BEFORE I START TALKING ’bout what I really want tuh talk ’bout this week, let me say how very glad I am dat the Cuban Government has changed its mind and decided tuh take back one of its people, Raul Garcia.
I ain’t telling you nuh lie. I could not get dat thing ’bout dem not taking back one o’ their very own people who might have done something wrong outside o’ dem country and was being deported.
The truth is, he might have been living in the United States fuh a very long time but Cuba got tuh understand dat sending back somebody tuh where duh born or come from ain’t nutten new nowadays; duh only got tuh look at the amount o’ people dat the Americans sending back tuh the Caribbean evah single month.
I was reading there in the papers the other day how the Americans sending back people tuh Jamaica in duh droves. I think the story say something like
75 deportees a month. You know wha’ is 75 men wid criminal minds coming back in tuh a country every single month or so? And nuh matter how hard it is pon the country and how much duh complain, it ain’t seem tuh be making nuh kinda difference tuh the country dat sending duh long back. Dat ain’t easy at all but Garcia is only one body.
But tuh get tuh what I really want tuh talk ’bout, the other day I read in the papers, somebody, I think it was Keith Laurie, saying dat Barbados got more bush than in the 1950s.
Well, I cahn say he wrong or dat I doan agree wid he but fuh the way how things going nowadays wid the lot o’ rain, if ya mind ya’self ya would be paying tuh get bush cut down evah single day.
Now, doan get me wrong, I ain’t saying dat people should not cut down the bush around dem ’cause it does look terrible when you see the lot o’ vines and grass growing and covering up the whole place. But it does take money tuh get the lot’ o’ bush cut down, hear? And wid the amount o’ rain dat pelting down day after day, ya cahn seem tuh catch up – neither wid the bush nor the money tuh get it cut down.
Let me tell you something: between the bush and the lot o’ other bills, especially the electric bill, if you doan mind, you would be going out day after day come rain or shine, wukking like a Joe Heap mare, and evah single cent would be going in the bills and the bush.
Well, the supermarket bill ain’t even nuh where in there, I tell ya, dat is a different kinda bill all together. (Sigh!)
Right now where I live full o’ bush and grass ’cause I gine tell you, nothing doan grow as fast as bush or grass. One time I used tuh be in my garden morning and evening, picking out the weeds and grass dat keep coming up; and I used tuh be wetting all the time tuh get my plants tuh grow, but you see this thing called rain? From the time it start tuh fall, you could forget the picking, unless you got the time and the help tuh keep not only picking now but pulling the grass.
I ain’t gine tell you nuh lie: I hate tuh turn in tuh my driveway when the evening come and see the amount o’ grass all round my place; sometimes I does stop and ask myself where the France I gine get the money from tuh pay somebody tuh get all of it cut down. Ya see, the taller it is, the more money it is and evah day dat you think the sun gine shine so it would be dry enough tuh cut, the rain does come down again and it does get thicker. So here we go again, the more bush and grass, the more money fuh the body who got tuh cut it down.
Mr Laurie, boy, I ain’t mind getting the lot o’ grass round me cut down and cleaning up my place but boy, the money tuh get it clean up all the time so got my poor head hurting muh. When I think ’bout the money the man gine charge me tuh cut it, another set o’ my hair roots does turn greyer.
• Mavis Beckles was born and raised in The Orleans. She has an opinion on everything.
