can see, how right my father was.

But for all that, I know that I too was right. Plenty people don’t have the discipline or the budgeting ability, or maybe the imagination, to create jobs for themselves. Working for others, people can learn all kinda skills. Then, maybe, they can take this home to develop their own business.

This get me wondering though...if we start we very own business, and want to get bigger and better, and need to employ staff, what kinda boss we would be?

Very Occupied.

2011-10-11T09:18:00.002-04:00

When a gal work from home, the people does say, “At least you keeping you’self busy, you keeping you’self occupied.”

When A Man Work From Home, the people does say He Is Working.

i been keeping meself very occupied.

What do you dream about?

2011-10-02T11:12:00.003-04:00

Through the dining-room window, between white iron-grill and glass-panes, the little wood boat float into me vision. It is a calm sea today, lullabying the boat back to shore, and maybe the boat is bringing fish today, or maybe nothing.

Big ships, small boats, they take me to me dreams. Even if they come back empty to the shore, with salty floor, dry-out with the heat, I know that they gon go out again, to the horizon, to that line where I does write every hope and wish and longing.

The little boat a while ago remind me of a talk with a woman I tutor in English.

“Do you ever dream about being Angelina Jolie?” She is practicing asking questions.

“No…”

“Never? Don’t you ever dream about being even one famous person?”

“No…”

“No? What do you dream about?”

I say something glib about being me and let it rest. But the question follow me to me home near the shore, and them dreams surge up wild like waves in high wind.

What do you dream about?

I dream that this cemetery-city is a sea of shady green. The giant concrete tombs, posing as modern, high-story buildings, would have ivy and sweet-smelling jasmine vines covering the outside walls. Every building would have window-boxes overflowing with flowers. Plants gon flow along the pavement edges. And from coast to coast, trees would shade the roads so that we-the-people don’t chase heat-waves on steaming, arid asphalt no more.

That is one only dream, but who would care to know more? I’s just one gal standing on a shore that's clutter-up with garbage, staring towards me horizon.

Cell-phones – the future.

2011-09-26T10:25:00.001-04:00

Waiting for mammy in the car, watching the city people, to and fro; raggedy people, trendy, slow; smart-looking people, drag-down people, no matter what financial status people, each got a cell-phone in their palm. A vision of the future flash upon me.

One day, babies gon be born with cell phone in hand. To announce their arrival, they gon holler waaaaa waaaaah into the phone.

And couples in the year 2020, to communicate with each other, gon be sitting side by side, talking into their cell phones. Hi, what you want for dinner? Uhhh, I don't know...what you want? Pizza? You call and order. No, you call. No, you...

And husband and wife, once in love, gon be shouting at each other, yelling insults, via their cell phones, ‘round and ‘round the same room they gon go, passing each other, not touching, moving away.

None o’ these visions though can match what mammy did imagine a year or two gone past.

One afternoon, mammy and the mellow four o’ clock sun been sitting in we verandah, she in the rocking chair reading, sun gazing about in that loafing, tropical way. Mammy look up from she book and watch a tradesman hurrying by on the road, chatting on he cell phone.

Communication today really change, eh? Mammy think. Once upon a time, we had to book overseas phone calls with the solitary telephone company. Now everybody and he dawg got a cell phone. Then mammy imagine the dawg walking down the road, suddenly, a phone ring, the dawg whip out he cell phone and go, Bow wow wow! Wow! Bow wow wow.

How I laugh when she did tell me then. I say, “You had a Far Side moment, mammy.”

Whaz the joke, eh?

2011-09-24T06:09:00.003-04:00

I see the dawn-sky laughing yesterday morning. As I sit on the side of me bed, looking east, there was the moon like a gold smile in the rain-darkness, hahaha.

Whaz the joke, eh? What? I ask.

But the sky didn’t answer and the moon only grin, grin, grin.

Hey moon, was it because I been thinking strange things about how to beat the heat? Was it because I been thinking, To beat the heat, we should take a wet stick and lash the air, or maybe, I should catch a thick strand of rain from somewhere and lash the hot air?

Well, call me mad, moon, but what do you know…when I first start to think about beating the heat three mornings ago, Wednesday, cool breeze wash down on we-the-people. And that night, a li’l bit of rain fall. Then the next night, whoooshaaaa, one good shower.

Haha, that give new meaning to what Auntie Ava used to say people should do to any wicked, evil person. "Wash he skin with licks,” she used to say. 'Licks' meaning lashes. Let lashes wash down, rain down, on the skin of the wicked man.

Y’know, when I think of it, you been peeping into people’s homes and offices and tucked away corners in streets all night, you see all sorts of things.

So tell me nah, moon, whaz the joke?

(Psst..maybe you know where and when the sky gon fall this weekend?)

British 'Indiana Jones' and the giant anaconda in Guyana.

2011-09-18T07:03:00.001-04:00

Woyyyy!

Check out this video…I bet you that thing can eat a cow for true.

I wonder if the one in the Embankment Road been big like y’all friend here.

The smiling snake.

2011-09-16T17:56:00.001-04:00

I ain’t going to blame Fazal [tree-trimmer, grass-cutter, sometimes gardener, and general all-rounder] for the dream of the smiling snake. After all, he only relate the tale of the one in the canal.

Was a steamy Sattiday afternoon when Fazal and Boy [“Boh-y” as Fazal does say] paint the concrete under we house in a terracotta colour.

“Under the house” or “Downstairs” is a twelve-feet high space where we car does park. “Downstairs” is always mo’ cool than “Upstairs”. Against one wall just under the verandah, purple-leaf and green ‘n’ white-stripe plants dodge the sun poking through almond tree and verandah shade. On the eastern outskirts of “Downstairs”, hanging from beams in wire-baskets, fern spill out like buxom ladies in frilly-frilly frocks and corsets. Nearby, three long, wooden green benches and a small wood table call visitors to rest. They does sigh, Ayiiie, when the plant-coolness soothe their spirits after road-heat.

As them chaps work, mammy sit in the white wicker-chair. I position me in the hard, white iron chair that shake rickety-scrikety with one front leg short from rust...but never mind that, the talk was like pudding in a pot, stirring slow and sweet.

