From the Diaspora…Love thy neighbour as thyself, even if the neighbour is from hell

Jun 22, 2014 News

---

By Ralph Seeram
“You left your garage door open again” the voice on the other end of the phone said laughingly. Yes I had done it again, I left my garage door open, which means anyone could have taken things not only from my garage, but could have walked into my house and taken anything they wished.
But I had no fear of that, not with my immediate neighbor Rose. In Guyanese terms we would say “she fast” or nosey, but for Rose that is in a good way. She is the neighbourhood gossiper and “watchman”. She can tell you who sleeping with whom, who is going or coming, who’s sick any every bit of the latest gossip in the neighbourhood.
I live in a very quiet dead end street. It’s safe, but I feel safer with Rose. She can tell me when I left home, when I returned, and when I am not home for a few days I will have to explain why I was away.
Fences
She must be the type of neighbour Christ was talking about, unlike the one I had at the place I moved from a year ago. They say good fences make good neighbors, but some say even no fence makes a bad neighbour. My former neighbor and I were not on speaking terms for about eight years because I surveyed the property.
As the surveyor was working he came out with a camera taking pictures of the guy, for God knows what reason. Well he knew why. Turns out he did not own the land he thinks he had; he was encroaching on my property. So when the survey stick dropped he had no space at the side of his house to even run his lawn mower. I deliberately marked the dividing line to remind him where the demarcation was.
When I was a youngster in New Amsterdam I recalled that our yard drain separated our neighbour. We were not living on the property, but over the years that drain kept moving towards my house while a car could have driven on the side of the neighbour.
Some years later when I moved on the property I decided to fence the yard, so I had it surveyed to make sure I did not encroach on anybody’s property. My friendship ceased that day as I was putting up my fence; I was on the receiving end of a real Guyanese “cuss out” as I was “tekking away” dem land.
Some time ago I visited a friend in the Queenstown area of New Amsterdam, and could not help noticing a lovely row of coconut trees bordering the fence between her and her neighbor. As I pointed this out to her she informed me that the trees are on her property and they are in court.
The greedy neighbor in spite of a survey showing the demarcation of the property went ahead and planted the coconut trees hoping that she would lay claim to about two feet of land. The court eventually gave him ten days to remove his fence; my friend got the coconut trees.
Noise
If you live in an apartment building or on the bottom flat of a house you will probably know what I am about to say. The upstairs neighbour’s music would be booming at three in the morning when you want to sleep, or the constant running of kids, fighting screaming all at the time you want to take a rest, not to mention the sounds of a noisy bed when they are making love.
Speaking of making love, I had a neighbor who was very loud in her lovemaking; the neighbours would know the precise moments she was at the height of ecstasy. Houses in Guyana have thin walls, and loving making sometimes has no privacy.
Back in bachelor days in Guyana, I had one on the best neighbours. Since my house was the “bachee” all the drinking took place at my place after the bars closed in the wee hours of the morning.
My neighbour downstairs Egan Morgan, was a known fish vendor in New Amsterdam market. Anyway if we were making too much noise as we usually do, he would come upstairs and join us saying” if I can’t sleep I might as well drink alyou rum”.
Egan always had pepperpot going year round and always had fish curry on his stove I had an open invitation to help myself anytime. It came in handy when I came home with some “drinks” in the late hours of the night. Now how often will you find a neighbour that gave you full permission to go take or eat anything you want?
Because of that invitation I ended up eating food I never ate before, like turtle, gilbaka curry and iguana. When you are a little tipsy and hungry you rally don’t care what you eat; everything taste delicious.
Guyanese are unpredictable sometimes; two neighbours would have a great “cuss down” most of you know what a Guyanese cuss down is like— who minding another man child, who sleeping with who, who get “blows” who giving “blows” and the list goes on. Then the next day you see these two people together laughing and talking as if nothing had happened the previous day. This prompted neighbours to say, “Don’t put yuh mouth in dem two story”. Should you intervene the two will turn around and cuss you.
One time two of my neighbours had a cuss out. One of the neighbours was asking the other how come she got a “Chinee child with coolie man”. Her explanation was great, the child, she explained, “draw the Chinee by staying by her Chinee uncle (the real father). Yes, neighbours can be amusing also.
By the way she did try to get child support from her then husband (who was very dark); the Magistrate took one look at the father and child and told her to go find the real father.
I am sure you my readers have a story to tell about neighbors, feel free to email me at [email protected]

---

---