My Roots
by George Nandan.

Place of my birth over 52 years ago. Before the church, before the shed, there was an old house about 4 feet off the ground. The living room had manicole walls with mud. The kitchen had a tatched roof with dew-grass. I remember because some of my classmates used to wait to see me enter that old house and I my curiosity with matches made me nearly burned the house down. I loved that old house because it was hand-built by my Dad and Mom during the sixties relocating from Jagoo Bagdam. They bought the land after living in Hog Gobin's Cow Pen. Yes my parents and elder siblings lived in a Cow-Pen. That is humble beginnings indeed.

2017: 23 Gov't Lands, South Section, Canal #2 Polder,
West Bank Demerara, Guyana South America.

Many stories were told in that old house bymy Auntie Mali of Enterprise. The poem "Mala the Matriarch" that I wrote that helped me win a Creative Writing award by my college was due to her inspiration. The old house was replaced by the existing building behind in 1976. I used to entertain my sisters and neighbors with my Bollywood renditions. We always had a hammock at our bottom house. The back-half was our kitchen on the first floor with three bedrooms on the second floor. I mistakenly drank kerosene for ice-cream soda but I will write about that another time...lol

My pre-teen and teenage years was spent there. In front of the building Dad had an organic garden before organic gardens became cool. When my nephew Richie was born I used to rock him in our hammock at our bottom house and sing him to sleep. It was difficult times but somehow I achieved two impossible goals of successfully attending GTI and immigrating to America. This place taught me a lot. I had my own organic garden and collected cow-dung by hand on the Dam just to help my plants grow. My Mom had a stall at Stabroak market in Georgetown so during my Freshman year at GTI, I had to help sell vegetables to help my family offset the expenses of attending GTI via the most unreliable transport system ever in Guyana...the Tata buses. My youngest sister Seerie used to accompany me. I had to ignore the inconvenience of being laughed at and there were a few. But despite the odds, this place taught me to never ever give up.

At the back of the house we had a fowl and duck pen. I even had the responsibility of two bulls to take care off. I had with the help but not always, by my two younger sisters Indie and Seerie feed the duck and fowl, take the bulls to the back dam, water the plants by buckets then go to school at Kawall Primary. I am glad for those chores because it taught me some important lessons that sometimes even I take for granted.

Behind the poultry pens, my dad planted some fruits tress, oranges, tangerines, a mamee, mangoes, bling bling, shamrock, etc., and yes I remember a cotton tree as well. Front of the house we had a sour-sap, avocado, etc. he had many squash hanging from the machan (harbors) over the drains in front, same, nenwah, and grammadilla. Dad had a system with his rotating spots of latrines and those fruits tress, even before it became a a popular subject taking the world by storm as Earth Day.

Before the organic harbors at the West side of our house especially and early part of the existing building there were some wild Bead bushes. I saw many types of birds that may not even be documented so far. There were of different types wth different colors just like those beautiful snakes in the Back-dam. You may have read my short story on my blog about being attacked by that beautiful kamakari snake...lol. It is interesting but majestically brilliant with a twist at the end.

My eldest sister Chan had many different types of crotons and I had a bed of zinnias as well, in front of the house. The neighbors would remark that it looks like botanical garden. Where the church building is currently located, Dad and my elder brothers established a Trailer Track all the way to the swamp part of our Backdam. He taught the neighbors how to cultivate sugar as well. On the Trailer Track part from the main gate at our gap leading up our bridge I had the grass neatly trimmed with a 12 inches cut-out. Auntie Parwah our neighbor to the East would tease me that my bride will walk there and indeed she did on our first and only visit to Canal #2 so far.

At the back of the section of fruit trees, the Trailer Track takes a curve for the West side of our land and stood there was a majestic spice mango tree right in the smack middle. During the mango season it was gloriously loaded and my favorite boyhood fruit tree. I would climb all the way to the top, selecting the best, most freshest of mangoes and just eat away to my heart's content, right there on the top of the world or so it seems at the time. I could see over the tops of the mostly two-story houses to Gobin bridge and see among the big boys who is liming and troubling the girls shopping at Cyril Magga shop. Sometimes I see my brother Lull among them and of course I had to gather firewood (his duty) because he prefers to lime and play cricket at Cultural Cricket Club. That tree would sway back and fort with the wind gusts but now I realized I had kept my Guardian Angel busy protecting my adventurous deeds.

I can go on and write many stories but as you know I do have some at georgenandan.blogspot.com

I plan to write at least 100 more and post to my blog. A website coming in the years. You can keep up by checking out my George Nandan -Literary Artist page on Facebook. So you can read them there. My Place of Birth special and nostalgic indeed.

Thank you for reading.