In Grenada, we refer to coconut as jelly; we even call the liquid inside the coconut jelly water. Apart from the flesh found inside the coconut, there's nothing else that is jelly-like but I have no idea why this entire fruit is referred to as jelly.
Earlier today, Kenny went to get his morning dose of coconut water
and I asked if I could get a drink too. I handed him a cup and not long after he came back with the cup full of water. As I sat on the step and sipped my coconut water from the cup and watched as my boyfriend worked hard to let the cutlass cut the skin of the coconut, it finally hit me - what kind of madness was I engaging in?
What kind of inside house country girl was I? Since when does a country girl from Grenada sit on a step and sip coconut water from a cup. I don't know who I was trying to fool, maybe it was myself, but it definitely was not working. I went into my room and geared up for the battle I was about to fight. I was about to enter into a war zone between my skin and the sandflies that frequently terrorized us on this part of the island.
But this time, I came prepared. I douched my skin in Odomos, put on my socks and a very long pants and my shoes and headed out the backdoor. I have lived too long in St. Clouds to underestimate the madness sandflies brought. Their bites left a different kind of sting, the kind that was worse than mosquitoes. It was a kind of burn that made you want to tear off the top layer of your skin and find that stinger lodged in your body.
As I stepped out into my backyard, I admired the trees; although it looked a lot like a jungle, I remembered the amount of fun my sister and I had while we played in the backyard when we were younger. My father hooked up a swing on the cashew tree and we used to pick the cashew and take turns on the swing.
I looked around and I saw the pen where we once had chickens and goats and the small cage where my brother used to care for his rabbits. The coconut tree was growing not too far away from where the carambola tree once was. I stood for a minute and remembered the last time I vowed to never come to the backyard again.
I was about ten years old and a friend of my mother came to visit. She brought along her two daughters and we decided we would go to climb the trees in the backyard. Mind you, I was not much of a tree climber because my parents always wanted me safe and sound inside. However, I could not allow strangers to come to my home and climb trees higher than me! So I started climbing looking for Carambolas (commonly known as 'Star Fruits' or five fingers as we call them here). I was going up and up and up (scared for my life of course) but I kept climbing.
"Allu look ah bird ness!" I said to my new friends as their eyes lightened up with excitement
"Take ah egg fa me!" One of the sisters shouted
I went higher again trying my hardest not to look down at how far away the ground was from me. I reached towards the nest - I kept reaching and reaching until my hands were close enough to put my finger inside to feel around from the eggs. I was about to push my hands in completely when I noticed this beautiful orange colour inside the nest. Da muss be one nice bird egg, eh! I thought to myself. That was until the bird egg moved.
"Is ah serpent allu! Is ah serpent da dey inside de ness!"
The girls were screaming their lungs out and I was rushing to get down. I didn't care about looking down anymore - in fact, looking down as I made my way down the five finger tree meant that I could see how close I was to getting off that tree!
But could you believe after all that fear we couldn't leave the snake alone in peace? One of the girls decided that we would kill it in the most unorthodox way. One of us would jook it down, the other would spray it with Baygon and the other person would set it a fire, and that, my friends, is exactly what we did. The snake slithered and hissed at us but eventually met an untimely death as the Baygon (being a flammable substance) was introduced to fire as I struck the match. The flames torched his body and he scorched until he slithered away in the bushes to eventually die. (I guess my parents will be first hearing about this story when they read this blog.)
Kenny handed me the coconut water and I snapped out of my nostalgia. As the water touched my lips and gushed down my chin, it somehow took me right back to the past as I remembered my brother picking coconuts for my sister and me. I also remembered the task we had of trying to drink the coconut water before the sandflies started drawing blood. Slurp slurp. Slap slap. Slurp slurp. Slap Slap. I could still hear the sound of my mother calling out to Abbee and Amy trying to figure out where her girl children were.
I watched as Mr. Kenny drained the water from the coconut and proceeded to cut it open to participate in devouring the fleshy inside. He pulled a silver spoon out of his pocket scooping out the inside. But who does do dat self?
"Kenny, what you doing with that spoon? You're suppose to make a spoon from the coconut skin!"
"Yeah," this crazy young man said, "that's when you bouje but you (from the) country." 😂😂
We laughed as our stomachs were so full from drinking all the coconuts and eating all the jelly; there was no room from lunch as yet. You telling me about the sweetness of that refreshing coconut?
He's enjoying his vacation and I'm enjoying my time at home. But, I guess it will be a little harder than I anticipated to leave home after my vacation ends. Hopefully things don't change too much when I return at the end of the upcoming semester in mango season.
**Inside person - someone who spends most of his/ her time indoors.
**Serpent - the Grenadian description of a snake. Although it is not proven, Grenadians believe that there is an underlining difference between a serpent and a snake. Serpents are referred to as the ones which are larger and slow. Snakes, on the other hand, are the ones which are swift and slither away quickly when spotted by humans.
**Jook - to poke
**Bouje - shortened form of the word Bourgeoisie referring to persons from higher social classes
No comments:
Post a Comment