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Wednesday,
October 22, 2008
Guyana-Gyal
Little
lizard
Little lizard on the floor, please don’t bite me toe.
Little grey lizard, two inches, you look so scary at night with you stripy
black tail.
Shoo, g’wan, go on, go ‘way. When me was a li’l gyal, people say that if a
lizard bite me, it ain’t letting go ‘til thunder roll.
But the way things goin’ with this weather, it don’t look like no boomin’
and rollin’ in the sky gon happen soon…so go on, find you own home, leave me
alone.
Ha, I know, I know, I can squash you with one toe. But fears, me dear, ain’t
that easy to un-learn, and in one weak second can return quick and burn.
Psst, little grey lizzie, I ain’t really scared o’ you, was just the memory
of fear trying to come back, taunting me...but if you want the truth, I
rather be nervous around you than be afraid of things like...
...awk...go awayyyy...
Guyana-Gyal
Guyana-Gyal
letter
Dear Car
Manufacturers Abroad,
I notice in them ads
on tee vee that when you test you cars you test them in very sterile
conditions, in cool, spacious grey rooms and you have air bags and all sorts
of unrealistic things.
Well Dear Car
Manufacturers Abroad, I challenge you to come and test you cars in Real Life
Conditions.
Come to a place what
got potholes so huge that even if you gear down into first gear and go slow
slow slow, you car rock up so much that all when you go to sleep that night
you brain still a-knockin’ and a-shakin’ and you still hear clink clank
clunk.
Yes, come to a place
where potholes so wide they go on for big stretches ‘til they join up with
other potholes. Some potholes so deep you can’t call them potholes, you got
to call them cauldron holes.
Huh, talkin’ about
holes, I ain’t gon even tell you what ---holes we call them who drive
mini-buses and taxis, no no, I can’t tell you, decent people like you might
blush.
Dear Car
Manufacturers Abroad, if I scare you off from coming here to test you cars,
maybe you can send me a car? I gon test it for you.
A nice, zippy BIG
red car gon do me just fine…big yes, can’t let it sink and stay in a
cauldron hole…send a car with a really good A.C. unit to keep me cool ‘cause
the place so hot I seeing mirage all over the place. Yes, mirage…I swear I
see traffic lights not working. Not one, not one around town. And I swear I
see vine growing on one light. Must be a mirage because the place so hot.
Okay Dear Car
Manufacturers Abroad, I await your reply patiently.
Yours,
Thoroughly shook up
after driving into town a while ago [my brain still going kadang kadang],
Guyana Gyal
The ex
“You want something
to write about?” Cousin Dee ask. “Write about this.”
If you didn’t know
she, you woulda think she serious like a judge. But me, I could see the
amusement deep in the back o’ she eyes.
She proceed to tell
we ‘bout she ex-husband and he turmoil with women.
[According to my
mother the ex was a handsome man. Tall and slim with the lightest brown
eyes.]
The foreign woman he
do the business marriage with did adore he. He bring she to Guyana, to he
old village where he and Dee use to live. And when he and he foreign wife
walk down the road she hug he up and kiss he up in the middle o’ the road.
Big scandal in a
small country village!
“What happen to
them?” I ask Dee.
She say, “Them bruk
up. He say she nag too much. She want to have his children. And he ain’t
want anymore. He say he got two daughters a’ready. He get fed up and leave
she.”
After the
business-then real-marriage bruk up, he try to make up back with Dee. Nah,
no, nope, no way she say.
[What a good thing
she turn he down, 'cause she meet a nice guy in New York, and she happy
now].
Well, anyway, the ex
meet another girl Abroad...another Guyanese girl from Corentyne...deep rural
Guyana.
This girl went
bazodee...totally crazy...for he. She too want he babies.
He say no. No more
babies. And when she insist he tell she he gon leave.
Miss Corentyne
promptly journey back to Guyana, travel to she old village to see a obeah
man.
Obeah is magic from
Africa but some East Indians practice it...or pretend to practice it.
Miss Corentyne went
to see a East Indian obeah man to keep she lover and to have he babies.
Dee say, “The obeah
man give she all kind o’ things to put ‘round the home and in the car too.
The car crash with he. Then all kind o’ strange things start to happen to
he.”
