Hi Everyone, The August holidays are over and it’s time to get back to ‘reality’.
Growing up in Guyana, my August holiday was marked by spending time in the country. It was like going to a whole new world, a place of freedom and exploration. Freedom meant no strict bedtime but late nights of sitting on a verandah breezing out and ‘gyaffing’. Freedom was having all day to play, trees to climb, exotic fruits to eat, afternoons to snack, with vendors to patronize, and hammocks in which to swing. Exploration meant backdams to discover and trying new things like eating snails, and black shrimp that turned red when cooked. Chores meant feeding ducks and chickens and chasing them mercilessly around the yard, well, if you could call that a chore.
There was no going to market; everything came right to the doorstep via vendors plying their trade with baskets on their head or a tray atop the handle of a bicycle. Apart from the vendors, everything else could be found at the back and side of my relatives’ yard – fruits, vegetables, herbs and poultry.
In the realm of food, being in the country meant freshly made roti each morning with sautéed (fried) vegetables, choka, or eggs; none of that ‘town’ food of toast, bacon, sausages or pancakes. Meals were cooked fresh 3 times a day and we never ate for dinner what we had for lunch. Such good times!
The soundscape in the country was different too. All day you could hear cows mooing, sheep bleating, ducks quacking and chickens clucking. The morning alarm of a rooster’s cock-a-doodle-do was a much better way to wake up than being roused by your parents shaking you or calling out your name. And it’s funny how when you don’t have to go to school or work, you are up at the crack of dawn. Go figure.
Going to the country for the August holidays was the highlight of the year for me.
The unbridled joy of going to the country was not only about the August holidays, it was also very much about the treat of sporadic weekend visits when the adults in the family felt that they needed a ‘country fix’. Those were the best types of family outings. Even now as an adult, whenever I am in Guyana and we go visiting relatives in the country, I get giddy with gladness. As a child, when we’d go on one of those random visits, there was always a negotiation as to whether I, or one of my siblings would get to sit at the window of the car. I would put my face in the frame of the backseat window and let the wind blow on my face as I’d admire the houses as we sped by. At times I’d have to close my eyes as I was blinded by the wind. I preferred being at the window on the trip up because that was when I’d be happiest, the trip back was always filled with sadness for me; I longed to stay in the country. And just as the end of the August holidays has that back to reality feel about it, the same held through after a weekend visit.
There would be a feast prepared for the weekend visits and it always included dishes that the ‘town’ folk would not have had in a long time. And that could be an ingredient or the manner in which the dish was prepared. Mommy especially liked her sadha roti cooked on the fireside with the edges charred from the licking flames. A big karahi of curried chicken was always on the menu and it tasted different from the one mommy or my aunt would make at home. I think it was the roasting that the chicken got soon after it was plucked. The slight char and smoky flavour would give greater depth of flavour to the curry. The ducks and turkeys would get the same treatment too. If pork was on the menu, it was described not simply as pork curry but roast pork curry. You see, the pig too was roasted over a large fire to get rid of the fine hair. I’d hear the adults telling my aunt as she plated their food to ensure that she put pieces of the skin on their plates.
As we’d prepare to leave, our relatives would load us up with things to take back – fruits, vegetables, plants, and even live poultry!
Earlier this year when I was in Guyana, I went to the country – Canje Berbice – to visit relatives. Even though I admonished them not to overdo, it was like throwing water on a duck’s back. Besides, who was I kidding? I was going to the country! We arrived in the morning to a breakfast of freshly made egg balls, phulourie and biganee, all to be chased down with loose leaf tea sweetened with fresh cow’s milk. Lunch was 4 different kinds of curry (I was in heaven), along with rice and my one request – eddo leaf callaloo cooked with coconut milk. While afternoon snacks were offered, I skipped them to make room for the Cook-up Rice dinner. Fortunately for me, I wore stretch jeans that day.
For the trip back to town, you guessed it, we were packed up with stuff.
The experience of going to the country is not unique to Guyana for I hear similar stories from friends all over the region. It is truly a blessing and something that everyone should experience, for it is life itself.
The other day a friend of mine dropped by (here in Barbados). I had some bird peppers he wanted. He brought me fish ‘bacon’ (that’s a story for another time). We talked gardening and when he was ready to leave I gave him a few seedlings – sage, basil, mint. As he left he said, “Coming by you is like going country.” What a lovely thing to say.
When last have you been to the countryside?
Cynthia
