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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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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He came alone to the men’s pool, hobbling along with the aide of a forest pole polished bare by years of his use. Wrinkled, white locks now balding and wispy; white stubble outlined his chin. He wore a simple cotton cloth, barely big enough to cover his feeble loins. The young lords deferred to him and moved aside to allow him into the most accessible pool; they did not demean his independence or dignity with offers of unneeded or un-requested help. He enjoyed his bath and refreshed; his meager cloth wrapped once more about his waist, returned to the village.
River life, YauYau |
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AND THE RIVER LORDS BATHE |
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They come mid-afternoon in their ones and twos until there is a small group of them. They bathe first, soaping every part of their glistening, lithesome bodies, vigorously shampooing hair; tenderly scrubbing one another’s backs, rinsing away all suds. They relax, lounging about with nothing more urgent to do than swap gossip about the girls they court and their prowess in hunting. Here men hunt and clear the forest, all other work is done by women. For more than three hundred years young lords like these have come daily, like jungle panthers, to bathe and loll about on this river. |
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Travelogue