It might be that 82-year-old Mavis Alleyne’s raw dance moves have something to do with the fact that she is able to maintain an active lifestyle, providing her small village of Dochfour with goodies she makes and other little items produced in her backyard.
When Sunday Stabroek visited Alleyne, better known as ‘Granny’ or ‘Cousin Mavis’, she was sitting on her back staircase with a basin of chicken feed and another of coconut shredding. “I does mix coconut with the feed to fatten the birds,” she said in response to an enquiry.
Her bubbly personality was evident as Granny went about her afternoon chores—with this reporter tagging along—entertaining questions about her life. She explained that she was born at Golden Fleece, Berbice but moved to Ann’s Grove, East Coast Demerara at the age of nine. “My father belonged to Ann’s Grove and my mother was a Berbician,” she added.
At 13, she continued, mixing the chicken feed and coconut as she spoke, she met the man who would later father her 23 children.
“My husband die 21 years now. I meet him here in Ann’s Grove. He was a big person. I was 13 when he marry me and I get my first child at 15. He learn me fuh work and do, do, do. He teach me everything. Teach me to drink too. We used to wobble down the road together and he used to say two drunk man can’t walk together,” she recalled with a smile.
Granny said even before her husband’s death, she had decided to turn her life around. “I stop and start meh church though. Meh a look forward now to my maker. Now, I does sing in the choir at the Congregation Missionary Hall Church,” she said.
These days, Granny has not only her packed schedule of duties to keep her on her toes but more than 30 grandchildren, 42 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren. “The grand-pickney too much. Sometimes I does chase them,” she said, even as she called out to one of her young granddaughters who lives next door.
She explained that surrounding her home, are the homes of her immediate family and she feels safe and comfortable knowing that they are all close by for the purposes of them keeping an eye on her and she on them. Her last daughter lives with her, she added.
“She like wuk. She ah wuk hard. She got children ah give her thing but she just like wuk,” her granddaughter said as she walked to the back of the yard.
Ignoring her, Granny went about her business saying that she had no reason to lie on her back as she is fully capable of making herself useful and at the same time garner a little income to support herself. “I like that I can buy meh lil fine, fine thing and not have to burden meh children them all the time… I cannot complain. This old lady never with pain in she body. If I tell yuh meh secret, it gon be in a jokey way but people gon take it seriously,” she said laughing.
In Granny’s backyard, there are several plants and trees: coconut, mango, plum and sapodilla among others. She said with these fruits, she makes juices and icicles, which she walks and sells, along with mauby. This agile woman enjoys spending time in her backyard whether it is picking the fruits, making pointer brooms or simply weeding and tidying up the place. “I used to mine pig and goats too but not anymore,” she pointed out.
To make one of her more popular products, Granny explained, she purchases 100 coconuts for $2,000 and would usually sell a bottle of coconut oil for $160. “A duck curry bottle [small rum bottle] of oil is $160,” she said.
Explaining the process of making the coconut oil, Granny said she would grate the coconut by hand and then squeeze it with water to rid it of the milk. After leaving it for a day, she boils the coconut and separates the oil that settles at the bottom, called the “press oil”, from the top. She then boils everything again until “it come clean and nice.”
Inside her home, Granny displayed bottles of pepper sauce and achar, which she also made herself to be sold.
“I does past the day nice. Is sheer wuk. I always busy. I is a woman that don’t sit down. When me done the wuk and everything I does fall asleep in front the TV,” she said, adding that she falls asleep most nights only after midnight, but rises as early as 4 am when the routine starts all over again.
Despite doctor’s warnings of her having low resistance and a low blood pressure level, Alleyne’s granddaughter said the elderly woman refuses to hang up her gloves. The most they can persuade her to do, she continued, is to take her daily vitamins and medication.
“Me well known; me friendly. If you wan see joke, let me play dead, the whole Ann’s Grove would reach in this yard,” Granny teased. “Me always friendly. Everywhere I go I try to bruk it down,” Granny continued, making reference to her newfound fame when she was named ‘Ms Bruk it Down’ after winning a small competition in the village. She explained that it was when she attended a wedding that she was recognized for her “Bruk it down” skills. “I know to ‘Tic-Tac’ and nah talk about the ‘backball’! Me can do it well! I like dance,” she said with a wink.
