Calypso's Island

Chapter 1 - PARAMIN

Stephanie was lost. She was urban bred and these Paramin hills high above her world were like a mystic nemesis. They were lovely, but not suited to a woman who knew little about being out in nature, or about neighbourly bonds that were as strong as blood.

She couldn't figure this place out. A taxi driver dropped her off directly from the airport, in the lowlands at the base of the hills at the Maraval intersection.

"My car cyah go up dem hills, girl," he said, pointing to a row of old Range Rover jeeps that looked cast from the 1970's. "You need them kind of vehicle. Is only $4 to the top." She took one of the most challenging jeep rides of her life, all the while asking, 'Which way to Josephine's Estate?'

The passengers were kind. Of course they knew Josephine's Estate. "When you get off, make a right and turn left until you bend right again and follow the track past the christophine field and keep walking straight ahead. Can't miss it," a friendly passenger offered.

Just as she got off, the sky cut loose and rain came down. Christophine could have been chive and left could have been down for all she knew. She was soaking and had to find shelter.

She saw a wooden café. They called it a rum shop. She went in and the people praised her with good days and good evenings and please sits downs. She did. It was a cosy assortment of weathered tables and steel chairs. Liquor shone in familiar bottles from behind the bar. Someone strummed a small guitar with four strings, "Is a cuatro, miss" someone said, at her curious glance; a woman sang along. The brassy, rich voice climbed to stunning crescendos and gave her goose bumps. From another corner someone laughed. It was sluggish and joyful. She listened and kept her purse close for comfort, throwing her now useless jacket over her luggage.

She realized that this neighbourhood was like a country unto itself. She heard patois spoken like a soup of languages. She felt hungry for it but could not understand the flavour. The seasoning was in the music and in the way each name was respected, like a bead joined to another bead to yet another. It was an oral history of warmth, identity and roots. Even though the place was alien to her, something seemed to open her awareness with every moment she was there.

She asked for a cup of hot coffee. What she got was strong malt, crude wine, and a mysterious, unlabeled bottle instead. An old man placed it on her table and helped himself to a seat. He urged her to take a drink, free of charge.

"Anything for one of Josephine's great grandchildren. God rest her soul, amen," he said with great respect.

"How did you know that she was my Grandmother?"

He spread his arms to indicate the gathering.

She laughed. A lot of people in the space looked as though they could have been Josephine's progeny. There was a mixture of features pulled together from Europeans, Native Amerindians and West Africans, all culminating in a fair-skinned appearance with full lips and nose. The local term was 'red skin'. She was only one of many. Suddenly it made her feel even more connected.

Then the old man launched into snippets. Snippets got wound into stories and stories to legends.

"Josephine was a generous woman. She real help we when we was down." He gestured to a woman across the bar, for another round of alcohol. "She had a heart of gold, but a tongue of silver." He smiled and poured himself a drink of the unnamed stuff. "Oh she had a smile, especially when she hosted the best Parang parties every Christmas." He poured her a drink of the substance as well and continued. "She sponsored the neighbourhood children at the Kiddies Carnival every year. And if they needed books or clothes for school she would make sure they had. Plenty people from here get educate because of she." He gestured and knocked glasses with Stephanie. "I praying for real blessings for her to pass to the ancestors," he said then he sipped.