< Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >
Locket # 6
Young, naive and a bit idealistic is how I arrived in Guyana, excited to be
chosen to work with other volunteers helping struggling nations (in the
case of Guyana an ex-colony. I was assigned to a secondary school in the
Canal District and quickly succumbed to the landscape ̶ the luminous
mornings, crossing the river, sandals, foot paths, the breeze on my skin;
night time insect noise and total dark.
At the school I endeavored to teach Shakespeare to the girls and boys,
really wonderful children; lives of pure hopefulness amidst the cane fields
(which still look like venues of joyless labour). They came neatly dressed,
in colourful uniforms, to classrooms with limited resources.
[I should tell you I met someone there, Miss Hempell, who had been
teaching in the district for years. An avid book-reader, she had read "The
Second Sex" by Simone De Beauvoir.
This a book I had heard of, but had never got around to reading. She
offered to lend me her copy if I promised to return it. She didn't have much
to say about it. I couldn't tell what it did for Miss Hempell except to keep
her tight-bodied and unmarried, strands of grey hair bristling through her
braids. Much respected, though, and fondly spoken of by students and
parents in the district.]
Anyway, I introduced my students, first, to "Romeo and Juliet". They had
heard of Shakespeare but had never read any of his plays. I pirate-copied
scenes from the play. I tried to get them thinking about the issues facing
the two lovers.
We talked about Juliet's suicide plan. (I found out too late that death by
poisoning is a rather delicate subject in the District. Suicide comes close
to what I'm sure they think about but rarely "discuss".) In general they
were not too forthcoming. Good virtues on the surface, with watchful if
not always focused eyes.
I tried next to get them excited about writing. I made them start a
"journal" in their exercise books, putting down their thoughts and feelings.
Find a place, I told them, a quiet place, in the cane fields (look out for
snakes!), along the canals; take a cycle ride to the nearest sea front (they
seemed rather amused by these suggestions). I told them to write about
their dreams, what worries them about the world.
One student who was proficient at this (and whom I grew very fond of) was
Yasmin Deodat. Here, for instance, is what she said to me:
I work hard. I study hard. At home they are happy when you tell them how
well I am doing. They think that with you as my teacher I will be the best
in the class, and one day the best at anything in the world. I will go places
and make them proud. There are things I do not talk to my mother about.
Like what is happening to my body. I am slender, no hips. My breasts don't
want to grow larger. I would like someone to take me seriously, caress me,
tell me I am desirable. I want to know how I will be desired ̶ will I be
cradled? mauled? plucked like a flower?
Unusual? To say the least. That Yasmin would put that down and fold it
away seemed unusual.
The day before I left for home, a group of students came with a farewell
gift: their exercise books, wrapped and tied neatly with pink ribbon;
containing their schoolgirl fears and fantasies. "If we kept them someone
might find them, then we'd be embarrassed, Miss," they told me. A bit
overwhelming, I must say.
We made a pact, students and teacher forever friends. I promised I'd keep
the journals. Years later when they were happily married I'd come back to
Canal District (I don't know why I assumed they would all still be there).
We'd relive the follies of those innocent years; shrieks and giggles!
** **
I heard nothing from anyone until a message came through from Margaret,
my replacement in Canal District, saying that Yasmin had disappeared. Off
the face of the earth. It sounded far-fetched. Canal District isn't the sort
of place you disappear off.
Some of the girls were known to gravitate toward overly friendly male
teachers, neatly dressed, bush goat nibblers, if you ask me. Yasmin could
have run away, to Suriname (which is next door to Guyana). Certainly not
off the face of the earth. Feet too timid for that range of possibility, I
thought.
Naturally I reached for Yasmin's exercise book. I discovered it was now a
top secret document, with passages blacked out, "redacted", as they say.
Each section, clearly dated, began with the same wistful line (from
"Romeo and Juliet", I realized) "If love be rough with you, be rough with
love." She wanted me to look inside her soul; she would not, however,
reveal every stitch of contemplation.
There is this about her mother sending her to spend a weekend with an
uncle in Georgetown. He's a pastor of a Presbyterian Church in town. One
morning she wakes up and sees him through a bedroom door getting
dressed:
Maybe they forgot for a moment there was a relative in the house. I had
not slept well, the bed was so strange. His children were fast asleep. I
saw him standing naked, his back toward me, like a boy getting dressed
by his mother. But that mother was my aunt, she sat on the bed, she
dried his body with a towel. I didn't want them to catch me staring. I
must have stood there for eternity, and in that time she dropped the
towel, leaned forward, and seemed to concentrate on his crotch, moving
her head [lines crossed out; then:]
What kind of church leader is Uncle Ram? What sort of boy grows up to
be a man wanting devotions like that in the morning from a woman? I
don't know if my mother does this with Pa. [lines blacked out] These are
not the fireflies I want in my head.
I turned the next page and the next. Here's a section where her mother
takes her to Georgetown to visit the same uncle, hospitalized on account
of a chest complaint. She avoided looking at him, she said, refused to bow
her head when they said a prayer. At the hospital entrance she turned
back, went up to his room, surprising him; she came close to his bed, and
whispered in his ear:
I know what you are. You are being punished. You should learn to live like
a man. Stop making people kneel and pray; grow up, and stop making
Auntie dry your skin and do head swell things for you in the morning.
You're probably wondering why I am telling you all this; why I have gone to
all this trouble to reveal what was intended as private (dare I say intimate)
disclosure. I don't mean to expose Yasmin, nor to accuse or blame anybody.
For young women in that land of old cane love is without meaning. The
green fades, the fields get flattened; child to mother to grandmother are
bonded about, sown or bored to death. And true love saves its breath, I'm
certain avid Beauvoir reader Miss Hempell would testify.
I should tell you, as an endnote, that I did receive a postcard from Yasmin,
its source Venezuela (so at least she wasn't "abducted"). It said : I am here
because I found a way over the wall, and a waterway that brought me here.
I'm not sure know what to make of that. It continued (lines plucked from
Romeo and Juliet), "If in thy wisdom thou can give no help, do thou but call
my resolution wise."
Well, so far I have respected Jasmine's "resolution". I don't think I've betrayed
her in any terrible snitchy way. While the whole of Canal District and the
country might still be searching for her ̶ consumed with fear and conjecture,
wanting her back where she belongs ̶ I would like to think she is doing just
fine.
She must have realized that keeping journals and secrets, with parents and
uncles and teachers all around, were the baby steps to the edge of the
spring board. The pounding heart, the start of new life, now I think she
knows.
I'll clear space in my room in case one day her "waterway" directs her to my
door (unless there's someone else she's listening to). Trust is so elusive. I
just hope she gets this right.
Penny Nobbs
Essex, England.
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 