I tease Fazal that he should help Boy (a man of thirty) find a nice gyal to marry. Po’ easy-going, quiet Boy only smile.

“Oh man, this place look so nice,” I say. “I could hang a hammock.”

Fazal say, “Yes, you can put you’ li’l table here with you’ drinks and you’ books. Me gon hang it up for you.”

Then, somehow, the talk turn salty.

Fazal say, “One morning, me goin’ to work and me see one big crowd on the Embankment Road. Me did think was a’ accident, me run go see.”

Some chaps been trying to catch a giant camoudie "this" fat.

“What they plan to do with it?” I ask, fretting but I know the answer already.

“Sell he to the zoo,” Fazal say.

“Hm!” I pause to think about all them snakes that citizens sell to the zoo, yet it seem to me that the zoo always only have two snakes. The only confusion a body can come to is that the snake-flesh get juicy in a local wild-meat restaurant, and the skin turn to high-fashion overseas.

“How they know the snake been there?” I ask.

“The day before,” Fazal say, “the snake come out to sun heself about 10:30. People passing in car and jeep stop to take picture.”

Right away, I imagine the camoudie smiling and posing for the camera, and when the sunlight hit he fangs, you hear a *pinnnng*.

But I didn’t dream of the smiling snake that night. It was after the lady-visitor, fully one week after the painting of "Downstairs".

In certain civilized circles round town, women is afraid of the lady-visitor tongue which does unleash malice, rumours and cutting remarks as fast as you can say spit. Only my mother ain’t scared, and does tolerate she. I think it is because mammy and the woman is around the same age and mammy can haul she back in when she step outta line.

Soon as the lady-visitor unload a bagful o’ news and speed off, I haul out me soap-box and lecture mammy. I went on about trust, bad vibes in we home and I try to give she all sorts o’ daughterly advice. Mammy ain’t bother two hoots.

Mammy only say, “I don’t trust her. She can talk all she wants to.”

That night, I dream that a twelve inch long snake been in a bed half-covered with a mosquito net.

The snake seem soft, like a stuff-cloth snake with bright red and yellow stripes from head to toe. She been lying sideways, like a dog with teats that just had puppies. She looking at we, grinning a big, friendly-dog smile.

Me and ma stand at the foot of the bed staring.

“We need to get rid of it,” I insist.

“No,” Mammy say. “It’s not a bad snake, leave it.”

But the queasiness in me belly roil up-roil up like ocean. I take a stick and move the creature to another part o’ the bed. On the spot where she first been sitting was a liquid-brown stain. In me dream, I did know it was poo.

The queasiness roil-up with anger in me head. I lift the stick and jook the snake off the bed, on to the ground. The snake lay on the ground now, smiling, fat and teat-less. I could see a hint of a cold-looking, slinky-shiny thing beginning to take shape.

“See? See?” I say to mammy. “It is the lady-visitor.”

I suppose, when all is said and done, that dream was a gathering of experiences. But I think there is something else. Sometimes...not all the time maybe...dreams warn we in a language full o’ symbolisms and metaphors. And we the people know that snake-dream mean Beware.

Hanging above the alligator river.

2011-09-13T06:13:00.001-04:00

The world famous explorer is hanging onto a rock that gon loosen-off the cliff any minute. Below, in the deep, brown South American river, alligators is whipping-up ‘n’ frothing-up the water, back and forth, to and fro, gnashing teeth, glaring up at she.

It is early o’ clock, pink clouds is tipping-toeing around the sleeping sky still snuggling in a blue-mauve blanket. Not ‘til the sun wake up the crew gon realize that their leader is missing. By then, it might be too late.

The rock is like a knife edge, cutting into she fingers.

Hold on, hold on, she try to calm sheself.

“I can’t, I can’t…” she gasp.

Fingers slip, slide...

Drats!

Building arm muscles is so difficult. No amount of pretend-alligators coulda keep me hanging longer. Three seconds? That’s all I can manage? I let go of the door-jamb I’s hanging on to, between the bedrooms-passageway and the dining-room. I land...thump...two feet down...on to the wood floor.

In the living-room, mammy is reading Qur’an, totally unaware of the drama that been taking place.

Conspiracy theory.

2011-09-07T07:48:00.000-04:00

Been planning to reveal The Truth, warts and all, online. But power-cuts nearly every day, hanging on for long pieces o’ time, prevent me.

*They* are trying to stop me.

*They* are afraid.

*They* are very afraid.

Look…if everybody can have conspiracy theories, I don’t see why I can’t have one! Besides, how many ways a person can talk about frequent power-cuts without whinging?

So…what is your conspiracy theory?

P.S. This message is coming to you via ESP. Don’t know how long before *they* discover I can relay thoughts this way…

Eid expectations.

2011-09-01T10:27:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, we shoulda have fambly hootin’ ‘n’ hollerin’ to one another, from one end of this ol’ house to the other. Food was supposed to be so plentiful, the table woulda sink in the middle.

That woulda been the natural order of things.

But fambly migrate outta here, child by child, parent by parent, cousin, auntie, uncle, year by year.

So we was supposed to have friends, polite chatter and cutlery ching-chinging on crockery, glass tinklin’ with ice in cold fruit drinks, and fans whirring-up like they talking too.

That woulda been the next natural order.

But I been sick in August and my mother been sick too, and the sun-heat bile down we energy to a pale liquid, leave we with hardly any juice to go on.

So we was supposed to cook together, me and mammy. We would talk and share stories, about she childhood and when she chil’ren was growing up, and I would tell she tales about me life when I been in The Island.

But mammy had to look after legal matters in town.

Man look! While she been gone, one big quarrel set up in me head. The vexation been black like storm-cloud, flashing and booming. I did want to pelt spoon and plate at the wall worser-er than Shakespeare shrew. A bad man woulda been frightened if he did see me face yesterday.

I chop vegetables like a fierce chef in cooking-competition, cut fruits, mix, dip some o’ that failed, clumpy yoghurt, lightening slice me thoughts and thunder pound-up more bad mood.

