< Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >
Locket # 30:
Stay with me with this.
They sent me to Canal District to interview an old lady, said to be the oldest
living person in the District. Mrs. DeGroot.
At first, she wasn’t very cooperative. She didn’t read our newspaper. She
heard standards had fallen from back in her days. They published stories
about our villages making them look like nice “havens”, with pictures of
half-naked children “who should be in school”, instead they fishing in streams
or swinging in old tree tyres.
I had to be patient with her.
She told me she was born in Essequibo, not Canal District. She spent most of
her life there before moving eventually to be close to her daughter. If I
wanted a good story I should go to Essequibo, to the village of Vlaaderen.
There used to be a plantation there, Plantation Vlaaderen. I should look for
a Silk Cotton tree. It should still be standing. Ask for Pastor Gravesande’s
church. It was built years back by Pastor Gravesande. It might still be there.
The newspaper editor was annoyed I came back with nothing. Almost fired
me. I told him I wasn't a fairy tale teller. Maybe we could do something
different and better, like a research article. About an old Dutch plantation,
an old church, a pastor named Gravesande. The old lady was the longest living
church member. He dismissed the idea.
That weekend I went to the library, read as much as I could find about old
Dutch plantations. The following weekend I traveled to Essequibo. It was my
first journey so far outside Georgetown.
Nobody on the ferry stelling knew about the church, but I found the silk
cotton tree. I reasoned the church was somewhere nearby, so I wandered
around until I came across a crumbling structure that might have been a
church.
Weeds and overgrown grass everywhere, and what looked like a narrow stony
path to the church door.
I took pictures of the cotton tree and the old building.
The next time I was in Canal District ‒ they sent me there to find another
village named Fairfield, waiting for fairy tale; with more coconut trees than
the dozen or so families living there ‒ I stopped by the old lady. “Eh eh, you
again.”
I whipped out the phone and showed her the pictures. She got very excited
and really opened up. One long story, a little family drama. I saved it all in
my head.
So here’s a short version of what Mrs. DeGroot now residing in Canal District
told me about Pastor Gravesande and his church.
*
Starting with this fellow from Holland ‒ the old lady doesn’t remember his
name ‒ who shows up on the Essequibo coast, this is some time back in the
70s, asking the whereabouts of a Gravesande family. The only Gravesande in
the area lived with his wife just past the silk cotton tree.
He finds the man, informs him he had come all this way with wonderful news
His great great grandfather died long ago, he said, and left a small fortune
and a Bible, with instructions that some of it should go to the Gravesandes in
Guiana. It seemed an eccentric request. It was ignored for generations. But
he was here now to fulfill the request.
Mr. Gravesande should use the first installment of money to build a church
and establish the word of God, through faith and good deeds among the
villagers.
This is how, with no further questions, Mr. Gravesande accepted his
“inheritance”, built his church and became Pastor Gravesande. He called it
the paradise on earth.
People were mystified at first. The bush clearing, then out of nowhere a
simple timber structure going up; a roof, three concrete front steps, a side
entrance, windows; inside benches like pews.
The church had no choir. Pastor Gravesande led the gathering in clapping
happy songs. He hired a man, Mr. Josiah, to put up a fence, keep the grass
trimmed, do building repairs.
The doors were open during the week in case anyone wanted to come in and
“talk”, in silence to the Lord or to the pastor, about anything. Mostly mothers
dropped by, now and then young people sent by their parents.
He read a great deal, mainly the Bible. He used it like a prescription book. He
listened to you, then he opened the Bible and found a passage which he
applied like answers to your worries. No beardman prophecy pointing at the
world. He became their day to day life fortifier.
“He showed me answers in the Book of Psalms,” Mrs. DeGroot said. “The
mischief they cause shall return on their heads. Psalms 7-16.”
He had these gatherings for celebration, like birthdays or holidays. If the
weather was fine they’d set up a table outside. People brought cakes, home-
made drinks, fruits. It was a picnic atmosphere, the children running around,
called after and given warnings. The men who came played dominos and
wanted the pastor to send for a little alcohol.
The Dutchman came back and was surprised at what he saw. The building,
the front lawn; but no Lutheran Church name, no steeple. He was impressed
with the open door consultation, and the Pastor Gravesande’s knowledge
of the Bible.
And though he couldn’t stay to observe a Sunday service, he released the
second half of the Gravesande inheritance, and encouraged the pastor to
keep spreading God’s word.
And for the next twenty years the pastor did exactly that.
"I used to admire his children,” Mrs. DeGroot said. “When they were young,
he had them sitting in the front row, well-dressed, quiet and obedient. Their
mother always close by, smiling and greeting everyone."
Pastor G was not bad father, she said. A hard man to please, yes, but he kept
them in line, the three boys and the girl.
Bound to the paradise, they came straight home from school, didn’t wander
around the village. He made them feel different from other children. He
taught them how to measure a day’s work
And by way of grounding their minds he made them pay attention to
everything in the paradise, every plant, insect, fruit; every illness and cure;
every tree leaf and natural occurrence. If there was no name for it, he
identified the behavior and made a label for it.
Where are they now? “They all moved away. The girl went to Surinam, met
some fellow who took her to Holland. She’s doing okay. The boys in the
United States. They came back to take their mother away.”
She was disappointed, she said, how the children cast aside their father.
Cast aside? I was wondering at what stage the children would realize there
were horizons beyond the paradise. Was there a point the lids started rattling
on the pots?
So they came back for the mother. Did she ask them to take her away?
It seems the pastor had a stroke. Then he announced the stroke was over.
He tried to carry on but he was not the same man.
Gaunt and irritable he refused to accept what was happening to him,
insisting he could manage on his own. And spreading word now that the
Dutchman who came to him years ago was sent by God.
Bit by bit church activity faltered, then fell away. The bush and vegetation
held at bay all these years crept forward. People claiming they knew the
parson before the church business denounced him as a smartman, who only
there robbing people of precious time.
The children came back to bury him, all grown up, with children of their own.
“If you search at the back of the old building you might find his gravestone,”
Mrs. DeGroot said.
I had no intention of going back to Vlaaderen.
I know we can’t choose the paradise we’re born into. I keep wondering what
it felt like growing up there; what path the children followed out of the
paradise; what knowledge they took with them on their flight; how it feels
being elsewhere.
Paul Peters
Georgetown, Guyana
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 