“What kind o'
things?” I ask.
“I don’t know, just
strange things,” Dee say. “So he sisters come to Guyana to see a obeah man
to make them strange things stop. And they end up going to the same obeah
man that the gyal been to.”
“Hahaha, how them
know is the same man, Dee?” I ask.
“Me ain’t know, all
me know, was the same man. And he tell them where and where in the home and
car he did tell the gyal to put the obeah things.”
The sisters return to
Abroad and tell they brother. And when they look, they find all kind o’
things put around the house.”
“What kind o’
things?” I want to know.
Dee say, “Obeah
things, me ain’t know. Li’l things. They take the things and throw them
‘way. He tell a friend 'She went to a obeah man! How can I trust her?' And
he left the gyal. He marry somebody else now.”
How Dee know all
this?
She and he sisters
does gyaff on the phone. And Dee and he does talk too.
She say, “Life too
short and them girls need to know they father. They can’t wait ‘til he dead
then they gon cry and say if they did only talk to he and get to know he.”
Guyana
Gyal
Guyana
gyal
Wednesday, July 19,
2006
A little rant
I wish somebody would
tell we new neighbours that it ain’t polite to stare like dawg focusing on
bone.
The house where them
Brazilians use to live. A group o’ Guyanese fellas move into the house next
door, They don’t ever, never ever come out to show they face to say hello,
but when I go through we back door I does feel them staring...and when I
look, I see they shadow at they window, staring, staring from behind insect
screen and iron grill, in between the louvre windows.
I don’t know if them
is good boys who don’t know better...or they just plain bad...I don’t know
if they do it to intimidate...
The only other time I
experience this weird kinda staring was from a drug-addict down the street
from me in Jamaica.
I don’t know how
other women feel ‘bout men staring at them like that but it make me
uncomfortable. I think I need a burka.
I don’t know what men
think ‘bout other men behaving like that.
All I know is, if
they show they face I would say hello. Just to be good neighbour. But they
don’t ever show they face.
Hm, maybe they in
purdah.
top of page
Guyana
gyalThursday, January 19,
2006 Guyana-Gyal
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Letter to Opportunity
Guyana-Gyal
Dear Opportunity,
I writing you to let you know, you can’t keep a good gyal down. You think I
don’t know what you up to? You who come knocking and then run away like a
li’l bad boy who ring people bell and run.
Well, I ain’t waiting for you no more...as a matter of fac’, I ain’t even
answering your knock. I gon just make the best of what I got.
First, I gon examine what I got. Plenty mosquitoes at night after a li’l
rainfall in the day.
Ha. You think that you, Opportunity, gon stop me from working by sending
mosquitoes to jook me poor delicate self? Let them bite, man, let them bite.
When they get fat and full up with blood...splat...I kill them dead. Then!
I gon save them in a bottle and sell them as goldfish food. Al Gore gon be
proud of me. No carbon emission happening here. Bill Gates gon be proud of
me. I cleaning the world, getting rid of things that spread sickness. G8 gon
be proud of me. Third World gyal trying to build life in country that get
debt-write off.
Now, next thing I got. Blackouts. Yesterday and the night before we had long
ones.
You think you gon send blackouts to stop me, eh Opportunity? You just wait.
When I find a way to market blackouts Abroad, I gon be rich, rich, rich, and
you gon be the one begging me to knock at your door.
Put that pepper in your pot and make pepperpot, Opportunity.
Yours merrily, G.G.
Guyana-Gyal
Circus
One
day, while my computer been sick, I been in town. Rain been falling as if
the devil and he millions of demons and all them bats outta hell been weeing
on we.
I
had to deliver some papers at the lawyer office. I turn to pick up an
umbrella on the back seat o’ the car. Only to find I did leave the two good
ones at home. All I had was them two bad ones in the car.
One
had holes. It used to be black but now it got the colour of ash.
The
other one still black. But now it snarling.
You
ever see that movie with Jim Carey and the li’l dawg and the mask? Remember
when the li’l dawg put on the mask he suddenly get long, dangerous fangs and
he claws them grow sharp? Remember? Well, that is how this umbrella look.
Two or three spokes escape from the hem and stick out, long and savage.