Y'know, maybe people’s right about cooking, maybe it is therapy for true. Or maybe a voice did whisper in me heart. This, me dear, is life. It ain’t gon always be the way you want it to be, and who say you can’t make it cheerful anyway, no matter what? Besides, this is just one Eid. And too besides, being angry don’t give anybody the right to behave bad. Why make your mother sad when she come home? Think how she miss she chil’ren, and how she must feel heading into she ol’ age.

I sit here feelin’ pleased with meself now. Mammy don’t have a clue about the storm that been brewing in me yesterday. I play Eid songs in the kitchen, and while we sit at the ol’ pink table, I serve a lunch that make mammy say this taste good, this is nice…thank you for a lovely lunch, G.

Oh my, what big fangs you have!

2011-08-28T14:06:00.000-04:00

See a crowd gather ‘round a roadway here? It ain’t always because of a’ accident.

It can very well be because a giant-big camoudie, (a snake that can swallaw a cow according to local hyperbole), crawl out of a canal. All you need is one person to spot it…

…I think I gone snake-huntin’ too…

Emergency.

2011-08-25T08:50:00.001-04:00

As the sun rise Monday morning. Wake up to see my mother sick, extreme tummy pain and throwing up. [I plant it in me head that it was the breadfruit that Yellow did spray, but that been over one month ago so I know I’s wrong]. Hospital. She was better same day but fear knock me down.

Best friend in the whole wide world, mixing metaphors, say that when a mother is sick, is like apple-cart turning over, safety net got holes mo’ big than we did ever imagine.

Thinkin’ about it, I reply:

My mother said that if her children are sick, it is the most terrifying ordeal. I don't think it's to do with apple-cart turning over. I've been thinking that, when we care for people, the scary side of loving is this. I sometimes have nightmares about the people I care about and in my dream I'm hollering with grief.

I think it's been a combination of things making me feel this tired...sick in July when I threw up for no reason and tummy uspet; saying ‘bye to family-visitors I love, missing them, getting sick again in August [gastro this time], p.m.s, news of cancer affecting a cousin who lived with us for 2 years when she was a little girl; then my mother getting sick, post-p.m.s, house-work, not enough sleep.

My mother is up and about organizing the scrubbing of the garden wall.

Yellow.

2011-08-17T06:30:00.000-04:00

Yellow arrive in secret, while we was gladding about elsewhere with family-visitors in July. Maybe in some homes, people was praying, eating, playing. Whatever we-the-people was doing, we sure didn’t know when it happen.

But after the evidence start to show, somebody…Fazal, grass-cutter, tree-trimmer and sometimes gardener, or maybe it was a security guard…somebody say it come with the sea-breeze.

“But that can’t be,” I insist. “If it was sea-wind, the whole coast woulda be affected, not just one section.”

Me brother in Merica wonder if somebody here been experimenting with poison on we-the-people.

Another theory was that a small plane overhead been leaking. For no good reason, that make me imagine a giant flying cat, letting loose he bladder.

The first evidence show up on July 16. One o’ me thick, leafy-green bhagee in the garden turn plastic-yellow. Yet, all around it, corn- and sugar-cane stalks, jasmine and lily leaves look lusty and green, shaking-up in the light breeze, rubbin’ up on one another. Nothin’ ain’t wrong, nothin’ ain’t wrong, they whisper.

Nah, nothing ain’t wrong. The bhagee in the big patch by the north wall look a bit droopy but green. I cook ‘n’ eat it before it turn yellow. The next day, I throw up like throwing up was the hottest trend. Must be hormones, I figure.

“Must be something you ate,” doctor friend say. “Some bug you picked up.”

Then my Irish ‘auntie’ phone my mother. She water-lilies look yellow.

Something is wrong, something is wrong, the mind whisper.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” say the security guard at the place where I tutor English two days later. “It is the heat. How many times a day you throw water on them? One? Noo, that is not enough.”

Shame roast me skin. Me…bad gardener. I gon never be a pro like me neighbours.

I hop into John taxi and woulda feel full o’ fresh gardening-gung-ho if it wasn’t for me belly. It feel as if it been on a boat in wobbly waters. Before I coulda open me mouth to grumble to John about it, he lean slightly over he steering wheel, point he forefinger in that way he got when he is contemplating.

“Why is that tree so yellow?” he ask. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. Look, another tree. And that one…”

All the way to me home, we pick out yellow-half-dead trees in random places amongst the green, yawsy like they got sores and jaundice.

“Look at that hibiscus,” he point to Neighbour plant.

Misery love company. I shame to say, I did feel a li’l relieved when some o’ Neighbour plants look yawsy. To show solidarity though, I phone she. “Don’t think it is just your plants. You should see the guava tree in the yard behind us. And the pumpkin vine in the front house.”

I walk up-down we road, and in neighbourhoods nearby, to see how far Yellow been. Here and there, hit-or-miss, Yellow been busy. Breadfruit tree, green leaves drooping, branches black as if a tree-vampire drain-out their juice. Rose-plants. Guava tree. Golden-apple tree. Silver-dollar tree. Almond and mango tree. Yellowing. Water-lily stalks bendy and twist-up like cork-screw.

“Can’t be the heat,” the security guard next door give he opinion, propsing he elbows on we garden-wall. “That is something somebody spray.”

Then my Irish ‘auntie’ remember. She been napping that Thursday afternoon, windows open to let in blueness, sky, sea-wind. Thick chemical choke she dreams. She pelt out o’ she bed to shut windows.

Now is one month later. Most trees look greenish again with the bit of on-and-off rain; water-lily stalks is straightening again. But come, look close…see how the tops of some trees is acting poorly? And see how them naked trees there…and there…look petrified?

“My friend Donna thinks it was something in the sea-breeze,” Neighbour tell me the other day.

Cheers!

2011-08-14T08:07:00.001-04:00

“The whole flippin’ world seems so angry these days,” I say.

“Yes,” he agree. “Isn’t it strange how everyone seems to be in a bad mood?” He mention something about financial times.

“Well, I think bad mood is like a virus…you can catch it the same way,” I say.

“I think it has to do with the media. I don’t remember the last time I heard a happy pop song,” he say.

