Saturday, October 24, 2009
Paying homage to my grandparents and the countryside
Dr Emanuel Finn
Moon light nights in the countryside were my favorite. It was a time of great fun and bonding with the other kids. We would play games late into the night when the moon was at its brightest. Sometimes we would listen attentively, intensely and with a great deal of apprehension when a village elder would relate scary and freighting stories of jumbies, 'Lajabless, Loogahwoos and soukouyans’ and creatures of the late dark night who were up to no good.
Even though we lived short distances, we had to be escorted home for fear that one of these headless or six-headed jumbies or a big blonde white woman who had one normal leg and one horse leg (lajabless) would be waiting at our doorsteps and would take us to the deep dark mountain never to be seen or heard from again.
The possibility of being captured by a jumbie was ‘real’ as there was no electricity in the village. Besides this negative and in retrospect, who needed electricity during these fun filled nights anyway? There was the clean air and night sky with the harvest moon light draping the hills and freshly planted fields and treetops, where life cycled in and out, day by day and year after year.
For my grandparents, country life was not a mission, lifestyle choice hiking or camping trips like the ones I enjoy in the nearby Pennsylvania Mountains. Their lives, existence and daily beings certainly did not make a statement about higher socio-economic class; it was just plain, pure and simple country life where respect, hard work, honesty, integrity and a belief in God and community mattered more than anything else.
Their home was certainly not a white mansion with a perimeter picket fence with a pristine and sprawling lawn. It was a simple wooden house in the La Plaine valley where the rules of the game of life were taught.
It was where they were born and raised, worked hard, made little money, and raised their children, grand and great grand children. It was where their names were finally called by their creator and they departed for everlasting rest in a new home far beyond the blue yonder. Their final departures at 89 and 91 years (in 1989 and 1991) were a celebration of life with melodies of good times which still resonate with me almost every day.
The melodies, meanings, and underlying themes of the music of the country side deals with humanity, humility, love, hard times, struggle, pride and compassion and ultimate victory. These songs gave and give life to our souls and 'soul' to our lives. These songs define and outline the simple and complex multi-stories and potential of rural folks once given the opportunity.
The melodies and lyrics sustained and gave us hope and convey in compelling ways our greatest strengths and acknowledge our weaknesses, fears and shortcomings in honorable and dignified ways. The music sends the powerful message that whatever our current or past social class standings, education level, political and religious affiliations, each of us has an inalienable right to be a full respected and dignified Dominican citizen.
I agree with the late Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere,'Life in the big city is duty’. Mr. Nyerere was educated at Oxford and led his country to independence. After retiring from the presidency, he left the Tanzanian capital Dar- es Salem and returned to his ancestral village in the Kilimanjaro Mountains tending his crops.
For me, the countryside was a chance to taste life before it got complicated, calibrated, competitive, sophisticated, crowded and franchised.
It was a place where hope and confidence in the future flourished and children were encouraged to dream of bigger and better things while being allowed to be children. I try to instill the story of my humble but happy upbringing to my two girls who are growing up in very different circumstances in Washington DC.
I try speaking as much patois as I can to them but I am often met with resistance as their French Immersion classes and French speaking friends intercept my plans of originality and creativity. My oldest daughter asked me recently why Patois does not have a grammar.
She is eight years and I rather wait to provide her with details that Patois was the language of the peasantry and slavery and imposed by the European Plantocracy. For now I just say it is the Mother Tounge of our home handled down from generation to generation.
But she and her and her six (6) year old sister are intrigued by my stories of the countryside. They often ask me after their bedtime stories to tell them a story about life back in the day in La Plaine.
I never miss the opportunity to tell them that their names honor the country side. Our first daughter’s name is Sari in honour of the beautiful and majestic Sari-Sari falls and river where I learned to swim, socialize and fished and where my older sisters, cousins and grandmother washed our clothes.
Our second daughter Alanna was named in honour of my grandfather and great grandfather. Papa Burton Allan who was born at the turn of the last century and until his death in 1991 was the oral historian of the south east. After his burial service, I took his Certificate of Appreciation which was awarded by the 1988 Reunion Community for his contributions to history in La Plaine.
Two pictures which proudly hang on my office wall are that of my maternal and paternal grandparents. My paternal grandparents lived in Jalousie, Castle Bruce and I remembered the times my sister and I visited them until they too went ‘home’.
Papa’s father Serrant Allan was part of the team headed by parish catholic priest 'Pere’ Countrier in 1893 which unsuccessfully tried to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Commander C.E Bailey of the Royal Marines and colonial governor Hayes Smith during an impasse which lead to the bloody and deadly La Plaine land tax riots (uprising) on a hillside overlooking the Sari- Sari river at Cas O’ Gowrie.
