Recently I bumped into this article on a short film, Auntie, by Lisa Harewood – http://www.commonwealthwriters.org/caribbean-barrel-stories-barrel-children-lisa-harewood/ – telling the stories about the effects of migration on the ones left behind and who steps in when migration separates parents from children. I just wanted to share this article with you- , and add my take on it, especially as this issue is featured in my unpublished book, Force Ripe .
As Lisa said, “every family has a story”.
When I was growing up, it was the norm for children to be brought up by grandparents, aunties and uncles, neighbours, or whoever offered to take care, while parents, usually mothers, went abroad to work , seek a better life, send home parcels, money. And in many cases barrels, crammed with clothes, toiletries and food stuff. I didn’t know then, but later in my life, I discovered how things like the sugar, rice and flour soaked up the sweet, soapy fragrants of their travel companions – and so you ended up with perfume sweetened tea, oats porridge tasting like toothpaste, Palmolive fragrant dumplings and Irish Spring bread. Tide or perhaps Breeze flavoured rice and peas.
My brother and I were left in the care of our great-grandparents.
An excerpt from chapter one of Force Ripe.
“All of us in the kitchen: me, me brother Rally, Mammy and Papa. Mammy is we great-grandmother but Papa is not we real great-grandfather. We don’t know we real great-grandfather. We don’t even know we real grandfather. But we lucky, because we have a real nice Papa.
Mammy and Papa living together long. Mammy say me and Rally living with them since we mother go in Aruba – three years now. Mammy say I had three years when she go. Rally had four years. Sometimes Mammy does say, “You doh see all you mother doh even want all you? You en see how she leave all you and go!” Mammy say she go and look for greener pastures. But Miss Kay does say how we in the same boat like a lot of children in Celleste. And like she grandchildren, because their mother gone and look for greener pastures too.
Miss Kay house full up wid children. And she house only have three little rooms. But she does make space for everybody. And I bet if me and Rally have to sleep over by her, she making space for us too- even if she have to put us under the bed! Mammy say that’s why Miss Kay strong like a horse so, because she have to work like a donkey to mind all she children. And all she grandchildren too.”
I don’t remember getting any barrels in our household. We received the occasional packages and presents when someone was coming to visit. I guess my great-grandmother received the monthly envelope with money, which we never heard about, it was not our business. But I remember our friends’ excitement when that truck delivered that tall, tan, cardboard barrel. How their doors were closed during the very private opening and unpacking. And the showing off of their new things, the teasing, the ‘cutting style’. And I remember how left out my brother and I felt.
On the other hand, we were lucky to have our father around – somewhere, sometimes. He dropped by regularly, with meat, fish and whatever he could contribute. And I remember my pure joy and uncontained excitement when he visited. He had a special whistle for me. Another excerpt from Force Ripe.
“I could hear that whistle from anywhere. I could hear it from down in the bottom of the garden, even if the donkey braying, all them cocks crowing and the cow calling Papa for she food. And when I hear me whistle, is like something does take me. I does leave anything I doing and run full speed.”
Many of the children in the village hardly ever saw their fathers. Some didn’t even know who their fathers were. And in many cases, neither their mothers, who might have travelled since they were babies.
So how did that affect us? Some parents sent for their children. Some were left with promises to hold on to, and reminded of them, every time an airplane flew past. We didn’t have any promises. I just remember a little longing, yearning for that pretty lady in the picture on the dressing table. I used to look at her and wish she was with us, especially since my great-grandmother intensely disliked me and openly favoured my brother. But we were not beaten and worked as slaves – like some children we knew. I guess in those circumstances, those children had a more urgent longing to be rescued. And I could only imagine it was worse for those left at an older age, who actually experienced and can remember what life was like before they were left behind.
My own mother was left as a teenager. She was one of five children, yet she was the only one left behind, and I don’t think she has ever gotten over that or completely forgiven her mother for it . How did her mother choose which one she was going to leave behind? Why did she leave my mother? Why didn’t she ever take her up when they got settled? I am sure my mother still harbours has lots of questions. I am sure that wound still lances away at her, especially because of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her own grandmother- which in turn affected and influenced the choices she made or was perhaps forced to make – especially the choice to leave her own children in the hands of the very same person who abused her. It must have been a very difficult choice, but in those days, it was just what they did. I guess for many, it was the most popular choice of earning a living and working towards what they perceived as a better future for their children.
The absence of my mother has affected my future in more ways than I have the time to get write about now. But give me my mother over any amount of barrels!
