By Tony Deyal
Even though “Bajan Pride” is a flour, I am full of it. The only thing I am not full of in Barbados is Banks, which although not my cup of tea or any other kind of beverage for that matter, I can grin and beer it with the best.
When I go to Barbados I always have a sense of homecoming. Yesterday, this column, which started in the Barbados Nation in 1993, celebrated its 30th Birthday. Even though I had written columns in Canada for my University newspaper, and for both the Express and Guardian in Trinidad, the first article I wrote in Barbados was “Brian Lara: truly a blade apart” and it was accepted. I learnt why afterwards.
The executive editor of the newspaper, Roxanne Gibbs, who started the “ball” rolling explained: “In the early 90s I was one of Brian Lara’s biggest fans. In fact, my friends called me the president of the Brian Lara Fan Club. I am not sure if Tony Deyal had wind of this and plotted his move accordingly. But in 1993 when he approached me about writing a column for the paper, the sample column he submitted was headlined Brian Lara – A Blade Apart. That’s all I needed. I loved the column.”
In my case, I loved the country and so did my two children, Jasmine and Zubin (who were born there) and their Guyanese mother, Indranie. In fact, when someone in the kindergarten school that they went to in Trinidad told them that they were Indians they adamantly insisted, almost to the point of tears, “We are not Indians. We are Barbadians.”
Working in Barbados as the media communications advisor for the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) was a learning experience for life.
Interestingly, the first thing I found out was that a “ton” has nothing to do with weights and measures but means that some cricketer has scored a century or 100 runs. In this case, it was Lara. I learnt that “unfair” is a verb in Barbados as in the example “He unfaired me” meaning “he was unfair to me.” Even after 30 years, I have not yet been to the annual crop-over festival, “Cohobbloplot” because I had promised myself that I would never go to a show with a name which I cannot pronounce. I avoid the word “Kadooment” because I am still not sure how to pronounce it. I still love the way my Bajan friends pronounce the word commonly used to denote “an institution for the treatment of illness”. They say “horse-spittle” and some hospitals in the countries I’ve been to can win that accolade with flying colours.
More than anything else I had to learn the proper usage and meanings of the words “above” and “below”. In my first visit to Cave Shepherd, the best-known store in Broad Street, Barbados, I went to the ground-floor display of “T” – shirts and asked for a special souvenir as a birthday gift for my PAHO boss. The salesperson said that it was “above”. I took the escalator to the next floor and found only books, ladies garments and kitchen utensils. I later learnt that she meant “ahead” or “further on.” In Barbados you will find “Husbands” without wives, “sixmens” (if one is not enough), and “Allmans”. You can discover “hope” and “Friendship” but can’t have both at the same time. Or you can enjoy “Penny Hole.” “Featherbed Lane” is nearby.
At first, my column was named “Saturday’s Child” and I got enough jokes about how this big “show-and-show” man could be called a “child”. Then it was “New Man In Town”. However, after people got angry because they could not find or see the star Paul Newman, and asked how an Old Man like me could be called a “New” man, the column then became plain “Tony Deyal” who was always last seen somewhere, most likely creating, remembering or just imagining a scene.
The best-known of those scenes, and the one that became my trademark, grew out of two things. The first was one of my favourite jokes about my being old. I am like a dog chasing a car- if I catch it, I can’t drive it. The other was my Mini Moke which I introduced to my readers in an early article, “Running amoke” with, “We in the Caribbean deal with our stresses and strains, our trials, travails and tribulations, the agonies and ecstasies of daily life each in our own particular, and often peculiar, ways.
Some of us run a mile. Some run amok. I run a Moke – a Mini Moke. I use the verb ‘run’ in the strictly British sense as in ‘Understandably, one runs a Bentley at Balmoral but when one is at Buckingham one runs the Rolls.’ I am in Barbados and here no self-respecting Bajan runs a Moke. They might run from them, particularly given the way American tourists drive, but they never run them. In the first place, Bajans do not consider Mokes to be cars.” I once took mine to a garage for an oil change and the mechanic looked at me, laughed and advised, “Sir, I suggest that you change the car and keep the oil.”
What really worried me was being bitten by one of the big dogs that chased me and the car wherever I went. Barking furiously and ferociously, their teeth ready to grab me by my short and curly, they were definitely up to no good.
Still, I was not as frightened by the dogs as by going to the hospital and explaining to the nurse that I was bitten by one or more. In my mind, she says, “Where did this happen, Sir?” I reply, “In my car.” She then asks soothingly and sympathetically, “You mean your own dog bite you?” I say, “No. I was driving and this dog jumped in and bit me.” She does not understand this. She asks in astonishment, “But how this happen? It jump through the window?” I say, “No. It just jumped in and bit me.” Not understanding, she asks, “Is it some kind of Dobermann or German shepherd?” I say, “No. It was a Pompek and I drive a Moke.” She then asserts, “I thought you said you were driving a car. A Moke is not a car.”
Sadly, I replaced the Moke with a “real” car and ended up living in the Sugar Cane Breeding Station in Groves, Barbados, among the best and friendliest people I have ever met. However, after having two children in rapid succession, we agreed that there was something in the breeding station that was catching so we caught a flight out.
*Tony Deyal was last seen responding to a young Barbadian salesman who was trying to sell him a condominium in Westmooring that was “a great investment for the future”. He replied, “Son, at my age I don’t even buy green bananas.”
