It Happened on Good Friday

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] L'auteure nous raconte les joies de son enfance le Vendredi Saint dans les Caraibes quand elle faisait voter les cerfs-volants selon la tradition de cette journee tres speciale. Ses freres l'avaient aidee a fabriquer le sien qu'elle faisait voler elle-meme, tout excitee d'etre la seule fille a le faire. I was born on the island of Nevis, West Indies, in the north-easterly chain of islands known as the Leewards. I was the last of six children, born prematurely, and weighed three and a half pounds at birth. I am told that I resembled a little doll and that everyone was fascinated with me. I guess that is why I was pampered and spoiled by my older siblings but most of all by my three older brothers, who, after pulling and tugging at me and making me walk at the age of seven months, saw nothing wrong in constantly stealing me out of the house to accompany them on little errands (and sometimes not so little ones). And so they turned me into a regular tomboy. I could climb nearly all the fruit trees around to gather English plums, mangoes, genips, and soursops. I never really mastered the art of climbing a coconut palm tree except for a miniature one that I managed to climb only once. I knew how to bait a mongoose trap and to check it to see if it had caught any mongoose. These animals were introduced into Nevis at the turn of the century to kill all the poisonous snakes and turned to killing chickens after they had eradicated the snakes. The government was at the time paying a bounty on mongoose under a pest control program and my brothers threw themselves wholeheartedly into catching mongoose as a lucrative pastime. Good Friday was one of my favorite days in the Anglican Church calendar. I loved the tradition and mystery associated with this holy day when Christ died on the cross. I loved the cassava bread that Mom made only on Good Friday as we were not allowed to eat leavened bread. And so, just as I always had to wait a long time for Christmas or my birthday to arrive, I had to wait in anticipation of the tasty bread for a whole year. I now realize that the operation was so labour intensive that she couldn't afford to do this more often. My mother would rise early on Good Friday, peel, wash and grate the cassava, sans food processor, squeezing the pulp through a clean towel until almost all of the bitter juice had been squeezed out. She would sift the meal, mix it with a few pinches of salt and let it dry in the air for about 15 minutes. Then she would put a dish (our local skillet) on the fire to heat and on it she placed a small, round, metal hoop reserved for shaping the bread. Into the hoop went one thin layer of cassava meal, followed by a layer of freshly grated coconut mixed with sugar, and topped off by another layer of cassava. When one side was brown, she removed the hoop and turned the bread over to brown the other side. On completion, they resembled a stack of pancakes and were put out in the sun to dry in a large wooden tray. They would be ready for us to eat when we returned from the Good Friday morning service. I also loved the Good Friday dinner of salted codfish or mackerel soaked overnight, stewed and served with dumplings and vegetables. Mysterious things were supposed to happen at midday. If you dribbled the white of a freshly laid egg in a glass of water left in the sun to heat, you would be able to predict your future from the shape it formed in the water. A coffin would indicate a death of a family member or a close friend, a church would indicate an imminent wedding and a ship would mean that travel was in the immediate future. It was all open to interpretation and people had fantastic interpretations for the shapes they had seen in the water. If you found a piece of coal at the root of a thistle plant and put it in your purse you would become rich. If you cut a pigeon pea tree it would bleed. I never tired of a story that Mom always related to us--the story about a mysterious stranger who had entered the Basseterre, St. …

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