EPISODE 1 – THE TRIP UPRIVER

The SS Torani had already been docked by the time we drove up on to the stelling at Rosignol on the Berbice River. My husband, my older daughter, my son, my little daughter and a relative accompanied me to see me off on this stint in Kurubuku.

We were supposed to be in Kurubuku for six weeks. I had no idea where this place called Kurubuku was located. All I knew was that we would disembark at Ebini which was a tobacco farm hundreds of miles up the Berbice River and then taken by army trucks to Kurubuku further into the dense Guyana jungle. He

To say that I was not “feeling” this is to put it mildly. I didn’t want to leave my little girl and it broke my heart to see her little face all screwed up saying, “Bye Mommy”.

I spied my fellow UG students gathered up in a bunch with belongings filling up most of the space so I said my last goodbyes and turned my back on my family. I didn’t (couldn’t) look back.

The group saw me and shouted to me to join them. We boarded the SS Torani and found the upper deck, stored our bags and settled down to gossip and to try to allay our fears.

What a motley crew of passengers – farmers going home from having sold their produce, native Guyanese mothers nursing their babies, older men and women, young people going home after a flurry in Rosignol. They all looked so comfortable and seemed to be seasoned passengers on the boat. Very soon, they all spread out their sleeping jute bags with their clothes bags as pillows and slept.

Night was falling on the great river as the engines began their humming signaling departure. My fellow students and I clustered in a tight group seeking some measure of comfort from each other.

All night long the steamer plied its way south on the river. It was so dark and visibility was non-existent. I wondered how the captain navigated his boat without hitting the bank. All night long, the boat stopped to allow some passengers to disembark at the various up-river settlements.

I never closed my eyes. I imagined my family going backk home without me. So I put my head down and cried. K comforted me even though she was not a mother herself.

Hours and hours and many miles down river, dawn peeped out on the windward side of the boat. The passengers awoke and took out their food. We had not thought to bring any food because we had no idea the length of this river and the time it would take to reach Ebini. We were ALL hungry but were too ashamed to let the other passengers know.

In typical Guyanese style, and because they knew we were novices on this trip, they shared their dry cassava bread with us. It kept the growls away.

All day long the steamer chugged along on its way moving along on the river with the deep primordial jungle on both sides. Sometimes we saw clearings with villages and other signs of human habitation on the river banks. At eleven o’clock that day, the steamer docked at Ebini and we were told to get out. The lieutenant in charge of our batch escorted us into a thatched shed.

Surprise, surprise. Waiting to board the steamer on its return trip were some of our UG batch mates. They had completed their stint, and had survived. They all looked haggard and thin but jubilant to be going home. They shared advice and how to escape the rigors of Kurubuku and gave us what food they had and items that they thought might come in handy – buckets, tin cups, insect repellant.

A huge army truck was parked in front of the shed and lieutenant told us to get in the back. The sides of this monster truck were five feet high – like a prison without windows – a promise of things to come.

At about four o clock in the afternoon, we arrived at Kurubuku – a small clearing in the jungle with a collection of palm thatched sheds with side walls about three feet high – the men in one, women in another and GNS staff in two others.

And we found our “bunks”. These constituted a raised platform on tree limbs cut to the length of a bed. Our mattress was made of tree limbs placed side by side with a thin sheet of foam (one inch thick with no covering). The platform ran the length of the shed – one platform on each side.

I, with enough forethought had brought a mosquito net and bed sheets. No pillows were in this hotel. K and I hung up the net from the rafters and since it was big enough, it covered three sleeping spots – my two friends’ and mine. Because no one else had brought a net, this was thereafter called the “Five Star”.

It was very strange to be sleeping on this bed of twigs with the loud silence of the jungle singing us to sleep. The night turned chilly and the baboons began calling out to each other. I heard Hazel, a typical coastlander, whisper to her neighbor “Is wah dah Eto?” No answer from Eto except a gentle snore. There was a sweet scent in the air of the night-blooming flowers. It was a long night and finally, as day dawned, we were awakened by the loud banging of a cutlass on a tin basin.

Our trial had begun.

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