“No-no, I’ve heard one or two happy songs…have you heard of Colbie…Colbie…I don’t know how to pronounce her surname. I think she’s a California girl. Her songs are good! Remember the thing I’d written about covering cars with grass? She has a song…the video has her and friends making a bed of grass…literally a bed. I’ll find it for you.”

We wasn’t tryin’ to escape, we wasn’t tryin’ to shut out the problems of the world. We was just tryin’ to find a way out of the bramble…the thorns…that invade we homes via television, puncturing we spirits, making we daily treks and struggles feel mo’ tough than usual.

Ain’t as if we’s Pollyanas, believing that positive-thinking is about pretending that only good exist. As Norman Vincente Peale say, the positive thinker don’t escape…the positive thinker see everything from all angles and know that in every problem, is the seed of the solution.

And as I does say, if all we see is darkness, we can’t help weself. And if we can't help weself, how we gon help others?

So here me friend, is some light, Brighter than the sun.

Tell me, when you hear this, you don’t feel like fallin’ in love with the world, like you want to run out and do something better?

Alive-alive-oh!

2011-08-11T09:56:00.001-04:00

These past few days make me remember the old man in a far-away-(developed)-land who was afraid of only one thing..getting dead. That fear did make he hate illness and hospitals so bad, it give he a nightmare one night.

He dream that he been sick, and was a prisoner in a hospital. He been squeezing through a small space between the window and the ledge to escape and nearly get stuck.

“Ooohhhh, it was terRribLle, it was HoOorRrible. It was the worst dream I’ve ever had,” the ol’ man tell me.

How I laugh at the dramatic shiver-and-quake in he voice.

“You and I,” the ol’ man did tell me, “You and I have a lot in common.”

I thought he did mean that we both love to write. These past few days make me realize that it ain’t only writing.

"I got a stomach bug," I text me sister.

“Goooo to the doctor,” she text back.

“Nooo, I scared.”

A stomach bug is the symptom for every mystery illness that Channel 28 use to air and my mother been addicted to.

That show make me realize how the garden can make you' toe full-up with UFO-germs, rot and fall off. Chigga, the Guyana-parasite that dig into you’ foot and lay eggs, ain’t half-bad compared to them illnesses on that show. That show make me know that even if you don’t have a mystery illness, doctors does find one.

“Try grated nutmeg in a glass o’ water,” a gal in the stationary store tell me (after I get better).

“Green sapodilla is a good cure,” a man in the corner shop did tell me a few months back when I been buying sparkling water. A third customer start to talk about how sparkling water is for more that curing thirst, it does wash out bug from you’ belly.

“Try guava leaf tea,” Guyanese does say.

Immodium does work mo’ quick. I didn’t have to escape through a hospital window.

Trippin'.

2011-08-03T07:20:00.001-04:00

I stray 'way from home soon after dawn ‘til me feet find me in a grassy, tree-full (litter-free) place where diplomats live.

There and then I decide.

I want to be a diplomat!

I imagine turning over in the softest cotton sheets from Egypt; servants doing everything for me; travel; friends from all walks of life, la-la,la. I remember what Spike Milligan (I heart you Sir Spike) did write about he childhood in India. I would be somebody in another man country…I wouldn’t return to my homeland for nothing, to become a’ ordinary citizen, no way. In another man country, I would validate other people points of view. Like in Guyana, where opinionists does brag, “I spoke to diplomats recently, and they agree with me.” Power!

Ooof.

I stumble.

I just can’t get me foot outta me mouth.

Yoo-hoo!

2011-07-31T12:31:00.000-04:00

Been to the pool of apathy, dip me toes in for a bit.

Been danglin’ procrastination like a beer-swilling man dozing in the hot sun with a fishin’ rod, coming up with nothing.

Been sittin’ on the edge of activities I would normally throw meself wholeheartedly into, longin’ for what ain’t and what if.

None o’ this, of course, didn’t do me soul one ounce o’ good.

The recent world news didn’t help either.

But suddenly – one cheerful phone call from me best friend in the whole wide world; a happy Skyping session with me sis; and Demarco song on tee vee, I love my life, got me feeling a li’l fine.

Weaving.

2011-07-20T10:08:00.000-04:00

If I could weave a memory of the last two weeks, hang it over a Guyana waterfall for all eyes to see, I gon have to include more mangoes than we coulda manage, and stories ‘bout ghost animals on a bridge, and evil spirits haunting country-side relatives in the past.

I gon have to sew in a bit o’ them manatees that get shy all of a sudden, and a determined eleven year old boy who ab-so-lutely must see them manatees, while he brother and sister plead, Oh maaan, they’re not coming, let’s go!

Oh, I mustn’t forget to include the snake with the flickin’ black fork-tongue with the scrawny brown chicken strutting about in the cage, unaware!

I would have to weave, in colours bright like sunny-grass and glittering milky-tea-sea, one afternoon full-up with three cool kids at the dining-table arguing over a game I present to them…and another afternoon full o’ gloom tones, when we did pay a visit to two orphanages.

Now, I’s hurrying to knot them scenes together in me notebook, so they stay forever in memory, scenes with me li’l cha-cha (father young brother who love to tell stories), and Cousin Nan, she husband, and she cool kids, who visit from Merica for two weeks in July. Fambly rarely come to this side o’ the ocean these days, so we drop everything to spend time with them.

Was glorious.

They’s gone back to Merica. A pall cover this ol’ house though the sun is shining yellow-bright ‘til it look white.

The morning they left, my mother say, “Guyana feel empty.”

And me? Add together pms, nausea and throwing up, tiredness and sad mood…and what you got?

But slow-slow, like kreh-keh-teh out o’ water crawling, I’s getting back into me routine, colouring me blues with some other hues.

Shhhhh.

2011-07-02T08:35:00.000-04:00

Listen.

Sky-juice got a thousand million sounds.

Depending on the quantity and speed and mood, it is ocean-waves washing on the roof-top, soft and waaaaaah.

Or it is hard-crashing, threatening to break down your shell.

Sometimes, it is fine bricks pelting zinc-sheets.

Other times, it is big stones banging.