I relate that story with dignity to them because 116 years ago Mr. Pierre Colaire and his band of unarmed and determined peasants fought for their dignity and that of generations that would follow including theirs. As my friend and high school mate Dr. Irving Eipaugh Pascal would say, ‘May the spirits of our ancestors be pleased’.
I have always rejected and resented the fact that single assumptions are made by people who have an ariel, panoramic, limited, bias and distanced view of country folks. These historical single assumptions and attitudes point that rural folks are backward. It is true that rural is often a euphemism for poverty and rural dwellers.
But poverty in the country side has its roots in the colonial, large estate and poor educational systems and the historical policy and institutional restraints that they have been imposed on country folks. The La Plaine Tax Riots is one example where a group of villagers from one of the poorest districts could not see themsleves taxed again by the colonial government.
Rural populations have always been politically divided and taken for granted by politicians and bureaucrats making it much easier to be disrespected and dismissed. In addition, government policies and investments in poverty reduction and sustainable development have always tended to favour urban over rural areas.
Despite these facts, for me the countryside will always be a place and time rich in community spirit, support, love, caring, compassion and character. A place where leadership responsibilities were taken honestly and seriously and took many different forms and definitions. I am certain that whatever good qualities I can rightfully claim were shaped in no small measure, by that simpler place and time.
Therefore, the tools of history should be used to relate and put in context the story of Dominica's journey and that of its people, to our children and future generations.
Our children should be encouraged to spend more time in the countryside in order to further understand who they are, where they came from and what is required of them and provide more perspective in a fast changing, destructive and decadent world.
Hopefully our children and their children will embrace, be proud and develop a deep, true and lasting romance with real country life or what is left of it.
As I reflect on life almost three decades after residing outside of Dominica, I am of the realization that in order to preserve the good will and way of life in our rural communities today, it will have to be higher education for our people and certainly not the tribal and provincial politics as it currently exists.
While growing up in La Plaine people were defined as individuals and as members of a family and not by the political parties they support or belonged to.
It is always a pleasure to visit the countryside and spend some nostalgic moments engaging in pastimes. This provides a shaper and true definition of balance and equilibrium.
No matter how long I stay away from Dominica, my 'real' home will always be somewhere not too far from the banks of the Sari-Sari, Taberi and La ronde rivers and the foot hills of Morne Governear.
Moon light nights in the countryside were my favorite. It was a time of great fun and bonding with the other kids. We would play games late into the night when the moon was at its brightest. Sometimes we would listen attentively, intensely and with a great deal of apprehension when a village elder would relate scary and freighting stories of jumbies, 'Lajabless, Loogahwoos and soukouyans’ and creatures of the late dark night who were up to no good.
 The La Plaine Jing Ping band of the sixties. |
Even though we lived short distances, we had to be escorted home for fear that one of these headless or six-headed jumbies or a big blonde white woman who had one normal leg and one horse leg (lajabless) would be waiting at our doorsteps and would take us to the deep dark mountain never to be seen or heard from again.
The possibility of being captured by a jumbie was ‘real’ as there was no electricity in the village. Besides this negative and in retrospect, who needed electricity during these fun filled nights anyway? There was the clean air and night sky with the harvest moon light draping the hills and freshly planted fields and treetops, where life cycled in and out, day by day and year after year.
For my grandparents, country life was not a mission, lifestyle choice hiking or camping trips like the ones I enjoy in the nearby Pennsylvania Mountains. Their lives, existence and daily beings certainly did not make a statement about higher socio-economic class; it was just plain, pure and simple country life where respect, hard work, honesty, integrity and a belief in God and community mattered more than anything else.
Their home was certainly not a white mansion with a perimeter picket fence with a pristine and sprawling lawn. It was a simple wooden house in the La Plaine valley where the rules of the game of life were taught.
It was where they were born and raised, worked hard, made little money, and raised their children, grand and great grand children. It was where their names were finally called by their creator and they departed for everlasting rest in a new home far beyond the blue yonder. Their final departures at 89 and 91 years (in 1989 and 1991) were a celebration of life with melodies of good times which still resonate with me almost every day.
The melodies, meanings, and underlying themes of the music of the country side deals with humanity, humility, love, hard times, struggle, pride and compassion and ultimate victory. These songs gave and give life to our souls and 'soul' to our lives. These songs define and outline the simple and complex multi-stories and potential of rural folks once given the opportunity.
The melodies and lyrics sustained and gave us hope and convey in compelling ways our greatest strengths and acknowledge our weaknesses, fears and shortcomings in honorable and dignified ways. The music sends the powerful message that whatever our current or past social class standings, education level, political and religious affiliations, each of us has an inalienable right to be a full respected and dignified Dominican citizen.
I agree with the late Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere,'Life in the big city is duty’. Mr. Nyerere was educated at Oxford and led his country to independence. After retiring from the presidency, he left the Tanzanian capital Dar- es Salem and returned to his ancestral village in the Kilimanjaro Mountains tending his crops.
