An Amerindian Heritage Month chronicle – Lady Northcote’s dance

Sep 11, 2016 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols
Amerindian Heritage Month unfolds once more, and with it the life-stories and traditions of our first nation people. They include tales of pride, ingenuity, and perseverance against odds uncommon to other ethnic groups. Making the most

of what nature has bequeathed them, some seem to accept the vicissitudes of life, resigned to a marginal existence. Others put themselves in the centre of life with all its pleasures, poignancy and pain, and live.
I dwelt among and with them in the North West; and I travelledin their boats. The Lady Northcote wasn’t one of theirs but they adopted her and adapted to her ways, just as she adapted to the whims and caprices of the Atlantic passage separating their enclaves from the country’s capital and commercial hub more than 200 kilometres away. And on several of these commutes I was there with them, pitting my coastlander wits against the wiles of the ocean, the boat, and the people on it. This is how my first journey went down.
I’ve made many memorable trips in my life, from Trinidad’s Point Fortin to South Africa’s Cape Peninsula. Some have been rough, but none as harrowing as those etched in my memory from traversing Guyana’s North West route – Georgetown to Kumaka/Mabaruma via the coast-hugging Atlantic Ocean during my teaching stint in the region.
Now with the spotlight focused on our Amerindian kin, I think it would be a fitting testimony to their fortitude and forbearance to share with readers just one example of the hard knocks they intermittently endure in life – like that 20-hour ‘excursion’.
It was in January 1977 that I was first possessed to take what I expected would be the adventurous, if not romantic, boat trip from Georgetown to Kumaka/Mabaruma at the start of the Easter school term. I was told it would be a bit rough; that was in fact the understatement of the decade. The bustle, the heat; the confusion at the Kingston wharf that Monday noon should have warned me. Instead it warmed me – to excitement and a kind of pioneering thrill.
There were maybe a dozen or so people I knew that day on the boat. Most of the passengers had boxes, crates, and bags of foodstuff and clothing either for sale or for their families. As the boat pulled away from the Demerara River I stood on the deck, like a Balboa scanning the horizon, inhaling deeply the whipping, invigorating sea air.
I was a man among men; the boat, the people on it, and the ocean were my comrades in exploit. Soon however, my friendship with the last of these would be so tested that I would be on the verge of breaking off the relationship. It was her wild and whimsical nature.
The first warnings came with a gradual rolling motion as the Lady Northcote heaved sideways and forward, in and over the troughs and crests of waves growing larger by the minute. I ignored promptings from both my head and stomach to stay still, or scramble a deck chair and sit my tail down, or stretch myself out on a makeshift bed as several wiser heads had done.
Others though were having a grand old time walking around on seeming unshakeable legs. Some played dominoes at a table while others attested to the iron-fortitude of their stomachs with liquor and fried chicken. I felt myself one of them and actually contemplated joining the drinking group. Oh the bravado and stupidity of youth!
I thought I was doing a pretty good job of convincing myself I could hold my own against the ocean’s and the ‘lady’s’ gyrations. Trauma comes unexpectedly, and it did as we ploughed into the notorious Essequibo-Pomeroon stretch. It took one huge roll, one terrifying lurch; one sickening lunge to shatter the illusion. Suddenly my stomach was heaving with the enormous swells. I imagined that my face was turning as green as the roiling waters that had inexplicably changed from the familiar mud-brown wash I had grown accustomed to. I held on to the rails and waited for my stomach to betray its earlier composure.
It came quickly enough. The wretched sound of my last meal reversing its passage from mouth to stomach temporarily drowned out the sea’s rumba rumble. Thankfully though, the wind and the water soon wafted away sound, smell, and food. Three more gut-twisting heaves reduced me to wobbly-kneed weakness. I pitched forward and all but fell onto a vacated deck chair. Then the twin plagues of headache and dizziness hit me, and I knew I would be rooted there for at least a couple of hours come hell or high(er) water. Thank God hell didn’t show up.
Then to my amazement, I heard the sound again; this time replicated ten-fold, as everywhere, it seemed, passengers were upchucking their meals; maybe a dozen of them. Most were women and girls, but a few husky gentlemen didn’t let any macho façade get in the way of releasing the contents of their churning insides. It took about 15 minutes for the bout of seasickness to subside, but throughout the afternoon you could hear the occasional and shameless ‘brrrauggh’ of spewed vomit.
Shortly after nightfall my head and stomach felt settled enough for me to hesitantly venture out in search of food. I shouldn’t have. As I neared the ‘kitchen’ the smell of liquor, engine oil, grease, and simmering fish stew quickly revived the head/stomach peril. Then nausea was added to the combo. I felt that familiar sensation and hustled as fast as my shaky legs could carry me to the port side of the ship where, unbelievably, what I thought was an empty stomach, wasn’t.
Gradually, things quieted down for the night. Except for the wind! It upped its tempo. And Lady Northcote reluctantly got into the act. First she sashayed. But by midnight she was doing everything except the break-dance and the somersault. She rolled and rocked; she pitched and yawed and swung wildly. Only crewmen and the hardiest of the hardy dared move. Passengers lying down or ensconced in deck chairs looked up and saw flashes of starry night sky as at intervals the boat lifted sideways at about a 60-degree angle. (No lie) Half of me was scared silly; the other half was simply awed by the drama.
Suddenly the deck chairs and makeshift mattresses started to slide, and the bodies on them went along for the ride. A few shrieks tore through the air, audible even over the whooshing wind. A couple of boxes and crates tumbled around. The entire vessel and everything in it seemed to writhe and groan, accentuated by the almost total absence of a human voice. Then slowly, with my tortured frame almost protesting the transition, I fell into a fitful sleep, occasionally broken by frightful shudders. And so, imperceptibly, morning came.
What a transformation! The sea was calm and its familiar muddy texture was back. My mostly Amerindian fellow travellers were up; some brushing their teeth, some grooming themselves, and others breakfasting. The smell of coffee permeated the air. Everyone appeared in good spirits and chatted amiably. Mora Point hove into sight and beyond it the Mora Passage would take us safely home. The previous 16 hours of turmoil were all but forgotten; well maybe for them, my new-found, stalwart comrades. For me, never!

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