Guyana-Gyal

 Georgetown, Guyana

 I gon tell you stories, true, true stories. Like me gran’pa and me nanee and cha cha used to do, and they ancestors too. Take half, leave half, cry or laff. Enjoy the gyaff, what you learn is up to you.

                                                                                                                  Thread

Sometimes we life run like one unending seam, same colour, same strand, same stitch, not varying in size. Then suddenly the thread snap and...

...depending on how you look at it, that small break create one annoying interruption or a delightful variation in the pattern.


For about six months after we replace we leaky ole fridge, we keep it under we house. My mother vacilliate between repairing it, or giving it away. Finally she say, give it away.

“Fazal,” I ask we gardener, “you know anybody who want that leaky ole thing?” Fazal eye get a gleam. I ask he, “You want the fridge?”

Fazal can fix the unfixable. One Sunday morning he help my mother to clear out we shed. More things went back into that shed than leave, I got to tell you. The shed does house plenty iron monsters that only a parent who been through World War 2 and extreme shortages can explain what them monsters gon be useful for one day. Fazal ask for one; he kerry it home, fix that rusty ole machine, shine it, and now he using it to build-up he home. Fazal say he gon repair the fridge and sell it.

Yesterday, because sun shine nice an’ hot, Fazal and a cart man come for the fridge. Bah. Humbug. I had things to do. My mother been busy cleaning hassar…fish…she ain’t going downstairs for nothing. Somebody had to move the car in case the fridge crash down on it. Somebody went downstairs to move the car. Rain start a drizzle.

The cart man had the dark skin of them Madras people, a tribe from India. But to the Madras appearance cart man add he very own peculiarities. He head been big, he nose start straight and end with a bulb-roundness, and he short legs look like stringy, dark sticks poking out from knee-length pants.

He three li’l girls, age five to twelve, come for the adventure. Like father, like daughters, they feet been bare in the fine-drizzle rain. Similarities end there. Them girls had pretty faces, shiny-wet dark eyes and shy, giggly-smiles. And the straggliest hair I ever see. Since Gawd make several mornings, they long hair never see comb, I bet.

“Wheh de horse and dray cart deh?” I ask. Where is the horse and dray cart? Naturally, it gon be a tall horse and a big cart.

Cart man point to the gate…

…to a donkey and a li’l, li’l cart. The cart been so small that, later on, as I describe it to my mother, I swear that it been six inches by five inches. My mother accuse me of exaggerating but she should be the last one to talk, everybody know how she can make tales grow. Anyway, as I was saying, the cart been tiny. And that ain’t all. It look as frail as Methuselah bones. I stare in amazement. This miracle I got to see, how that li’l cart gon hold that big fridge.

I park we car on the roadside. Cart man unhitch the donkey and push the cart under the house, close to the fridge. Two minutes later, them fellas got the fridge on the cart. And in just that short time, donkey who been chomping on delicious, wet grass, relishing this taste of freedom, make a decision.

He ain’t going nowhere.

Donkey, like man afraid of marriage, refuse to get hitch. Donkey raise up, twist he rump this side, that side. They can’t get donkey to put he bahind where it should go, into the harness. Donkey behave like every self-respecting Guyana donkey. Stubban…stubborn!

Across the road, workmen re-building a house, stop. A electricity company repairman in he van stop. I stop to watch. Was like a scene from Sleeping Beauty when she fall asleep, and action freeze, except here, only cart man and he 12-year old daughter been moving.

Rain drizzling more thick, look like heavy mist, they got to get home with the fridge before the rain come down more fast.

Finally, they move the harness towards the donkey bahind. The twelve year old daughter help she father to tie donkey while them two li’l ones watch me with open stares, shy smiles. Big daughter musta think she was really big; she hop on to the back of the cart, holding the fridge, looking at me for approval. No, I say. You sit right deh, she father order, and point to the seat in front. Father and daughters hop on. And blow me down in that cool breeze and shimmy-rain…donkey move off as if he was fetching feather.

Across the road work start again, I drive the car into we yard, the electricity man drive off.  Guyana-Gyal