1-14-2014
St. Joseph, Maracas. As we turned at the junction off of the
Eastern main road, my mother’s face lit up.
We were going to visit her younger sister who lived up in the valley, on
the crescent of the hills. My mother has
sixteen siblings, and they are a very close family, she is the oldest girl and
the second child. She recalled fondly
the year that she lived in Mount Lambert with her aunt on her dad’s side. She attended St. Joseph Government Primary
school and every day her aunt would provide her with a shilling equivalent to
twenty four cents, she paid six cents to and fro on the bus and had a remainder
of twelve cents for lunch. She boasted
how she only spent seven cents on her lunch and saved, so at the end of the
week she had quite a purse of change to do whatever she liked with. Many of her class mates would come to her to borrow. I smiled warmly at the tale and thought about
the fact that she lived so many places even as a child, unlike me, who was born
and raised in my one area in Southern Trinidad and only when I migrated out,
had the opportunity for a change of scenery.
We drove up this street
and turned in side streets and got to where we were going. Oh my goodness we were presented with steps,
fifty or so steep steps, up the mountain side, with no railings to help hoist
yourself, and each step was a different size and width. How did they get building material up there
to build so many homes? We climbed, my
mother complaining all the way, my aunt came down the steps and they were both
arguing. “If you exercise, you wouldn’t
have a problem with the steps”, “Why did you have to have these disgusting
steps without even the decency to have a railing?” “It’s good exercise, come
on, make haste.” “I have to stop and rest, there are too many.”
I got to the top first,
and when I turned around, I forgot all about the ordeal of climbing that many
uneven steps. The view was
breathtaking, the air clean and fresh, the mountains still had the morning mist on
them. I took many shots, but this one,
had a dull sultry appeal to it that just called out to me.
I thought of the poem by
Margi Harrell, and the last words that said;
The mountain
tops are glorious
But it’s in the valleys I grow!
But it’s in the valleys I grow!
It evoked the feeling that
yes indeed, the mountain tops are glorious, and I marveled at God’s creation
all around me!
Glorious
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