For me, the countryside was a chance to taste life before it got complicated, calibrated, competitive, sophisticated, crowded and franchised.
It was a place where hope and confidence in the future flourished and children were encouraged to dream of bigger and better things while being allowed to be children. I try to instill the story of my humble but happy upbringing to my two girls who are growing up in very different circumstances in Washington DC.
I try speaking as much patois as I can to them but I am often met with resistance as their French Immersion classes and French speaking friends intercept my plans of originality and creativity. My oldest daughter asked me recently why Patois does not have a grammar.
 Sari and Alana Finn in the United States. |
She is eight years and I rather wait to provide her with details that Patois was the language of the peasantry and slavery and imposed by the European Plantocracy. For now I just say it is the Mother Tounge of our home handled down from generation to generation.
But she and her and her six (6) year old sister are intrigued by my stories of the countryside. They often ask me after their bedtime stories to tell them a story about life back in the day in La Plaine.
I never miss the opportunity to tell them that their names honor the country side. Our first daughter’s name is Sari in honour of the beautiful and majestic Sari-Sari falls and river where I learned to swim, socialize and fished and where my older sisters, cousins and grandmother washed our clothes.
Our second daughter Alanna was named in honour of my grandfather and great grandfather. Papa Burton Allan who was born at the turn of the last century and until his death in 1991 was the oral historian of the south east. After his burial service, I took his Certificate of Appreciation which was awarded by the 1988 Reunion Community for his contributions to history in La Plaine.
Two pictures which proudly hang on my office wall are that of my maternal and paternal grandparents. My paternal grandparents lived in Jalousie, Castle Bruce and I remembered the times my sister and I visited them until they too went ‘home’.
Papa’s father Serrant Allan was part of the team headed by parish catholic priest 'Pere’ Countrier in 1893 which unsuccessfully tried to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Commander C.E Bailey of the Royal Marines and colonial governor Hayes Smith during an impasse which lead to the bloody and deadly La Plaine land tax riots (uprising) on a hillside overlooking the Sari- Sari river at Cas O’ Gowrie.
I relate that story with dignity to them because 116 years ago Mr. Pierre Colaire and his band of unarmed and determined peasants fought for their dignity and that of generations that would follow including theirs. As my friend and high school mate Dr. Irving Eipaugh Pascal would say, ‘May the spirits of our ancestors be pleased’.
I have always rejected and resented the fact that single assumptions are made by people who have an ariel, panoramic, limited, bias and distanced view of country folks. These historical single assumptions and attitudes point that rural folks are backward. It is true that rural is often a euphemism for poverty and rural dwellers.
But poverty in the country side has its roots in the colonial, large estate and poor educational systems and the historical policy and institutional restraints that they have been imposed on country folks. The La Plaine Tax Riots is one example where a group of villagers from one of the poorest districts could not see themsleves taxed again by the colonial government.
Rural populations have always been politically divided and taken for granted by politicians and bureaucrats making it much easier to be disrespected and dismissed. In addition, government policies and investments in poverty reduction and sustainable development have always tended to favour urban over rural areas.
Despite these facts, for me the countryside will always be a place and time rich in community spirit, support, love, caring, compassion and character. A place where leadership responsibilities were taken honestly and seriously and took many different forms and definitions. I am certain that whatever good qualities I can rightfully claim were shaped in no small measure, by that simpler place and time.
Therefore, the tools of history should be used to relate and put in context the story of Dominica's journey and that of its people, to our children and future generations.
Our children should be encouraged to spend more time in the countryside in order to further understand who they are, where they came from and what is required of them and provide more perspective in a fast changing, destructive and decadent world.
Hopefully our children and their children will embrace, be proud and develop a deep, true and lasting romance with real country life or what is left of it.
As I reflect on life almost three decades after residing outside of Dominica, I am of the realization that in order to preserve the good will and way of life in our rural communities today, it will have to be higher education for our people and certainly not the tribal and provincial politics as it currently exists.
While growing up in La Plaine people were defined as individuals and as members of a family and not by the political parties they support or belonged to.
It is always a pleasure to visit the countryside and spend some nostalgic moments engaging in pastimes. This provides a shaper and true definition of balance and equilibrium.
No matter how long I stay away from Dominica, my 'real' home will always be somewhere not too far from the banks of the Sari-Sari, Taberi and La ronde rivers and the foot hills of Morne Governear.
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// posted by TheDominican.net @ 2:34 PM
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Nice try Dr. Finn. We all love eleoquence, not for any truth it tells, or virtues it espouses, or any heroism it embraces, we love it just for the sake of eloquence itself.. So we love this article.
# posted by 
: October 24, 2009 5:13 PM
: October 24, 2009 5:13 PM Links to this post:
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