Falling from gutters on the edge of the roof, it hit splickety-splakaty-splaka pon concrete.

From the high PVC gutter, into a plastic bucket already full o’ rain, it drum bonga-bonga-bonga.

On the small zinc roof of the wood-box sheltering the electricity meter, it beat tassa, tang-taka-taka-tang.

Small drops on a wire run together, group into a single drop and ting. Ting. Ting to the ground.

On them leaves, sky-juice make the sound of hands clapping out a rhythm.

Shhhh.

Sit in the verandah this morning and listen to the thousand songs of life.

Another letter to Mr. Carbon Credits Man.

2011-06-29T13:29:00.003-04:00

Dear Mr. Carbon Credits Man,

Been meaning to write you a long time since that first letter.

Glad to see you rewarding we-the-people for not cutting down we rainforest. I got to admit, I still don’t understand this carbon credits business...paying rainforest people so that carbon producers could belch-out that dark stuff. Anyway, money is money. If it mean we save trees in a healing-place - wonderful.

Been thinking though…suppose factories of the future produce so much more carbon, we rainforest gag ‘n’ choke and say it can’t take it no mo’? Suppose we rainforest decide to protest, seeing that that is the in-thing these days? Wow. I can't imagine we rainforest pelting we with hairy spiders, snakes and stones.

I think we should do something before this problem crop up.

Mr. Carbon Credits Man, how about encouraging people to grow plants all over their vehicles? (No, not on the windscream and windows!)

Think about it.

Moveable carbon cleaners in cities everywhere, sucking up the dark, noxious stuff, producing pure oxygen!

Think of the other benefits.

Less stress in we-the-humans. We all know how plants produce negative ions, good for the mind. Beauty everywhere. Flowers sproinging on vehicle roof, butterflies dilly-dallying all around, birds…well, fo’get birds, we know what they doo when they fly…but thinking of it, that would be good 'n' natural manure…oh boy, I’m on a roll!

Well, what you think?

See you on the cool, green side o' tomorrow, Mr. Carbon Credits Man.

G.G.

Thank you, Dear Bloggers.

2011-06-26T11:02:00.002-04:00

A few days ago I did write about a site that use me blog-posts without adding links to them.

You’ opinions and advice give me the push to tell the site people how I feel.

They say they don't add links directly to each post because plenty bloggers delete blog, change url, or don't maintain website. Not adding a link to each post help them keep clean database or something like that.

Long story short...after polite emails between me an’ them, they delete me stories from their site. And I delete the post where I grumble to you all.

But the whole issue leave me thinking...

I ain’t have a problem with sites which earn from ads using me blog-posts...but I WANT a link to each post that any site borrow from me blog...

I don't want readers to have to search that site upside-down, inside-out, for a link to me blog.

I don't want people to think I’s a contributing writer to any site unless we discuss it.

Which lead me to think...I don’t feel it is okay for a site to lift whole, entire posts from another blog. The other site can talk about what another blogger write; the other site can quote paragraphs and add the link...but don’t lift the whole, entire work [especially without a link back to the post itself].

Go on, call me a fuss-pot. I gon shine that pot with a scrubber and the blue magic soap, then I gon make pakoo-fish pepper-pot and eat it with fresh bread, mmmm.

How to bring down the price of food.

2011-06-20T14:11:00.001-04:00

“Food get dear! Rice? Price so high, you might as well grow it you’self,” me first big brother in England email.

Been hopin’ he was exaggerating.

Next thing I know, news people’s talking about “food inflation”.

I get to thinking. One day, food gon cost more than gold. And oil. People gon fight wars for land to...oh, waitaminnit, they’s doing that.

I get to dreamin’, like mad woman staring out at sea, watching waves.

Maybe me brother is right. Grow it you’self. If every single person plant food, prices must fall.

Don’t need big land space.

Just a patio, a small verandah, plant pots. Me cousin husband in London grow tomatoes, apples, corn, baigan or eggplant, in the small conservatory of their home.

My mother always tell me, You never know ‘til you try.

Happy Father's Day.

2011-06-19T06:20:00.001-04:00

“Hmm, today is Daddy Day,” my mother exclaim.

“Happy Father’s Day,” I say in a li’l girl voice.

“Oooh, thank you,” she accept the greeting.

“You suppose to say, Same to you,” I protest.

“Same to youuuu.”

“Ooooh, thank youuuu.”

Jokes aside, I want to say, Happy Father’s Day to all them men who ain’t just fathers in the biological sense, but they’s fathers who teach, nurture, love their chil’ren.

Saudi women drive.

2011-06-17T16:16:00.000-04:00

Go sisters, go!

Excitement shine in we home this good Friday when I tell my mother The News!

Things To Do Offline.

2011-06-14T10:24:00.000-04:00

Go to family function for deceased relative in country village

Venture out to the back o’ the yard where curry ‘n’ rice is cooking in big iron cauldrons, on wood-smoke

Decide that them big iron pots name is calldron because, when they cook that curry, they call you, call you to drool

Wipe the water leh-leh drooling from you’ mouth

Ask cousin of deceased for a root or two of fever grass plant growing in huge clump

Listen to village people talk about Rozeena who get ruckshan…so wicked and outrageous in behaviour…she block funeral procession from passing the grassy pathway near she home, leading to the pasture, to bury the dead

Listen to a’ woman next door complain how Rozeena does cuss she

Feel sad because you did know Rozeena to be a’ ambitious young woman, hard-working, in love with she husband, adoring she sons, and now, husband got a new lady in another village or so the people say

Feel more sad for Nissa, daughter, only child of the deceased, who you know since you’ early teens

Tell Nissa that one day, she grief gon hurt less

Get vex about speech what Maulana B., religious man, make, saying is women fault why husbands does get into rage, that women does push man into anger, use their tongue and sharp words as weapons

Offer three women a lift into town (mother as chauffeur)

Grumble about plastic on roadside to one o’ the women who rant too, she got a shop and she can’t get customers to bring their own bags

Tell she how you does bury food scraps so don’t need plastic bags to put garbage in

