These mini travelogues are the result of an exercise I once tried; writing one hundred words a day for one hundred days, the point being to gain discipline and economy with the written word. Once started, it became addictive. A terse sort of prose is the usual result; in which one tries capturing the essence of time and place. Although I may have been a little liberal with the facts in some, it’s only to better express the spirit of the experience. Some over the one hundred word parameter have been added, just for mischief. Maybe you’d care to count?
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Wending up wide rivers, lined with thick tropical jungle; forest greens, blue sky, white clouds and brown water fill our world. Majestic KanKan trees, sacred guardians of those who live here spread their stately limbs, silent sentinels; secret witnesses to our coming. Sounds of the forest cacophonous, even over the roar of the boat’s motor, fill the air and surprise with their intensity. Slowly one realizes even from the relative safety of the boat just how desperate those runaway slaves who first ventured here must have been to escape their tormenters and risk the dangers of this wild untamed place. |
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Down at the river, on the broad flat parts of those big black rocks one finds them doing their daily chores; washing clothes, dishes, even fishing for their families’ dinner. They bath babies and dripping wet still they strap them onto their backs again. The older women are usually topless; their sagging breasts swinging low, nipples long and elongated from years of suckling children. Even the younger girls are frequently naked from the waist up, their pert breasts glistening wetly as they bath and wash their hair, laughing, gossiping. Amongst them one sees the occasional, slightly swishy young male, helping. |
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Sited on the west banks of the river Sarammaca, the village of YaoYao is built on high flat land and nestles under mature shady trees. The largest sets of rapids on the river, infamous for their treachery begin their ascent from this bluff and slow any traffic traveling upstream. Broad dark boulders, washed smooth by the eons cluster at the bluff on the YaoYao side forming fishing platforms, public bath, kitchen and laundry all in one. Sandy beaches either side provide perfect sites for landing and trading. The guest’s compound; mostly thatched huts, is on a small promontory overlooking all.
Village houses, YauYau |
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We sat there under the spreading shade of trees on the river’s banks, above YaoYao’s swimming holes and the rocks that form that platform from which all village life is launched, whiling away the late afternoon. As the sun dipped low across the forest on the opposite bank the sound of toads could be heard. Not the gentle ribbet of frogs but wild belly calls of lust filled giant males; aggressive in their prime. When the light faded they began to hop all over the place, a veritable plague of big brown warty monsters sending a shiver down one’s spine. |
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GATEWAYS AND VILLAGE GUARDIANS |
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As the canoe makes its way up stream they slip into view; two spindly poles, vines strung between them, signifying the official entrance to a village situated out of sight about the river’s banks. Climbing up the rough broad dusty track there is a definite sense of arrival. At a turn in the track is a little fenced attap shack perhaps a metre high; home to the village’s guardian spirits, here to ward off those who would enter with ill intent. Empty bottles of local hooch lie scattered about, the whole scene un-swept and unkempt or so it would appear. |
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Travelogue