Chugging and coughing, the engine of the launch would settle into a hypnotic hum, as we journeyed up the meandering mirrors of the Mahaica River to my grandmother’s farm.
Above the moody waters that brooded inscrutably black in unsettling stretches, the frothing wake wavered in a white lacy trail behind the communal craft, while we breathed in the warm country air rich with manure and mud, trying to stifle the threatening nausea from the rising gasoline stench.
With our brothers and father perched, like most male passengers, on the smooth roof, I would sit with my younger sister on the hard-wooden painted benches that lined the interior of the covered boat, running our hands in the cold, clear creek water, and wetting our cheeks, as our smiling mother looked on amused.
Watching out for the bright blue faces and distinct spiky crest of the wheezing Canje pheasants or “stinking neh-neh,” we would struggle to hear each other above the mechanical din, competing to pinpoint the bizarre leaf-eaters resting in the tangled greenery, some spreading out their dark-orange-tipped wings to catch the mid-morning sunlight.
We did not know it then, but Guyana’s national bird, the mysterious hoatzin, is the last surviving member of a line that branched off in its own direction 64 million years ago, shortly after the famous extinction event that killed the non-avian dinosaurs and paved the way for mammals. Nestlings still retain sharp wing claws for climbing. The other common name, “stinkbird” is derived from the cow pat odour, caused by the slow fermentation of food in the digestive system, since it has to process a huge amount of foliage for enough energy.
Away from the river, in a clearing behind the banks of dwarf coconut trees, my maternal grandmother or “nani” and grandpa or “nana” had planted decades before and that lasted as far as the eyes could discern, they had built a neat, little white wooden house on precautionary tall posts, with a spotless bottom section that she daubed daily until it gleamed with a silky smooth sheen.
Known as “leepaying,” she plastered from a pail, with a traditional, steaming slurry of hot ashes swept from the glowing fireside, mixed with cattle dung or “gobar” and a special light-coloured, fine particle clay called “sapatay” that was perfect for pottery. The comforting aroma of smoke, grass and earth lingered in the air for hours, so that it overwhelmed our senses on arrival at Regentback, likely a reference to Regentboch/ Regentboek, pronounced “Ritchieback” by my family.
With my grandfather Deo Lall, “Nani” Kowsilla had fled with their seven children to the quiet, remote settlement, during the country’s pre-independence racial disturbances. As the unrest fanned along the East Coast of Demerara and a great uncle lay shot and murdered in one of the burning, looted homes, they and equally terrified others hid out in the forested back areas and miserable mosquito-infested swamps, as the violence and word quickly spread like the fires, prompting widespread panic and exodus. Set on the fertile firm, grey soil termed “Onverwagt” clay, ironically carrying the Dutch word for “Unexpectedly,” the drained land bears names that are testament to tumultuous centuries of a colonial farming legacy, like De Kinderen and Klyzenaat. Regentback is set between Broek en Waterland and Fredrica Johanna.
For instance, Broek in Waterland is in tribute to the old town of the same title, that is part of the municipality of Waterland, North Holland. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was a popular European residence for the merchants and seafarers from nearby Amsterdam, who plied their international trade in the Indies, where they acquired land tracts through the Dutch East India Company, growing crops, mainly sugar cane in this part of the world, with African-slave labour.
Guyana was first colonised by the Dutch in the 1600s, and its flood-prone coastal farmland expanded through an ingenious system of interconnecting drainage dikes and canals, based on techniques copied from the Netherlands. Without any visible area names, we recognised Regentback from the standing koker at the entrance, that regulated the flow of water from and into the Mahaica River.
Stepping into the sudden silence broken by the soft lowing of the cows and the chirping of “Creole” chickens and wild birds, we would hurry along the embankment to the tottering, narrow planks that bridged a small channel crammed with fallen coconuts, besides the house. Later, we helped “nani” collect the nuts for grating and watched as she prepared the transparent oil, unable to finish the large cup of coconut water from the pint-producing prized fresh fruit chopped by our uncles. There, we learnt to patiently fashion cocoyea brooms from the cut branches, sitting for hours on the bare ground, individually stripping by hand, the hard fronds down to the strong spine. We ate the fragrant freshly caught fishes roasted in the evening embers of the fireside on which all the meals were cooked, later scouring dishes with a mix of white ash and coir even as we nervously stood at the edge of giant ponds inhabited by stealthy caimans and dancing ducks, oblivious to the danger.
Often clogged with weeds, the trenches hid a giant anaconda, tasty river bounty like the hassar, “houri,” sunfish, “patwa” and sweet shrimps, supplementing the daily diet of homegrown, organic greens. The excess was sold by “Nani,” a tiny, shrewd and determined dynamo famous for her ability to wring high prices out of her unsuspecting customers. A hunchback who suffered from osteoporosis, she would travel by taxi all the way to the city, clad in one of her immaculately ironed white cotton headdresses of intricate embroidered cut-outs stiff with starch, to walk and hawk her goods from street to street, carrying a large basket in each hand and another perfectly balanced on her head.
During the holiday season she would arrive bearing the fat Muscovy ducks ordered by my father. Usually dashing drakes, the vividly iridescent creatures with reddish carbuncles like over-sized ornaments on their long faces, would sit calmly tethered by a leg outside our back door, not far from our two curious dogs, their flamboyant eyes bright as rare jewels. We young ones would sorrowfully feed them boiled rice grains and vegetarian scraps from the kitchen, until the inevitable slaughter and Boxing Day or New Year feast.
I ended up feeling so guilty about the poor birds, I soon stopped eating duck as a youngster and still cannot stomach it. My family then, like my husband today, would tease me mercilessly about missing out on the delicious dry “bhunjal” curry, created from the newly-ground “masala” of parched spices and select seasonings.
On her farm, superstitious “Nani” remembered to make annual early-morning offerings of food, white rum, tinned tobacco and cigarettes, aware of the historic nature of her Mahaica surroundings, and capricious profession. After she passed from a stroke, her youngest son, hampered by polio and depressed by dwindling earnings, swallowed a common insecticide, in a fateful fit of temper, following a deadly squabble over shared coconuts. He left a young weeping widow, a brood of bewildered toddlers, and the land to the mists and memories that steal in from the winding river.
ID lost the dark green, handblown, antique wine bottle with its unusual, long bulbous neck, retrieved by her grandfather from the deep muddy layers of a clogged canal. For over 50 years, her thrifty “nani” enjoyed it as a vase.
