Where I’m from
My friend Jeanette visited Guyana last November with her mother and just e-mailed a bunch of photographs. They're from a different part of the South American coastline where we all grew up, she lived to the east (Berbice), I lived to the west (Demerara), and we met in the middle at Bishops' High School, in the city of Georgetown. There's not much difference between east and west, I could have grown up in any of the places below.
Not enough time this week to write much save for a few captions. That will all come tumbling out later I'm sure, brace yourselves :)
I spent about 8 years in a house like this one above, the last but one in a row of about four I think. It wasn't as ramshackle, but it was unpainted, with a long dam in front that led to a garage underneath, and a huge tamarind tree in the back. I don't remember much about it (or, what I do remember I'm keeping to myself) but one memory sticks out. I'm standing way off in the distance over the main road with a few of my high school friends, pointing out which of the houses was ours. And I clearly remember that I lied. That day, the house that was newly mine, the painted one on the end of the row with the garden in front and a fence all around the yard, belonged to the landlord, wicked, wicked Uncle Fred (not a relative).
I think they knew, but no one said anything.
I often wonder what became of those women: Badora Ali, Bibi Seenauth and Waheeda Khan.
The street outside my high school. I was lucky enough to have gone to the best school in the city: Bishops' High School (BHS). The stories I could tell (and won't) :)
The Atlantic was this color, and the Essequibo, but the Pomeroon River, how best to describe? Deep caramel with a light froth at the edges, or sugarcane juice in mid day-long simmer.
Fishing boats on the Courentyne river
And the bane of my childhood years.
I truly hate the juice of green coconuts. And that is about as un-West Indian as you can get.
January 23, 2008
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Second mobile: I'm experimenting with clay for the new mobile.
One post down
Paper + string: You know, I think this year just may be all about going back to basics: pencil, paint, clay. I also found all my wood carving tools, yay!
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