ESCAPE IN TIME

Born in one of the smallest islands along the Caribbean Sea, I was one of seven children. We lived in the village of Colihaut along the West Coast and near enough to the sea. My mother was a housewife and my father; a well-known farmer and fisherman. All three girls and four boys spent many hours in a Baptist Church where our mother was a Sunday school teacher. Our half- sister also lived along the West Coast, in another village, approximately half an hour away. My memories of the events leading to the birth of my last two siblings are so vivid that I can only say that women in the village were extremely strong and brave. My mother`s usual line after a period of labour pain was; “call the nurse”. We all attended the village nursery (Cacarat), followed by the primary school. It was there we learnt a catalogue of rhymes like `Row Row, Row Your Boat’, `Tyre, Tyre Standing There’ and lots more. For such a small village, change of nursery location was somewhat excessive. I asked Jesus to come into my heart age eight years old through the ministry of an American Missionary during Sunday school and have never turned my back on my faith. In fact, I have grown from strength to strength and completely unmoveable. Equivalent to church routine was the expectation to go to the height (garden) with our parents. This was a task in itself, having to take public transport which was hugely sparse, or travel by foot (without shoes on many occasions) for at least ten miles. On numerous occasions, we stopped along the journey to address a small sharp piece of rock which had suddenly found its way under our foot causing severe pain. Did we have any choice but to continue the journey? Travelling to the garden was public humiliation especially as a high school girl. I felt extremely embarrassed at the fact that while high school children flagged the public buses on a Saturday to travel to the town, I together with my parents and older siblings flagged the dumpers and pick-up trucks to take us to our destination. Returning from the garden late afternoon, invariably accompanied the carrying of some unbearable load on our heads for at least half an hour, until we arrived at the main road to again recommence the routine of flagging down public transport or walking the several miles home. Imagine a bunch of green bananas or plantains, or even a tied bag of produce (dasheen, vegetables, oranges), or a basket of fruits! Such a painful and embarrassing experience! As adults, we (siblings) have often laughed at the times when we fell over several times with the fruits and produce making their way at no less than one hundred miles an hour down the cliff as we tripped, trying to navigate the narrow, bush-covered tracks.