Demerara

Good evening Jimmie Doug;

Arrived back to Tar Pondsville today after a pleasant sojourn in Drum Head. We were up for Courtney's, our oldest grand daughter's graduation. She enters Mount St. V in September.

I liked your poem on Guyana. As you know I spent a little time there, back in the fifties, before the country gained it's independence. After an absence of twenty odd years I returned there to work in the offshore as engineer on "Breton Shore"owned and operated by Offshore Marine of Great Yarmouth, UK. We worked out of George Town for a month, before moving farther south to work from Paramaribo, Surinam.

I was very dismayed to find the state of lawlessness that pervaded Guyana in the seventies.........a far cry from the fifties when one could go anywhere at any hour with never a fear of being mugged or killed. Too bad, for, as you said it is a beautiful country. We used to run dynamite to some quaint back water towns up the Berbice and Essisiquibo Rivers.

Have sailed with some Guyanese in my sea going days. Allow me to tell you about Calvin Pierce, who was my oiler on board the M.T. Aime Gaudreau.

Calvin was a native of George Town and was of African descent. He and I got along very well, for Calvin could work with very little supervision, and if he came to a problem he didn't bore into it until he got my opinion. Moreover, Calvin was a pretty good cook and many evenings he would come to me and say, "You hungry, mon, I go up and cook us up a big feed." And by eight o'clock when I was relieved by the third Calvin would have a meal ready that would bring tears to your eyes, it
was that hot. We used to buy our peppers and sauces at an East Indian store in St John. Calvin and I were the only ones who liked hot food in the entire crew.

One morning Calvin and I took over the engine room at 0400 about ten miles off Low Point, ( here at Sydney ) and shortly thereafter the chief mate phoned down to say we were about to enter pack ice; with the wind a stiff breeze from the nor'east we knew we had a battle on our hands to reach the Irving wharf in Sydney River.

It only took about twenty minutes before the sea strainers began to plug with slushy ice, and calvin and I were doing the best we could to keep them clear and thus keep the main engine and generators from over heating, but despite our efforts, alarms started going off, as the mercury crept ever higher in the cylinder head thermometers. This tanker did a lot of service in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the winter, as well as around the NL and Cape Breton ports. She was, therefore, fitted for running in conditions such as we now found ourselves. One provision had been made to provide a fail safe against blackout caused by overheating of the generations; the generators cooling systems could be put on the after peak tank, taking their cooling water from, and returning it to this tank. One of the valves
that had to be closed was the overboard discharge, which was located at the ships side below the 'tween decks. In my haste to close this valve, I suffered a nice cut on my scalp, that required twelve stitches to close, later that day at the old St. Rita's Hospital.

I was wearing a full beard that winter, and when I got back in the main engine I was covered with blood and I kid you not! Meanwhile the chief had awakened with the noise of the ship slogging through the ice, and hearing the alarm blowing decided to come down and give us a hand to clear the sea bays. Calvin took one look and yelled, "You bleed real good, mon; I fix you up! " and with that he headed up the ladder for his cabin to get a bottle of, for want of a better name, unguent. When he came back he had a little screw top jar, and while extolling the curative powers of the jars contents, cleared the wound with a piece of oily rag and applied a gob of this horrific stuff to my head. Luckily his aim was off and he
missed the wound. Burn!! I ran for the engine room sink and opened the cold water full bore and after a bit the pain subsided. The chief put a pressure bandage on it and the bleeding stopped.

Later the doctor who did the stitches casually remarked as he sewed, that the object that caused the gut must have been extremely hot to leave such a blister. I told him about Calvin's Cure.

That afternoon on watch, Calvin got on about the stuff again. I asked him who was the witch doctor lived that compounded such a vile concoction; Calvin grinned and said, "I cook tonight, mon?!? "

Regards,

Don


Here is the poem to which my Uncle Don refers, above:

Demarara Flow

A kaleidoscope of colour and sound:
here, a grove of bamboo poles
waving strips of bright cloth
call for the blessing of revered
and ancient Gods
on an East Indian wedding;
there, the explosion of Stabroek Market
scatters vendors’ stalls across
the old Dutch square.

Papaws and mangoes vie
with books, tee-shirts,    
music tapes and CDs:
the sound of Bollywood
competes culturally with
urgent soca and hip-hop
as stall-owners musically flaunt
their ethnic roots.

Beyond the Clock Tower
the Demerara flows in muddy splendour
patiently supporting
motley bum-boats, freighters,
fishing boats, and
the occasional Amerindian dugout.
The ghosts of the Jonestown dead
wander here, betrayed
by their leader’s selfish view
of Heaven.

The Seawall protects this small city,
where a system of dykes,
and drainage ditches
return high tide seepage,
the skill of the Dutch founders
still evident today.
With wooden buildings,
and gun-carrying diamond miners,
this frontier town offers temporary shelter
from the encroaching, and pervasive jungle,
that waits just miles away.


As custodians of this beautiful,
resource-rich country,
these descendants of African slaves,
of indentured East Indians,
have blended their collective experience
into unique forms of politics,
art, music, cuisine,
and a melodic language
that baffles and delights
the foreign ear.
Part Caribbean, part South American,
these capable people
take the best of both worlds,
and make it unmistakeably
their own.

~James Douglas Fanning