Lemony Webbles

Winter coping mechanism #14

I'm walking down the dam in Enmore. It's a very poor village in Guyana on the coast. The dam is a waterway full of stinky brown water with a road along each side. The houses are all built on stilts to protect them from annual flooding in the rainy season and are all kinds of pastel colors. No sombre maroons and navys here. It's teal, peach, lemon and powder blue all the way. I'm carrying an umbrella over my head, as everyone does at this time of day, to protect myself from the piercing-hot sun. My little circle of shade keeps me from burning to a crisp, but I'm still really hot. I'm sweating like mad because I'm out in the middle of the day. The sun is so bright that I can't bear to look up, even to look ahead of me, so I look at the ground and make my way by memory to my friend Sherry's house. I step carefully around puddles full of really gross water and piles of what the donkeys left behind. I also don't like to step on the dried carcasses of those big toads, called 'crapoes', that were flattened by some car, blinded by the headlights. Anyway, I'm pouring down sweat and trying to imagine getting cooled off, sitting in a hammock under Sherry's house, drinking orange pop. When I get there, it takes me a long time to stop being completely overheated, my face flushed and the cool orange pop barely making a dent. You can't wear shorts here because it's thought immodest, so I'm suffering in my jeans. I'm glad to see Sherry though and she shows me the clothes she has gotten ready for her baby that will be coming in a few months. Her little bedroom upstairs is so oven-like that I can't imagine how she can stand sleeping in it. It has that hot wood smell like a sauna. Pretty soon it's time for me to go home and I sigh as I put up my umbrella and make my way down the dam to the bus stop on the main road. It's about a mile and a half walk. Once I forgot my umbrella and a stranger, an old man, came running out of his house on this road and handed me his umbrella saying that I must stay protected from the sun so I wouldn't get heatstroke. As I got close to the bus stop, by which I really mean anywhere on the main road you feel like standing and holding up your arm when a minibus comes by, I bought a few finger bananas. So sweet and full of gentle apple flavor. Mmmm.