My Tribe's Traditions: Once A Man, Twice A Child

copyright  K. Omodele 2015  .@TheAbeng

It's my tribe's tradition that we mind our elders; we home them, dine them, clothe them, include elders in life's events - holidays, birthdays, weddings, reunions; we cringe at the thought of placing our elders in nursing homes. In quiet moments, we read with our elders, cook with our elders, and listen, fascinated, by their old-time stories about the British, independence and the train line that ran all the way from Town to country. In our day to day, we turn garden soil for them, turn over mattresses for them, turn on TV shows for them, and twist open mango-achar* jars when arthritis done bend-up their fingers like some old-guava -tree twigs. Sometimes, we chauffer them around: shopping, visiting, appointment meeting, beauty saloning - nails, hair, and spa.

When my family gathers up, generations row like some parakeets 'bout who was the greatest West Indies cricket captain- Sobers or Lloyd?** We wind up to Sparrow, skank to Toots and the Maytals, groove with delight when Tinga Stewart tells we to "Play The Music/Jump like leggo beast!" Oh, and you should see how we all love three-step with liveliness to Percy and Benny and Sam- "Bring It All Home To Me!" Yeah- Yeah... But when we fling on dancehall,*** the elders screwface in disgust and confusion.

When I was a 'lil youth, my Granny, her sister (my Great-Aunt) and my Grandfather took care of my Great-Grandfather, Papa, in his final years. I got ancient-days images of Papa flickering through my memory; he, skin like burnt brass and hair like wool. I recall vaguely, he was fierce when it came to his mangoes, so you better had take your eyes of his mango tree.

I also remember, later, how my Uncle Stuartie (Jah Bless you, me Lion) and his wife took care of another one of my Great-Aunts when she couldn't manage living on her own any longer. And my Auntie has my Granny, who's 94 years old, and her sister, 90, taking care of them the best she can. Been doing this now for three decades, through two marriages, with a lioness heart and spirit. Sometimes despair wells up Auntie's eyes because my Granny now needs help getting dressed and my Great-Aunt keeps forgetting how to make her morning coffee. So, my younger Auntie rises early o'clock, prepares them breakfast, changes what-so-ever needs changing, washes whatever needs washing, with nuff**** love and care, honor and devotion.

One day it will be my generations' turn to care for my aunts and uncles, my parents. This is the way of our tribe. And we gon' uphold this tradition, no matter where on Earth we roam. The younger youth better had learn. This is what we do, in my family, my tribe.

*achar is spicy, pickled green (unripe) mango

**Sir Garfield Sobers from Barbados; Clive Lloyd from Guyana. Two captains of great West Indies teams, representing different eras

*** dancehall reggae is a more uptempo, faster, younger genre

**** plenty; a lot; much

Caribbean Short Story: Mother To Son (of Comrades and Thieves)

              Caribbean Short Story: Mother To Son (Comrades and Thieves)

                                    copyright 2015 K. Omodele

The evening before he was to march in the Cooperative Republic's Youth Mass Games, a mother ironed her son's newer, khaki school pants as the boy buttered his supper bread. They lived in a 'big yard' with three other board houses, each divided into apartments. While the sun ducked below the tropical skyline of zinc* roofs, coconut and mango trees, the mother lowered her voice and told her ten-year-old son:

"This whole Mass Games business is some play-play, Mao Zedong - Red Brigade type a thing." She squared her eyes sternly on the ironing board; shook her head. "Only thing, our youth have black and brown faces and West Indian lingo.**"

Giving his lemongrass tea time to cool, the boy gobbled a mouthful of butter bread, half-listening to his mother. His shoulders ached and his wrists were a 'lil bit sore from lashing sixes and hooking fours during recess earlier that day.

"Oh, an' the Prime Minister, Comrade Leader, preachin' socialism an' robbin' the country blind, same time." She ironed with smooth but forceful strokes like Clive Lloyd defending the wicket.

Wrapping her words with hushed tones, she reminded him. "You see how they lock up yuh Uncle and your Auntie?" Knotted her speech with short strings of grumbling. "And for what? Eh? Talkin' his mind and tellin' de truth?"

Life in the yard was like mackerel in a tin; always bent her up whenever neighbors got loud and made their quarrels everybody-in-the-yard's business. She'd shrill out in her little, fine voice. "Man, why yuh big an' brawlin' so? You don't have no broughtupcy*** or what?"

But this evening her whispering didn't wear no gown of decency, no; it was fashioned in the fact that subversive talk might drift through spaces between shanty wall-boards and be carried off as conspiracies, way-far beyond the tenement yard.

Her son sipped his tea and she held her breath- it might burn him. When it didn't, she carried on.

"I have a good mind keep you home tomorrow, yuh hear? No Mass Games. No marchin'. No nothin'"

He sipped the tea. It wanted more sugar but she had done stirred in two spoons already- she might flip. He stole a glance. She wasn't looking, just set the iron upright.

"But if you don't march, they goin' kick you out the school? They wouldn't do that, would they? Before you take Common Entrance?"**** She turned her back and draped his school pants neatly over the wobbly-legged Berbice chair.

Quicker than a wharf-rat, he snuck another heaping spoonful from the sugar tin, dumped and swirled.

She threaded a needle. Knotted the thread and took up is clothes-line dried school shirt. "People at the plant done sayin' how the Opposition too damn ungrateful." She placed a new-bought school crest over the shirt pocket, where she'd removed the worn-out one, and began stitching. "'Bout how, if it wasn't for Comrade Leader we might still be using Pound an' Shilling. And how if the government lock up all a we Alliance backside up, it would a serve we Rodney-rass right."

She bored and pulled as she spoke- face tense. Gored and pulled.

"You finish?" She asked, getting up. She came over to her son calmly.

He nodded. Pushed back his chair, plate empty.

She shot him a stinging box***** across his shoulder. "Think I didn't see you thief more sugar behind me back?"

*corrugated tin sheets

** Caribbean dialect

*** good behavior; wasn't brought up (raised) with good ways

**** a placement exam to leave primary school and enter high school; taken by students throughout the former British West Indies

***** slap

Mother to Son II   http://consciouspen.blogspot.com/2015/10/caribbean-short-story-mother-to-son.html

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