The lives and lores of the people of Guyana, St. America.
Good morning, I hope you slept well and were not interrupted by ole higue sneaking into your room to slurp your blood.
I laugh but I’ve met people in my lovely native land who insist that ole higue is a living, breathing creature. Doesn’t matter how I try to convince anyone that that ball of fire in the night sky ain’t no darn human-thing, he / she is adamant that it is an old blood-sucking higue shooting through the dark to sneak into someone’s home.
“One night, me and some friends say we go pick coconut from this man coconut-walk,” a chap once told me. “As we reach near the tree-them, one big ball o’ fire pass through so. If you see run!! We dash out from deh mo’ fast than lion.”
I sucked my teeth with the most mocking suck-teeth sound I could make. “Y’all musta see a meteorite!” I laughed.
Of course, chappie would have none of that. “Is a’ ole higue, I telling you!!”
“Y’ever see she shedding she skin?” I asked. “Ever find the calabash that she hide she skin in? You know which tree she hang the calabash in?”
Maaan, me nah got to see all o’ that. Me see the fire. Ee been big-big so, and red-red-red, ee go round-round-round and roll like a ball and shoot straight through.”
At that point, I was cracking up with laughter. “That should teach you a lesson…don’t go teefing people t’ings, or ole higue gon come to teef you’ blood,” I hooted.
Writing this now, it has occurred to me that the owner of the coconut trees had probably shot some fireworks into his farm to scare off the wanna-be thieves. Which brings me back to what I was thinking about originally because of a recent news item…
…those t’iefing thieves, breaking into innocent people’s homes, and when they are injured by the residents, oh, the unfairness, look what’s happened to the 79-year old granny in Suriname, east of us, across the Berbice River.
It was around midnight when granny heard a sound in her home. Bravely, she went to check. Braaps. Face to face she came with the teef! She grabbed her weapon and…bladam…into his chest went the bullet. That bleddy burglar is now safe and sound, nursing his wounds in the hospital, probably being fed warm food and nourishment, whilst granny’s been arrested for having an illegal weapon.
Poor granny. I hope she’s okay. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if she had thrown a bottle of blazing-hot sauce, made from the ball o’ fire pepper, into the eyes of the vulture. Would the police have arrested her then?
Praises after praises have been heaped upon granny via Guyana’s social media. I am not a proponent of guns but I understand where the citizens are coming from. They are tired of these crasses invading homes. They still remember old news from past years about young men robbing, raping, murdering grannies in Guyana.
Do you see the irony, friend?
Old higue, an ancient woman, it is said, invades homes to steal your blood, and the blood of newborn babies. No one, to date, has ever caught sight of even the shadow of one ancient woman invading a single home.
Who then are the real blood-suckers in this lovely land of ours, pray tell? Think about it, tell me what you think. More about this another time.
Follow me on neenamaiya.substack.com for more.
ellievsbear
baratheonpilled
snowghoul
2087
theartofmadeline
annaxmalina
titsay
