Hammock or chair?

Dear Friends,

You ever, while travelling past homes, get curious and want to know what they got inside?

Confession...hehe sheepish grin...

...when I see the local people photos on social media, I don't look at the people. If the photos is of the people in they homes, I does check out the background.

I want to know what they table look like, what they got on it, how much plastic flowers they got in they living-room, what kinda decoration they put up. I stare at they ceiling...look, look, blue zinc roof, hammock in the kitchen, wow...

...yes, I got insane curiosity about people homes.

So, anyway, I decide that if I's so fass (curious...nosy), you might be too, and I decide to share with you a couple o' things I useta have in me li'l apartment by the sea.

You don't mind leaving you shoes at the door? 

Like I explain in a mo' early post, we leave we shoes at the door. If you squeamish, scroll past while I explain again why...

...them streets got...

squash-up dead frogs
cow pat
horse pat
and I don't mean you pat them on they head
dog poo
mud
man wee on the roadside, ewwww, think of the dust drying on that.

See now why we leave we shoes at the door?

Okay, look we here, right inside the door, sorry, no plastic flowers, only these:

From Ikea. I paste them on the door instead of the wall.

Fresh frangipani on the bookshelf.

More books. And things from other parts o' the world.

Anyway, if you not interested in them-these things, we can gyaff...chat. Everything you tell me, gon stay with me. I gon be like these 3 bears.

I ain't see nothing, I ain't hear nothing, I ain't repeating nothing.

We can sit in the living-room, but most people prefer the verandah.

Like me purple plant from Mars?

If rain start up, we can go into the kitchen and, as the locals say, skin we teeth...laugh-laugh-laugh...while I warm up the food on the stove.

Laugh 'n' gyaff (chat)

Y'all don't pay any attention to this frog here, he always trying to get this lady to kiss he. He ain't turning into no prince. He is me servant, let-we full up he belly with tea and put he in hot water.

What kinda tea you want?

Hungry?

Hold on a sec. while I put some food to eat.

Coming up...food....

On the move.

Me Dear Friends!

What a tamasha that fall upon me in the middle of the year after two dear friends die.

I been feeling chirpy like them birdies the day the trouble land, I been bright like sun and happy like grass (don't put that in you' pipe and smoke it, 'cause it ain't that kinda grass, and anyway, I can't stand smoke), the Manager-Lady come to see me in me home by de sea. She take off she shoes. She come inside, she sit down. All this she never do before.

She say, Everybody got to leave, we ain't running this place no more.

Ow, people, ow, how me nearly break with fright. Nearly.

The rent all over town is catering to foreigners. Since they find wells of oil in we land of many waters, citizens turn every nook and cranny into Furnished Apartments. Lizard dung pon de window-sill included as decoration.

Ohhhh, the places I did see.

Ohhhhhhh. The packing, the boxes, the work, the tiredness, the sadness, the money it cost to move.

So, there me was, in me new place, trying to create me own li'l space.

Birds sing from dawn 'til dusk, crickets holler, frogs soak in de canal and stop calling to one another when I go to watch them, and it got big garden with a landlord who don't mind me gardening.

Then...poof...was time to go be with my mother in Florider. And here me is, with she, learning patience all over again.

Now...only now...I can feel the creative spirit moving in me, calling to me to write, to get to work, to put things in place to start with the publishing that been waiting long, so long.

How y'all doing?

Biography

Hello!!

Or, to quote me li'l nephew as he emerge from he parents' bedroom and see me and me mother at they kitchen-table once upon a time in Florida:

HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

:-)

How you all doing, dear Friends?

I working on putting up de first manuscript for pre-order, online. Yes, I self-publishing. I ain't able look for literary agents. 

Here is what I figure. If I manage to sell plenty-plenty books, then the agent gon find me. hehe.

I got to write a biography of me.

I muster up this, which all of you who been following me blog for ages can figure out. I had to write it in English but I toying with writing it in we local lingua, Creolese.

***************************************

I live in Guyana, between Venezuela and Brazil, on the north-east tip of South America. 

Guyanese are not Latino though. We are, because of our history, like the people of Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados and the rest of the West Indies. We are Asian, Caucasian, African, Syrian, Lebanese and more. Our official language is English but, as we are an ornery lot, we've concocted our very own colourful way of speaking. 

I am addicted to people, music, books, craft, art, earth, sky, sea.

I am an optimist trying to feel safe in an unsafe environment ( bandits, bandits everywhere). I daydream about rearing and training snakes, black widow spiders and geese to bite the bandits in their front and back ends.

***************************************

I think I gon write it in both English and Creolese.

That should be fun.

If writing ain't about experimenting and expressing the self, I ain't know what this world coming to.

I coming back soon to gyaff...chat...with y'all on y'all blogs.

I better get back to wuk...werk...work...

Mwah.

Books that make you feel better.

