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| JOHN CROWS |
Instead of writing this, I should have my nose buried in copious notes feverishly attempting to brand certain key points that had been covered over the past semester in a course I am taking at
York University in preparation for a mid-term exam that is to be held tomorrow afternoon! On a Sunday!!! In Jamaica where I grew up, Sundays are hallowed days! Even for people who are NOT regular church goers! Even the most dedicated farmer or low-life lay-a-about in the district would take the occasional bath and put on some decent clothes and look respectable on Sundays.
In Belfont where I am from, I don't even think anybody even got drunk on a Sunday! In fact, I don't even think any rum bars were opened on a Sunday. Even the shops that were grocery shops and bars combined shut down the bar part of the business even if they did open half day to sell pounds of chicken, rice, sugar and other things necessary to make the traditional rice and peas and carrot drinks Sunday dinners that were the highlight of every week in those days. As a matter of fact, on Sundays, the shops never used to really open of such, just a one window where the shopkeeper would sell the few items that would be purchased on Sundays.
Cheese Trix , suck suck and sweety (most times purchased with part or all of we collection money). And Serve-mi-Long and sandwich biscuit on the way back to bolster our waning strength for the long treks that it usually required to get us to church and back in clothes that looked and felt good when we did put them on in the morning. But by the time church over and every body had seen you in you pretty dan dan and you were on your way home, you couldn't wait to come outta the scorching sun fi go teck dem off and put on yuh judging clothes, eat yuh Sunday dinner and wait pon the fudge man fi come chug chugging up the road pon him bike.
Sundays were sacred! Trust mi! I could never imagine writing an exam or doing anything strenuous pon a Sunday back home. But here, having voluntarily transferred myself to a foreign land, I must confront the glaring differences in culture, lifestyle, grammar, syntax and practices and while it is a process I am learning and growing from, it takes much getting used to.
