SOMETIMES you wish for something but never believe that one day it would come true.
I grew up in a Sugar Estate community and as a young girl walking home from school, I would stop by the roadside of the Estate Manager’s compound under the shade of the huge flamboyant trees. When in bloom the ground became carpeted with the fallen flowers in a fusion of astounding red, yellow and pink colours.
The splendor of nature, a gift to the earth.
I would scoop them up in my hands and throw them up in the air, so they fall all over me. Some I would fill in my satchel to take home for the round glass vase on my small writing table. Flowers had become one of the loves of my life from a young age and I believed in fairytales with a deep love for castles, manors and museums, so every time I stopped to play with the flowers I would look in awe at the classic, white Colonial house, beautiful garden and neat manicured lawns.
My young heart wished at the time that I could one day live there.
I was not sure, at the time, how that could come true when my father was a labourer in the backdams. My friends would look at me bemused, never showing any interest nor wishing for such a life but I believed living with a dream could set the tone for a beautiful life.
The years went by and I moved away to High School in New Amsterdam, in pursuit of higher education. I rode a ladies Raleigh bicycle to school and along the way there were no huge flamboyant trees in stunning bloom, but many other things of interest. I had developed a deep passion for history and a curious mind, so places and things of interest, I chronicled in my mind to later make notes in my journal.
History had documented our lives and times from Colonialism to Independence, an unforgettable era I read extensively on. Life on the sugar estates and communities continued to change as new opportunities continued to shape our destinies.
I never thought that the wish I had made years ago would have come true, but it did.
And the day I left my parents’ home as a bride, I embarked on a new journey in life. A dream had found me, but would it be beautiful, I wondered.
Only time would tell!
I did not get that wonderful feeling of bliss and happiness of being in a special place, although the colonial buildings at Blairmont and Skeldon estates were unique and beautiful.
Something from my dream was missing.
A few years later, we were transferred to Uitvlugt Estate on the West Coast of Demerara, and the moment I entered the Estate Manager’s compound, I fell in love with that place. The sprawling green landscape, astonishing variety of flowering trees, fruit orchards, colonial gardening relics and huge flamboyant trees that bordered the expansive grounds were a young girl’s dream come true.
An immediate instinct told me that there was something different about the place and as I began to settle down, I wondered, “What mystery or magic does it hold?”
What was unique about the compound was that it was separate from the main one, and surrounded by canals, like an island. I felt the bliss and happiness for the landscape lent a certain type of romance to the mind.
From dawn to dusk, each day was something interesting to do, to see, to learn in that little paradise. One of the things I learnt about the Leonora/Uitvlugt Estates, were the names of the Dutch owners of the plantations which were Ignatius Charles Bourda and Ursillya, and their initials are engraved on the factory chimney of Uitvlugt. And of course, the fabled tale of Dutch colonial masters’ burial sites in the yard, none of which I saw.
What I saw were huge snakes that were real!
One day as I was walking under the canopy of the flamboyant trees, I saw a long snake slithering down one of the trees. I ran out of fear and the gardener told me there were always snakes in the yard.
“Why is that?” I asked.
He told me that beyond the border of the grounds there were canefields, so when the cane is burnt, the snakes crawl over into the yard. That was scarier for me than stumbling on an old Dutch tomb, so I avoided that part of the grounds as best as I could. So many snakes were caught during the time I lived there, I just could not get the thought of snakes from my mind.
Then one night I was awakened by a soft hissing sound.
I was not sure where it came from because everyone was asleep. I got up and slowly pulled aside the curtains from the glass doors, leading to the veranda, I looked outside but saw nothing.
“Strange,” I thought, “Did I actually hear that or was it a dream?”
The next morning I went for a walk across the narrow waterway where a diversity of exotic lilies grew in a section of the yard that was an abandoned tennis court. The wild flowers that grew there were an amazing display of yellow across the court. Why I was there that morning, I wasn’t sure but as I stood there, looking around, a soft breeze blew, bending the soft stalks of the wild flowers and that’s when I saw the snake.
It had raised its head and was looking at me!
I dropped the basket of flowers I had in my hand that I had picked for morning prayers and ran, almost tripping over the old wooden bridge. I stopped in the middle of the lawn as the two gardeners hurried to see what was wrong with me.
“Another snake,” I said, a little out of breath.
They both smiled and said casually, “Yuh would geh accustom tuh it.”
I shook my head, somewhat in disbelief.
“How and when do I get accustomed to snakes?”
They both advised me not to walk too far out on the grounds, but the nature lover I was, I wanted to see every flowering shrub, and blooming trees, to pick fruits and look at the different birds flitting around in the garden heading to the bird bath.
That night when everyone was asleep, I went out on the veranda and looked across the lawn to the tennis court that was veiled in darkness, and I asked silently,
“Is something there from the past?”
So many stories I have heard, and all the notes I had written in my journal, maybe it’s time for me to write from my own experiences, the historical past, the mysteries of the estate grounds, tales of Dutch ghosts and tombs, and the myth of a snake dynasty.
Fiction and facts from a curious mind and living here in a world of my own, in the embrace of nature’s brilliance, the writer in me bloomed.