Dear Fellow-Bloggers-Friends and Passers-by,

There me was, one Friday in March...only a month ago and change...was a real nice afternoon, sea rockin' in the afternoon sunshine, I watchin' the water through me window, swingin' to a Trini song, famalaylaylay.

That very night, I cry meself to sleep.

Soon as I sit down from the dancin' and the watchin' of the sea and sun, the phone ring. A friend in Miami callin'.

Another friend, we former co-worker in The Island, die. The swine flu kerry she away.

She was one o' the kindest, sweetest, funniest, mad-craziest, most organised-est person you could ever know. She was more than friend to me. She was family.

I text me sister, and when she call, I break down in sobs.

Was dark, lonely days.  I haul meself out and start to walk - same ole surroundings but I discover something new-not-new-yet-new-again...if you know what I mean.

Early April, when the sun shine in me again, another sadness descend.

A family friend in the ICU. Every morning after dawn, I visit for a week. That man been good beyond good.  Gentle, with a playful, quiet sense of humour. Never carry baggage. Always had a wise word or a joke to share. Or a mint...you dare not cough, he would hand you a mint from he car pocket (he useta drive taxi). He and he wife did adore each other.

Yes.

Past tense.

He too gone.

Not long after that, I been to a dust-covered street in a small village, where another friend lose consciousness at she mother funeral.

You know what help me to not feel overwhelmed?

A book.

A book hilarious from start to end...Daisy Fay And The Miracle Man. If ever you dealin' with sadness, flu or anything that bring you down, read that book. I promise you, you gon recover like light switch flick on.

Speaking of books with humour!!

I got me book cover from the artist. It wild and mad and funny. My Florida brother did introduce me to the artist who been born in Guyana, study at Pratt Institute, now living in Florida. This chap is brilliant-brilliant!

I gone to write my book description now..........

If y'all know any books or films or videos or podcasts that full o' humour, please share!

Moonlit night.

Dear World,

On a full-moon night, I does stand on this bed here and look north-east through the big window facing the sea. I does feel a wildness, something more than happiness, more than joy, I don't know if a word for it exist, I does feel it rushing through me veins, making me heart beat like a soft drum, fulling me head with love-thoughts, and I does wish I could fly out and sing this feeling to you, dear World.

Whenever me best friend in the Whole Wide World call via the Internet on a night like this, I does point me camera to that view.

The full moon, hanging low, does throw a light on the black-quivering sea, and even though cars and jeep rush past on the road, I does feel as if a mystical silence cover me and me friend, and only we two voices I can hear.

If only, dear World, if only everybody could experience this sea-stillness, and this light-beauty inside we-self, we-the-people everywhere wouldn't have to suffer the horror that hate wreaking 'pon all o' we everywhere today.

The other day, I hear a new song that reflect this longing in me.

Last night...I remember this song after the bloodshed last night in New Zealand.

The song is a ghazal, a love song, a type of Arab poetry that sing about separation and yearning to be together.

This song though is not a romantic song. Is a love song for all of humanity, separated, craving connection.

The video show a station...train or bus, I ain't know. It look like war pass through, and the people looking sad, waiting to continue on they life-travels.

Then Ali Sethi start to sing, and the connection...was a dream...or was real?

Oh World, oh beautiful, aching World. I wish, how I wish.

In between countries...

Recently, I been running like salamander on water between countries. True-true story!

From home...

to Ma...

...Ma to home...

Every time I leave Guyana to go Florida, them Guyanese people does say, "Enjoy you' holiday."

"I ain't going for holiday," I does protest. "Is like going from one home to another. Same things I do."

I manage, between the huffin' an' de puffin', to finish the first of me Guyana series manuscript. I find a seriously talented artist who draw me concept of me book cover. It wickeeeed baaaaad. 

How me excited.

But!

I got to wait. I got to sort out a couple o' legal things before I pooblish.

What to do, eh? 

My philosophy in life is this...sometimes, we got to wait.

In the meantime, I building memories....

What y'all doing for Christmas?

Shoes.

Here me is again in Florida, visiting Ma.

Every time I got to go through that airport routine, take off belt, shoes...

...

I does think...

...suppose somebody pants fall down?

Or worse, suppose somebody shoes smell 

foul 

fetid 

putrid 

like Mattaar shoes?

Waaaaahhhhhaaaaaaa.

Dat man shoes did smell so bad like rotten cheese and ganda egg...

...long Guyana story for another day!

:-D

Y'all does remove shoes at the door when you enter you' home? 

We do, in Guyana, and we bring the habit here in Florida.

Fortunately, we shoes does behave civilised.

Shoe superstition: never buy shoes for you' man or woman.  They gon wear dem same shoes and walk out on you.

In some culchas, if you beat somebody with you' shoes...BIG INSULT!

Speakin' of culture and shoes, one of the best stories I ever see about shoes was a movie, Children of Heaven, about a boy and he li'l sister adventures 'cause of a lost pair o' shoes.

Things we take for granted, eh?