Feel smug when she look at you with eyes colour-up with amazement

Text you’ li’l sister in Florida: goin to dntist 2day, dis man make me lie all d way bak instead o reclinin, Dr. R nevr make me lie all d way bak, I don’t know why Dr. R had to go n die, when I lie al d way bak, I gag n choke, i tink i want 2 bite dis man again

Read sister reply but ignore that she say that dentists do this when they have to work far back in the mouth

Survive dentist without biting he again

Plant fever grass

Dig up worms

Try to show worms to Rehanna the cleaning girl and insist that she admire them, announcing, Look, look, they just like fat pink pasta

Tell Rehanna the cleaning girl that she hurt them poor worms feelings when she turn away she face, turn up she nose in digust

Buy birthday gift for Fazal, sometimes gardener, tree-trimmer, grass-cutter, who don’t ever hesitate to help you’ ole mother in small ways

For my brothers and their friends who used to steal my guitar

2011-06-09T19:33:00.000-04:00

while I been in school (and even after I come home from school)…

…try Google Les Paul.

Oh man, dis ting is so cool, you can even play The Beatles!

Nursery rhymes for the children of the future.

2011-06-05T07:01:00.006-04:00

Plastic.

Come into the sea, my dear,

Tell me, what do you see?

Plastic or plankton and anemones?

Whales and plankton.

All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures, great and small,

Big whales, tiny plankton,

We will kill them all.

Fishies.

One, Two, Three, see the fishies in the sea?

Where, where?

Look…One…Two…See?

No, where?

Look…one.

No, no, where?

Oh…all gone.

Happy World Environment Day, everyone.

Let we clean up we act, people, if we really want a beautiful playground for future chil’ren.

Morning-walk monologue interrupted by The Shorts.

2011-06-01T11:09:00.009-04:00

Turn, turn you’ eyes away…

…turn, don’t look…

…otherwise you gon fret for the rest of the day, why people got to be so mean-minded, dumping soft-drink bottles, Styrofoam boxes, in we grass parapet?

Huh? Umbrella-bones? Grey socks?

Anyway, don’t look, turn away…

…turn east, check out them spurwings flashing like russet sunset over morning-light in east canal; turn you' eyes west and soothe them ‘pon them water-lilies puffing pale pink, cloud-flowers, ooh ooh, look a’ them tiny, yellow, star-petal flowers twinkling-up amongst raindrops in the grass…

…look…

Up ahead, near the north canal, a tall, dark, lean man wearing red n’ black ‘n’ yellow sideway-stripes, is bending down, over white track shoes.

No, not track shoes. Mighty odd boots.

“What’s a chap his age doing, wearing young people boots with the heavy-white leather top folding down thick and soft, above he ankles?” I wonder.

He’s struggling with the boots top, pulling at the folds like he want to take off them boots. For a flash, I worry that he is a mad man. Mad men can leap on you ‘pon the public road and by the time the one or two people nearby come to rescue you, the mad man done do he illogical thing to you. All that them passersby can do after that is chase he then kerry you to the hospital.

But he don't look like a regular mad man. He ain't dirty or sloppy. He could be a sea-wall walker. He could be one o’ them intellectuals from the Seventies sporting thin grey braids or locks, chin-length.

I watching he without watching he, so the details slip away. Realization come in one-two-three drip-drops to clean me eyes.

The man ain’t wearing pants.

But he tee-shirt is long enough.

And them folds of boots ain’t no folds of boots.

He is tugging at short pants sitting on he ankles. He is trying to pull them off.

Don’t remember where I walk after that. I ketch meself two feet from he, tucking me fast-beating nervousness into me heart, watching he yet not watching he so though I ain’t see details, I feel he vex-vibes.

The shorts come off. He straighten up. Hard and fast, like irritation push he, he fling them shorts on to the grass parapet. Then he stride past me, tall, lean, straight, going south.

Shorts Watch.

2011-05-30T13:56:00.004-04:00

Yesterday morning, the still-white shorts peep out under a small pile o’ water-lily stems that some fishing people did haul out from the canal and dump on the grass-parapet.

The morning before, when they wasn’t under the drying-up water-lily stems, I did stop to stare, to figure out, Why?

Why the man dump he shorts there?

I dream...

2011-05-25T10:45:00.003-04:00

…that in my lovely native land, there would be a place, outdoors, cool, green, serene, where women with skills to sell would meet.

Painters, spinners, weavers, sculptors, makers of jam, a’ old-old village woman with the best coconut oil, would mingle with a piano-player; music from a flute player, a guitarist, a violinist, sitting on their stool or chair, would float from different sections, over the works of wedding-dress seamstresses, embroiderers, tutors, baby-sitters, masseuses. A story-teller might be entertaining a group in a quiet spot under a tree.

There wouldn’t be no loud-speaker.

There wouldn’t be no bureaucratic speech, pausing where the speaker think is a dramatic moment, but in reality, numbing people skulls with boredom.

There would be no loud concert blaring in you’ ears.

There wouldn’t be no fossilized booths where women sit with hopeful eyes, waiting for people to buy. Women would bring their own tables, desks, mats to sit on, while they sew, paint, carve, cook. It would be inter-active. The old-old village woman would show how to make coconut oil and people would ask questions. A jewel-maker would invite visitors to bend some silver; a woman with a yoga school would demonstrate simple yoga-moves.

For years, I bounce this idea around, writing, talking to others.

Not a soul ain’t “boonce on me,” as we does say…not a soul ain’t bother with me.

Because it just ain’t the practical, typical thing to do.

So I dream how one day, we gon dismantle the brown box into which we squeeze all activities that we snip and cut to fit into the box, dusting it out every year. One day, we gon discard that box, push aside the ol’ habits, and think in ways that make the whole place sparkle.

Yeah.

Right.

Up, up with people...?

2011-05-24T11:21:00.002-04:00

“I don’t like people,” a gal-pal from a far-away land tell me the other day.

A’ old email from a feminist-type in one o’ them far-flung Eastern-Europe places pop up in me head. “I don’t like children,” she did write. “I much prefer dogs.”

How else to respond to me gal pal then, when, to quote Cousin Lis, I does get high on people?

I fix me face serious-serious, me lips twitching from holding back laugh. “It’s a good thing I’m a dog,” I tell me gal-pal.

