So It Go

Given the fractured and dislocated conditions of our history in this region, Caribbean people have had a hard climb up the ladder of self-worth.

I hate souse.  I really don’t know how people enjoy that stuff.

Since I first saw Mashramani in 1968, the festival has had an uneven history.

Some music fans just enjoy the music and let you know, and that’s it.

I’m driving up to a house on a side road up the East Coast.

Early in my reacquaintance with driving in Guyana, I was introduced to a phrase, numbingly illogical, that will become very familiar very quickly to anyone coming to grips with the traffic rules in the country. 

Let me take you back about 10 years.  I was living in Grand Cayman, with my Pomeroon background, out in the country on a big piece of land, and I would often take a break from my fruit trees to watch West Indies cricket.

I love dialects. An Irishman in full cry, particularly under some drink, can be a pure joy, even though we may not understand half of what he’s saying; it’s a musical experience.

Some of the worst advice you can ever get in life often comes immediately after the expression, “Let me give you some advice.”

One of the most substantial planks in the structure of life is that of blind discovery – that sudden encounter with something so delightful that almost always the consequent thought is “Why didn’t I know about this before?”

When I was youngster I worked for about three years at Atkinson Field (now Timehri) which was originally an American base.

When I first went to live in a big city in North America, my almost immediate impression was the astonishing level of order in the place.

I had completely forgotten that almost 15 years ago, living in Grand Cayman, I had sent my friend Colin Cholmondeley (then living in Jamaica) a short column from Wisden Cricket Monthly by BBC broadcaster and writer John Arlott on the West Indies cricket tour of England in 1950.

When I returned to Guyana in 1968, after a gap of some 12 years, I was standing in my aunts’ shop at Hague Front, talking with a rice farmer from Hague Back who had known me from a boy.

I am going to assume that you haven’t been living in a truli hut in the Amazon, and you know that since the terrorism upsurge the airlines have these restrictions designed to keep us safe in the air.

In the song “Angels Wings”, dedicated to Caribbean mothers, I am actually singing about the life of my own mother, Zepherina Barcellos, who left many impressions on me. 

These columns I produce every week for Stabroek News are fun to write and fun, also, for the feedback they generate.

Probably because of the many cricket songs I’ve written, people are given to drawing me out on the question of West Indies cricket.

Some days, in fact most days, the barrage of distressing news on the pages of our daily newspapers is enough to cause despair if not clinical depression.

I love mutton curry. From the first time I sampled it at an Indian wedding on the East Coast donkey years ago, I was hooked; you can keep your chicken and even your hassar.