Now, lemme tell you, I got a weakness for umbrellas...I don’t mean them
ordinary ones you buy here. I mean them designer ones, the kind I see in
fashion magazines, in ads on tee vee and so on...I especially like them
plastic, see-through ones that come down loooowww in front…some clear and
some o’ them pale pink or blue or lemon.
I
like umbrellas the way plenty girls like shoes and clothes.
Besides, I always think, umbrella is a functional thing yes, but why
shouldn’t people make functional things in a creative way too? Why not
create beauty with ordinary objects?
Mm-hm, all this I think ‘bout umbrella, so you can imagine how I feel stuck
with this snarling one.
As
I try to cross the road I look around. Nobody else had one snarling like
mine. I see wobbly umbrellas, faded umbrellas. I see some looking like they
catching a cold. Some look like they on they last days. But not one body had
a snarling, aggressive one.
I
tell myself, “Hm, I living in a 3rd world country so is okay to look
shoddy.”
I
tell myself, “If any thief attack me, I gon strike he in the eye with them
spokes.”
I
cross the road, drop off the papers at the lawyer, go back out, stand at the
roadside and wait for the traffic to ease up so I can cross again.
Suddenly, I hear a voice coming from my left. A man voice.
It
say, “Watch that antique umbrella deh.” [Look at that antique umbrella
there].
I
thought I hear what I hear. But I had to hear it again.
I
ain’t turn me head, I ain’t know who I talking to but I ask, “What?”
The
voice reach right in front of me now. It belong to a thin-face, lean, black
fella driving a minibus. He looking straight ahead, driving slow in the
heavy traffic. He face dry and expressionless. And he repeat, “Watch that
antique umbrella deh.”
Y’know, when we was li’l children, my mother used to say, “Watch people and
you gon never be bored.”
And
somewhere I did read, “All the world’s a circus.”
Heh.
Never thought I would be the clown one day, complete with umbrella.
I
laugh so hard that people on the other side o’ the road hear me above them
cars beepin’ an’ bawpin’.
Guyana-Gyal
Thursday,
April 20, 2006
Two grumpy men
My mother get a job
for we carpenter man, for him to do repairs on the home of Mr. Charran, an
accountant we know, he come from the same village as my father.
Mr. Charran is a
grouchy, sixty-something year ol' geezer who can be charming when he choose.
He tetchy with folks who work for he...but not with his secretary Gloria, a
model-slim, pretty black girl. Gloria say she just don’t bother with him,
and he know that he can’t get anybody else to work for he as patiently and
long-suffering as she.
Well! When the
carpenter man hear about the job, he hem and haw, he not sure if he should
take it. He tell my mother that a year or two ago he did work on Mr. Charran
office.....and Mr. Charran talk to he in a way that he ain’t appreciate.
The carpenter man is
a proud man; he walk with he back straight and he head up. He ain’t no li’l
boy; he is a big man of fifty-nine; he know he job and he do it like a
perfectionist. As far as he is concerned, everybody got they
profession...some learn from books, some learn from hammer and nails. As far
as he is concerned, people must talk to people like them is people. He
always telling we about who and who disrespect him, and that he ain’t ever
doing work for this person or that person again. I keep wondering when he
gon run out of people to work for.
[To be honest, in
Guyana, if you ain’t a lawyer, a doctor or accountant...or a businessman
making wads of money...some folks really do talk to you any which way but
polite. They gruff, they brusque, they ruff.]
The carpenter man
tell my mother that when Mr. Charran talk to he ruff two years ago, he ask
Mr. Charran, "That is how you does talk to people?"
Mr. Charran stop. He
look at the carpenter man. Then he say, "Yes, that is how I talk to people,
but I don't mean anything by it at all...that is how I talk to everybody all
the time, it’s not anything personal."
My mother crack up
when she hear Mr. Charran admit that. She say she woulda love to see he
face.
The carpenter man
decide he gon take the job. He say, "But if he tell me anything, I gon cuss
he."
My mother say, "No,
don’t do that. Remember I got the job for you and I would end up looking
bad."
Heh. The carpenter
man gon have a mouthful to tell we, wait and see...
Guyana
gyal |
The Ex
