Dr Pauline Baird is a professor and author who wants to keep Guyanese creole alive and chief among her attributes is her storytelling skill, which she learned from her deceased mother, who was a consummate storyteller.
In fact, Megan Griffith-Baird did not just tell the stories she portrayed them in the way she dressed, which was always African styled, and when she walked through the streets of Buxton, East Coast Demerara, everyone knew her mission was keeping African culture alive. Her daughter described her as being quite an activist.
“My whole literacy began with storytelling… She used to tell us stories…and she would act them out and stamp and everything. We were seven kids and weren’t allowed to go to people’s houses. She would say you go alone, you come alone. She would tell us all these stories… Another thing she used to do is give our brains creativity so our walls were always painted with murals… She would paint the walls with scenery and at Christmas time we can’t wait to see the new scenery…” Baird said in a virtual interview with this newspaper from Japan.