She throw back she head and laugh.

How the world didn't end here.

2011-05-21T21:08:00.010-04:00

“G., wha’ you doin’ when the world end tomorrow?” Rehana the cleaning girl ask with bright smile, slippin’ on sandals at the bottom o’ the twenty-something steps leading from we kitchen door.

“What?!?”

“Randall tell me that the world ending tomorrow.”

“Who?!?”

“Randall…at Malik…”

I swear, Malik does pick characters to work for he taxi-business like how people pick lotto numbas.

Rajiv does linger like he got all day. One afternoon, he spend he time racing from car to canal in front o’ Malik home, excited about a snake in the water, hollerin’ how much he gon make selling the skin.

Then there is Randall. He does work with spring coils in he limbs. One time, Rehana did say she like working at Malik, and Randal does keep she lively. “He’s a really nice black boy, how he does make me laugh, he always got something funny to say.”

Well, nice or not, that end o’ the world news prove that Randall get cracked like Rajiv. I release a suck-teeth sound of amusement.

Rehana cut in, “And Fazal see it on BBC!”

“BBC! Oh shucks!” I stop to chew on this but decide to trash it. “Look yeah, that is pure madness, enjoy you’ weekend!”

This morning didn’t break sunny-side up. Instead, rain wash down from a soft-grey sky, cleanse away weeks o’ cracklin’ heat and ancient dust; fresh wind tickle them trees, making them wiggle like children giggling, make me forget how the end is nigh today.

Too much cool stuff to do after rain ease up, like choosing perfect peaches and sapodilla from trendy Amar in the market. He mother does stand to one side meek ‘n’ quiet while me ‘n’ he gyaff about news and how to cook foreign vegetables.

"Wha' you drinkin' today when the world gon end?” he ask. Amar mouth serious like school-teacher. But he eyes grinning. “I got me Cokes ready."

Cokes! Amar drinkin' Coca-Cola when the world end today. I had no idea what I gon drink. Tea maybe.

Aftanoon soft and hush-hush. I wonder if the world done end in places where last night here was tomorrow there. Mother phone she son in ‘Merica to find out about she new gran’son.

“Ask me brother if the world end yet in Florida,” I holler to she.

She say, “Your sister want to know if the world end yet…oh me gosh, they should jail he…making mischief like that…”

“He got freedom of speech, mummy,” I say.

“Oh me gosh, oh me gosh,” she exclaim.

“What?? What??” I demand to know.

She keep me in suspense ‘til she hang up. “Your brother say the man does do this to scare people so they gon sell out their property cheap-cheap and he gon buy it up.”

“Ha! Ha ha haaa! Imagine somebody trying that here. That would never work in Guyana. Things does get tough like drought and them-these people does hold out for high-high price!” With that, I settle back down in the settee to listen to Three More Days and Henry Nearly Killed Me.

News- talk.

2011-05-18T20:51:00.001-04:00

“They got their heads in the sky while their hands are in the till,” I comment.

Monkeying around.

2011-05-15T10:21:00.006-04:00

In the courtyard, frolicking, is the li’l monkey in the semi-nekkid tree. If the monkey live to be a hundred, it gon never grow big, being one of the toy-size species.

If the monkey live to be a hundred, tie-up to that tree, he might still be doing the same things. Every time I go there, he is jumping from trunk to ground, climb tree, repeat.Where he does get the stamina from, I ain’t know, the aftanoon sun is the Great-Big Juice Drier In The Sky. But no matter how strong that sun shine, the monkey never go into he li’l wood-hut that is nail-on half-way-up the semi-nekkid tree.

Sometimes though, he vary he routine a li’l bit. He does try to leap to the hibiscus bush two-three feet away. But he leash never let he reach. And two or three times since he been there, I hear how he did make a dash for freedom. He slip from he leash and go a-wandering ‘til the owner find he again. In he last escapade, he pelt ‘way to the road in the dark o’ night and a slow-driving car clunk he.

But the monkey got a thousand lives and he heal up fine. When I go there last week, he been as usual frolicking in the tree that ain’t got no branch from ground to six feet up. Above the nude trunk, some green branches as high as the sky does try to cover the shame of the tree, but they just ain’t enough. The tree end up looking like Big Ethel from Archie Comics standing on one leg, in a mini-skirt.

Last week, when I go there, a light breeze been playin’ skip-to-my-lou with the land, chasing ‘way the heat, making the tree sway, lifting me spirits, ruffling me friend copper hair when she come out to greet me.

She place a white sign with green words at the foot o’ the tree: Opening Soon. A discarded sign from a boutique, she tell me.

She hold up she camera.

Monkey pause.

He turn ‘round and face the camera.

Then, I swear, this ain’t no lie, he smile.

No, no, wasn’t no snarl, baring teeth. Wasn’t a wide-toothy grin either. Was one o’ them small smiles that some people put on when they's posing for the camera and they's self-conscious-shy.

I laugh ‘til I almost split me side like the black eye pea.

“How…how did he learn to pose?” I ask.

“He is very clever,” me friend say, rolling she forefinger at she forehead.

“Maybe he’s learnt from visitors posing for pictures next to him,” I decide.

Me friend husband stroll up wearing khaki shorts, brown sandals, a short-sleeve aqua shirt with a tropical print and a green-red-blue-yalla "Muslim" cap. (Somebody from he country did give it to he before he come to Guyana.) He stretch out he long-tall arm and the monkey hug on.

And pose.

Sitting still and polite to pose musta been too much for he, he eyebrows twitch up and down, up and down.

“Oh my gosh, look at him, now he looks as if he thinks he’s a baby,” I laugh.

“He thinks my husband is his father,” me friend say.

We climb the hundred-million steps up to she apartment, grumbling ‘bout them steps like we always do, giggling about the monkey, while I acknowledge in me heart that I, who don’t have a fondness for monkeys, kind o’ sorta, maybe, like this one.

Blogger is back...

2011-05-13T15:09:00.003-04:00

Dear Blogger, I real sorry to hear you all had problems.

