OH! P.S. My friend Sher did a beautiful post on this(the photo shoot), describing St. George's and the route to get there in a very picturesque way.. So if you're local and feel like having a quiet reminder about where we live
check it out... and if you're tourist, check her blog out as she paints a beautiful picture with her words.
And for you conservationists...how many of you actually regarded that tree in Willis with great reverence. I never did much follow up on it. I know, I know, I'm a horrible local. However, I heard the residents of the area were complaining about it being an eye sore and then it collapsed. Why is it everything ancient, old, vintage, traditional, historic is an eye sore and needs to be done away with but traditional values which we're clinging onto as a nation that don't work anymore we don't want to let go of?
Jamaica had their silk cotton tree that was one of their tourist attraction (
Tom Cringle's Cotton Tree I believe). Guyana had their silk cotton tree that could not be cut down to build a road so they had to build
around the tree in Perseverance on the East Coast. As Caribbean territories there's so much folklore surrounding everything that's ancient and old. I remember my mom used to tell me stories about Guyana and that the reason why the trees are so hard to cut down is because the Dutch plantation owners would bury their overseers or someone alive
with their money and treasures to protect it. As a result, the spirits linger around the tree. I love telling the story about the tree in Guyana because I like that kind of stupidness/folklore. I like no better fun. She, my mom, even went on to say that long after every time someone would try to cut down the tree, that was in the middle of the road, they would die in the process or soon after and the
one time they got a cut in, the tree bled blood. Hence, they built around the tree. Heck, I would build around it too. The original tree fell and a seedling grew back in its place...Mom also said the folklore with silk cotton trees is that you walk by them at night because of all the spirits lingering...
Sher was telling me the folklore is similar here. She knows the local tale as don't walk past at noon nor midnight or else 'booboo gon grab you.' She outlines the tale pretty well... and even if you've never seen the tree I
do encourage you to check out her post because it's so well written you can feel looming presence of the tree and the heat of the midday sun as she describes walking past it.
The depressing story is... the tree is no longer there. Funny story is, she said locally, because of all the folklore it's hard to find someone willing to cut down a silk cotton tree. The irony is, they cut it. Not all the way down because "the tree supports the road." I don't know... they weren't thinking that all the time? They could've trimmed it or something. What if the tree dies now and collapses? Then self its real problems in camp.
And
aside from that. It was a landmark.
...And when we did [the passing bus], almost like slow motion, i say almost because it was never slow enough, i took it all in, how thick the trunk was, how wrinkled and just how deep set those wrinkled WERE. I marveled at how high it stood, how far back it leaned like a tired but accomplished grandmother in her easy chair, sitting on her stoop, watching the neighborhood children walk past, their hands tightly clasped in their parents hands...remembering effortlessly when their parents were kids and their grandparents were parents....
...I breathed in the air that surrounded it and wondered, like I’d always wondered. What was the air like in this spot 200 years ago? Who stood at the base of this tree 200 years ago? Was it a slave hating it for what it stood for? Or one appreciating it for it’s merciful shade and lack of judgment? Who stood here 100 years ago? Was it a young couple courting? Was it a teacher and his or her students trying to escape the heat of the classroom? Who stood here 50 years ago? Who was she? Who was he? What did they think of this tree? Or more importantly…what did the tree think of them? Did it smile down at them? Resent them? What had it seen? So so much it must have seen!
I concur. Imagine how many stood before the same tree admiring it throughout history? The same tree we can't cut down fast enough.
C'est tout.
Enjoy.
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It's Wednesday. You know what that means? Friday is two nights away.
***
Now a Facebook friend of mine runs a website called
"Ghetto Police" and "
No Way Girl". Today he's just on a.... I can't think of a word to describe it but he's updating his statuses almost every 5 minutes. However, despite the frequency of his name in my newsfeed and the crudeness of what he has to say - it makes sense. Another friend of mine, Jamal, made me add him as a friend because he felt it would be an educational experience for me. (lol) And that I'd learn a lot about relationships and stuff. Bleh, I think he just says things I already know but forget. But nuntheless, it comes up so random that it's entertaining if nothing else.
So like I've been complaining to my friend about some of the stuff Nick posts recently because it seems like he's become more raw in his approach... But for the most part, I think he makes some sense. I don't agree with the harshness - but as my dad always says, sometimes you need to deliver a little shock treatment to get a proper reaction.
He is right when he says that "positive advice" isn't really working. His main peeves revolve around the direction society is going in. He speaks constantly about the gully and gaza kings and queens. Mind you, I myself was in such a situation recently lamenting over that.
I had bounced into a young girl about 18-19 years old and on her Facebook profile she has, like many other females, an album called "Gaza Queen" in which she posts pictures of herself. I remember it fondly because I complained to everyone willing to listen to me, boyfriend included. I mean, how could any self-respecting female refer to themselves seriously not as a joke but seriously as a Gully or Gaza princess/queen? *perks eyebrow* Currently, the new epidemic is everyone is a Barbie, following the whole Nicki Minaj trend.
I'm in Grenada, I have many of my ex-students and their friends on one of my Facebook profiles and you can bet that somewhere in the midst of their names are "Barbie" or "Diva." Is that what we all want to be when we grow up? Party to materialistic American pop culture?
As for the men, I really don't get the whole "I'm a gangsta" thing. Every time I get a friend request, I check through profile pictures. Should I encounter an album entitled gaza or gully, photos of guns, you throwing up gang signs, your chances of being added get halved. None of this is "cool."
Just the other day I was having a similar discussion with my mom. We were talking about men and women today and how they behave. I was telling her that I think the problem greatly weighs upon the female because the men are only doing what works to get the girl. A lot of young women have created a situation whereby men don't have to really be respectable with their approach, they don't have to value the relationship, they don't really have to do anything.... Because not enough females seem to respect themselves enough to say - Hell to the NO! Reel and come again..!
Following are Nick's direct statuses with minor censorship. Check his websites out. He knocks females a lot, but as he said in one of his statuses, he's a guy so his focus is primarily on women. It's up to the women to set the record straight with expectations from men.
Word.
Mind you, as I said before, he speaks pretty raw. His threads run pretty long so I only screen shot the first couple posts. One of them went up to 38 posts in commentary. But really, he makes sense. The sad part is, he's writing from a Bahamian perspective but what he says I think is pretty much true for the whole Caribbean region. Everyone thinks it's cool to be gangsta and ghetto... And those who don't think it's cool to be gangsta think its cool to be a barbie or a diva or caught up in some other brand name culture be it Gucci or Dior...whatever. No one is aspiring to be the next Bill Gates or create some positive musical revolution or launch some brilliant idea that would actually help society. Nope. Aspiring gaza and gullys.
What do you think?
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