-Rum, proverbs – and a priest
As just one week of August is left for this year I return to reflections relevant to this month, evocative for virtually two generations ago.
Just how were the long July-August school holidays spent fifty-sixty years ago? My generation certainly did hear and read about the four seasons of the year experienced by those who lived in places located in Europe and North America, especially. But colonial or not no one dreamt of describing our Guyana July/August as “summer” So it’s strange to us-past sixty/seventy- to hear and read today’s independent generation using other climates’ terms. (Oh? It has to do with the fact that more Guyanese now inhabit those places? The Diaspora? Okay.)
I have always lived in the capital – once around the Bourda, Albertown, Queenstown areas. I lived in a little cottage on Church Street and oh boy, were there churches around! I went to both Catholic and Anglican Churches; Seventh Day Adventists and the mosque; I knew when and where the Assemblies of God began, but I single out Albert Street’s Ethiopian Orthodox where an Ethiopian Bishop once visited and which place today’s genuine Rastafari would claim.