But now that you's back, I can get back me million dollars post from yestiday? Pretty please? I gon gi' you all sweet-sweet sapodilla and Guyana-pineapple and mangoes...thank you, G.

One Million Dollars.

2011-05-12T10:04:00.000-04:00

People does say, if you ask for what you want, you gon get it.

Well, for some years, I been thinkin’ that I want five million US dollars. Not counterfeet or blood money or nothin’ bad. I want it legit an’ clean. The first time this thought occur to me, I tell Cousin Lis when she been livin’ here.

She ask in a quite pugnacious tone (rather than sweetly promising, Awright, I gon give you after I make me first million), “What you gon do with five million US dollars? You can ever spend that?”

Spend? Wha’ she talkin’ about? When you get so much, you got to hoard it, hug it up and sleep with it. But like she, I miss the point and I tell she what ‘n’ what I would do with all that money. Later, I write it in me diary.

I would invest it. I gon help po’ chil’ren in me country get a good education, feed them vegetables and fruits and fresh cow milk, especially orphans. I gon start a learning programme for undereducated women.

I gon…

…I write and write an’ plan and feel good.

Nooo money ain’t turn up.

Well, seein’ as how I live here, and plenty people does ask and beg and get, rather than wurk and get, I decide to do the same. I didn’t want to be greedy though so I cut down on the amount. And I start with a hint. I email me friend in Kyanada.

She laugh. She say, That sound like the Lotto.

I realise that hinting about money is like hinting to a man about anything…they don’t take hints. You got to ask outright.

I email Lis. I want 1 million US. You can sen’ it to me in a US bank account, even if is one dollar bills that add up to 1 million, I ain't too choosy as long as is good, clean money and it ain't countafeet. Email me as soon as you sen’ it.

Silence.

I email again. I notice since i ask you fo’ dis li'l 1 millyan dollers, you been aviding me.

Maybe she is wurkin’ really hard to earn this money and don’t have time to email.

Sockonomics.

2011-05-09T16:14:00.004-04:00

Odd things does happen in Big Countries. One o’ these things does have some folks kickin’ up their heels this time every year.

Because I does report strange news to my mother, I tell she about this one too. “Mummy, today is Lost Sock Memorial Day.”

“What’s that?”

“A day to commemorate lost socks…y’know how people does lose one side socks, and end up with a whole draw-ful o’ lonely socks…?”

“Oh gosh, yes, all over America this does happen. At you’ sister and brother homes, socks always go missing. When I there, I does help you’ sister with the laundry and if you see socks that come out with only one side. I does tell you’ sister, look them divorced…nah, I does call them orphans.”

“How come we never lose we school socks?”

“I don’t know,” she exclaim.

I guess, when I think about it, it ain’t no big deal. Lose socks, buy more socks, lose, buy. But for plenty o’ we-the-people, that is money down the drain. And y’know, many of we-the-people don’t waste cash just so. I even see wimmen in the market stuff dollars in a sock and stick it their busum.

The long and short of it too was that we did grow during them days of shortages, when everything was scarce in this country. Each chile did own five pairs o’ white socks per term. That was plenty. In some homes, chil’ren wear one pair today, wash them, hang them out to dry, wear a clean pair the next day, wash them…

…and so we plod along ‘til we race out o’ school with joy on the last day.

Now that I don’t put foot in school no more, socks don’t smell me. Unless rain pour for days and the weather chilly-up we wood floor. Or mosquitoes find me heels ‘n’ toes bleddy-delicious. For these occasions, I got two pale-yalla socks, two red socks, and some white socks. After years of running through that great tester, the washing-machine, them socks is still together. Ah, sole-mates. True love never dies.

But now, I guess, with we-the-people earning more, with shortages gone, with parents sockumbing to materialism and buying bags and bags o’ socks, I guess more ‘n’ more socks gon go missing here too.

On this day then, we should contemplate issues like where they go - through the hose, into the drain? Nah, we-the-people would see socks instead o’ kuku-belly fish (also-known-as million fish) in them open drains around we homes. To the other side of where they does go? They grieving, longing to come back? Or they merrily swimming in the deep blue yonder?

I can bet you, when socks start goin’ missing here, they gon be sorry they leave because we does pump sewerage into we sea.

The List of Days.

2011-05-06T07:50:00.011-04:00

In the List of Days, you can always find something to think about or to celebrate.

Today is cleaning-house day.

Hoity-Toity Vacuum Cleaner is back in action after weeks of sulking, waiting for bags which we couldn’t find selling nowhere ‘round town. Soon, Vacuum gon be jeering nyah nyah nyah to the humble li’l coconut-broom hiding in the cupboard.

Tomorrow is market day, the next day is Sunday (guess who this sound like), and almost every day is Power Cut Day for a couple o’ minutes or hours, oh no I need power to work Vacuum. And you won’t believe the things that happen ‘round here almost every day...

Which is your favourite day?

Cartwheeling on World Dance Day.

2011-04-30T07:12:00.003-04:00

Erica from Hungary, attending we nun-run high-school, used to turn cartwheels. I try to learn but I never could manage. To this day, I think is one o’ the coolest ways to express exuberance and joy…like the vicar at the wedding yestiday.

Excitement!

2011-04-29T05:44:00.008-04:00

Taking a break to watch the wedding…

…half-listening to my mother commentaries, and tidbits about various individuals, visits to London, memories etc. etc. (Apparently, mammy really did enjoy growing up in them British Guiana times).

Romance. Romance.

Hope we don’t get a power-cut.

*&^%$#@!

2011-04-26T10:46:00.000-04:00

just done fillin' out tax forms.

Offline, in lurve.

2011-04-25T08:33:00.003-04:00

Dust grab this pooter, ram itself down the pooter throat and say (in he heavy, cobweb growl), “Take this you plugged-in piece o’ metal you!”

De pooter get a ragin’ hot feevah and been so paralysed with pain from konstipashun, it couldn’t move foot or hand to do nothin’.

De pooter-doctah say, “Clean out is not the word for what I had to do.”

Enema come to mind.

Which is what me mind did need while pooter been sick, leading me to the dreadful (shameful) confusion yet again…I think I’s in luuve with Pooter.