Dear Editor,
We learn little things from our environment and nature every day once we pay attention. For a while I’ve been battling with a species of wild eddo weed. The leaves look somewhat like spinach, but this ‘chap is bad fuh days’; the Ebola don’t want to meet him, it reproduces at an exceedingly rapid rate. At first I casually lopped the leaves off level to the ground knowing full well that sooner or later they would return. Then there was another time when I bought some treatment from Caribbean Chemicals and mixed a strong potion contrary to the directions; within a few days I saw the leaves turn kind of yellow and later they wilted. But my satisfaction was ephemeral; before I knew it they had sprung back to life, flourishing as if to make fun of me. So I decided to take the fight to this chap differently, which was not easy. I got a shovel and decided to rip it from the root, but this weed is deceptively tricky; to reach its root is a patient process. To begin with, it is not vertical in line as the shooting plant tends to suggest; it runs underground like a contorted vine, so you have to trace it along as you dig, being careful not to cut or break it. It grows down very deep and in a snakelike pattern changes course as it travels horizontally, multiplying as it courses on its way. I have noticed too that every time it breaks, it gets into a frenzy, multiplying at a much more rapid rate and in an erratic way, as if to say, “Is wha wrong with you, trying fuh get rid o’me, get a grip a yuh self, I’m no piece o’ cake.”
One time I thought to myself, this has got to be the devil’s weed which he uses for making his bush tea. But there is a lesson here for us: This plant starts to grow below, submerges and fortifies itself well underground, long before appearing on the outside making itself visible. Thus it cannot be easily destroyed, and even when you notice it you are not seeing the whole of it; young as it seems even with a tiny new shoot its roots are formidable and pervasive.
The lesson: Grow first within before venturing out. Doing battle with that wild stubborn plant, reinforces a sound point: everything happens first from the inside. When from the inside the foundation of whatever is made, cemented and nurtured, then when it is projected, it will stand like a solid rock, and be formidable to defeat.
There is a local proverb that says it differently but nicely: “Dance ah yard before yuh guh ah broad.”
Yours faithfully,
Frank Fyffe