THE THOUGHT TODAY

12 / 02 / 09
A Lament of The Muse or Of Musa and Nostalgia
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

As an 11 year schoolboy, Winston Bacchus gave me two days to learn and recite “The Song of a
Banana Man” at a Concert at the Richland Park Primary School. Astonished at my feat, Miss
Theodora Samuel, who lived on my street, re-christened me the Banana Man. Little did I know that
for most of my life I would become a “banana man” in a real sense.

Back then, the pride which we felt in being banana growers carried us through the hardships of
growing bananas for a livelihood and survival. As I listened to the debate in Parliament on a new
Banana Bill, which I have not seen, I was reminded of the following fable which I sometimes tell
about the banana industry in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

As Larry Bascombe says on WE FM mornings, “Here I go Ernesto”.

When a banana farmer, who gets a weekly income from his banana farm decides for two weeks that he is
tired with the crop and pays no attention to the bunches which emerge in that time, the banana trees grumble
among themselves and say “I give him money every week but he is tired of my money every week. He
prefers it monthly or fortnightly. That’s OK. When he is ready he will come back. When he comes back he
will lose most or all of my hard grown bunches which he has neglected thus far. He won’t be able to sell
them.”

If the farmer’s vexation stretches to two months, he loses income from those bunches which bear during that
time. The bananas continue to grumble at this neglect but console themselves that he doesn’t need money. If
he neglects the field more than four months, when he comes back he has to start over again and wait maybe
another four months before he gets income again. This time, however, he has to spend what he had put aside
or borrow to get the crop going again. This is what happened when the individual farmer became tired of the
banana crop.

In many of our rural communities where banana was king many took its weekly income for granted. They
grumbled “this work too hard every week”. After a while the poor farmer finds that even with the best will
in the world he can’t get people to work. Again the banana says “look how I helped to build houses, educate
children, sustain rum shop and pretty clothes, maintain wife, ‘keeper’ even ‘sweet man’ every week. Nobody
wants money every week anymore! But that’s OK.” The humble banana watched men and women who
could not work at home during the day, pay money on vans, leave family at night to fend for themselves and
work more hours for lesser pay.

As the banana trees droop their leaves in despair and turn up their noses at the strong smell of marijuana
smoke from hill and gully, house and block, they see the ‘dirty skin’, thieving ‘Coke Man’, hustle people
goods and the occasional bunch of green banana and plantain to buy ‘weed’ and coke from the new
merchants of death in gleaming SUVs. The same banana trees wave in the day and night as youngsters
practice up automatic guns and gunshot pop out people eyes, belly, hand and foot, to protect the crop or
ensure the drop. The same banana watch as people, who left their homes open and went to the land, lock up
their burglar bars by day and imprison themselves by night, in order to safeguard the hard earned penny
received after waiting hours to catch van in town at ‘Little Tokyo’, Peace Mo and Silky Garage to come
home.

The poor banana bawl sometimes to see communities through which millions passed from land to hand for
years turn to bush and lifeless communities without strength nor purpose. The same banana watched blue
diothene on banana bunches give way as lighter black plastic bags from Greaves and ‘Pampers’ fly upon the
breeze, across now empty lands like a proverbial plague.

The few bananas that remain, like old men waiting for the heavenly call, rub leaves, fight goat and root
borers, nematodes and leafspot until they too fall on the ground to become food for worms. As man and
trees disappeared from the land, so too went the bananas’ tales of loving care by tender hands in the days
when gold was green on hills, on flats and gullies. As the lush green hills gave way to occasional patches of
brown ground then dasheen fields then brown ground, the humble banana remnants would tell a quieter tale
of a time when banana sent ‘poor people piccanniny’ to school.

In solitude the banana trees hear the parents laments about lazy children, who like to fight and fete and who
‘don’t care damn’ about man or God. Somewhere one root says to another lonely root, ‘time was when some
man or woman nearly fall down here with a double box on head’. Somewhere else another root hears a
parent say “Child, you better not cry. I only have enough money for one ‘Chubby’ today. Me only hope me
have enough to carry me to work and put a five dollar credit on me Razr cell phone. Leave me alone and
make sure you come early this evening. Don’t get in no fight again or me meself might out your light.”

In yet another place, another banana root hears from AM radio station to FM station, swaying in the breeze “
The Prime Minister Gonsalves say, the only way to save banana, today we have to sign `pon this EPA.

Then the poor root says in its trembling way:

‘All ah Dem mind turn,

long before today.
Wey they do they do
and they say they say,
me banana out they spirit,
long before today”.

Yet again, another root, heard the WIBDECO man say:

“Four weeks passed today ,

I ain’t see your name
On no shipment day,
I can’t buy no more
Lest me whole ship ripe,
From your once a month fruit cut
And your leaky hut,
Global Gap too tough,
You nah grow enough,
For me boat to come
And you know things rough,
Me go ask D.R,
Dem ah now the star,
Your tonnage gone way down
And me journey, far”.

And the poor banana leaves

Again pick up the cry
of the Fairtrade farmer to the young Elizar,
Things too tight me sister
You don’t have no quota?
If things go on so
T’will be death for WINFA.

Somewhere else another root

of a weaker stature
heard the sound come
a rustling in the wind.
“There’s a wake announcing
for the passing Muser
who remembered the day
when it was the future
For Bedford truck
School shoes on foot
Educated Piccaninny
Electric light to see
How a little country
Can be MDC.”

Today.

Ashley R Cain
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