Hallelujah, Jumbies, and Prize fights

In the last episode you’ll remember we had left several famous people stranded with the Red Cross. I am happy to report, yes they did get the vehicle out of the water, and yes it did make it home with all on board.
And our Southern Brothers the Wai-Wai were finally able to find a sober driver and headed home.

This episode takes a bit of a different twist.

Hallelujah Jumbies

Vie, who has the little shop right next to TGA had a rather close call Saturday afternoon. Seems they had recently remodeled and added an awning or over head roof to the front of the shop. To this she attached as much stuff on as she could find nail space to put things on. Anyway, she had been sitting under this new overhang all day Saturday watching dust and dogs. Along about 4:30 I hear this crash and assume that someone of the dogs had run over a bicycle or something. On looking out I see the dust settling around the new roof which is now part of the floor. I rush over and yell for Vie, hoping I’m not going to have to pull some bloody mess out of the dust. Vie in the mean time comes out of the kitchen, Praising the Lord because she had been to church that morning, and that was the only reason she was not under the mess. Seems the lord had told her to quit watching dust and dogs, and go start supper.

Only after much praising and hymn singing, she decided she was going to sue the fella who saw fit to only use 4 nails to hold up a roof that was supporting not only it’s self, but probably a ton of clothing and such. I being the Good Samaritan that I am, decided that I should be the lawyer for the defendant, (used to watch a lot of L.A. Law, Perry Mason, and a host of other lawyer based TV shows.). I will base his defense on the fact that the roof falling was an act of GOD, this was his way of letting Vie know that, “hey you better keep going to church, otherwise see what I could have done.” I am still waiting to be contacted by my would be client..

Now this writer has never been superstitious, unless of course it deals with fishing. I.e. Never fry your fish before they’re caught, always spit over your left shoulder before putting a 3piece fly rod together, stand behind a tree to tie on the killer fly, and a few others that I won’t bore you with.

It all started last Friday morning when I was looking on a shelf for flies to loan to someone with better luck getting to go fishing than my self.

I notice that the small bottle of Brazilian firewater, which was only bought for the picture on the label, was lying on its side on the bottom shelf, and was leaking its contents. I blamed the cat for being on the top shelf where this bottle had been setting; apparently she had knocked it off to the lower shelf. The cap didn’t look to have been opened, but was leaking so it was placed on the floor by the front door on my way out.

Saturday evening when I headed home, I decided to take a few snacks for my day off on Sunday. Arriving home just before dark, I go through the same routine as every evening, open the door, kick the cat out of the way, and stand out of the way for the dog to make an inspection, drop my back pack along with the bag of goodies on my chair. Horse is unsaddled, dog, cat, horse fed, Front door is shut, loaf of bread removed from the sack and put on shelf (keeps cat out of the bread) remainder of goodies in the form of 6 apples, 5 bananas, and 2 packs of cigarettes are left in sack till later. Shut and lock the bottom half of the back door to keep the horse out of the house, and head down for a bath. On the way I stop in at Charlo’s and gaff for a few minutes over a cup of coffee.

Up on returning to the house, horse is kicked out of the way at the back door, candle is lit, and I decide to have a quick snack before bed. Now the fun starts, the sack is not in my chair, not on the floor, but I find it on the table. Ok, I may have left it there when I removed the bread, but where are my bananas, the other 4 apples, and my other pack of cigarettes? I know for a fact neither the cat, dog, nor the horse eat apples, bananas or smoke. So the search is on, house is more or less turned upside down searching, a torch light search is done out doors, nothing, so I just go to bed mad and hungry.

Sunday morning dawns and a further search of the house in the form of a good house cleaning, that turns up nothing but a pair of lost slippers.

Search of the yard and bush produces no evidence in the way of banana skins, or apple cores. Closer inspection of the firewater bottle shows that it had in fact been opened just enough to take a good swallow. .

My kindly neighbors inform me that I probably have a Jumbie; problem is they have no solution as to what to do about it/him. I will say this for him; he has very poor taste in liquid libation, especially since there was a bottle of Single Malt Scotch sitting on the table.

I more or less brush this off, and decide to forget the whole thing, until Tuesday night. I arrive home and open the door, and of shine my light on the floor to make sure there are no critters to step on and there laying in the floor is a chicken foot. Upon closer inspection the foot appeared to have been recently attached to one local yard chicken, this was later confirmed. Seems that Colette had butchered a chicken that morning and the girls felt sorry for the cat and decided to give her a treat in the form of a foot.

As to date my Mystery Jumbie still remains at large, or it maybe the fit I threw convinced him that he was messing with a Jumbie bigger and meaner than himself. Only time will tell. “Wonder if garlic strung through the rafters would help”?

Now on a lighter note.

It should be noted that Rupununi prize fights are the more advanced stage of trading insults, posturing, arm waving, threats, and general dust stirring. They tend to take on a flavor of their own and are not limited to dogs, fowl cocks, crows at the abattoir, or school yard scuffles.

Unlike the more popular prize fights that are held in big arena’s, with big crowds paying even bigger money to attend, the Rupununi version has no advanced publicity.

But will draw just as big a crowd as some of the more publicized events, if of course you include dogs, crows, school boys, and cows.

Some of the more mundane fights usually occur after an afternoon or evening of elbow bending (exercise needed to consume enough beer, rum, or corote to put you in a good fighting mood)

But Main Events seem to be very impromptu occurring for no apparent reason, at least to the on lookers. This brings us to one which was observed on Friday Morning, this was unusual in the fact that it was before 11am. And there didn’t appear to be any drinking involved. No one seemed to know what really started this event, but as the story goes;

In the Blue corner, weighing in at maybe 165 lbs. 5’ 8” “Lean & Mean”

Lean & Mean drives up, jumps out of his vehicle and issues the ultimate challenge to the

Red Corner.

In the Red Corner, weighing in at 275+ lb. 6’ “Big & Bad”

The verbal challenge is ignored even though it seemed to question Big & Bads gender and parentage.

Blue corner: Dust kicked, another challenged issued and this time words were followed with a right hook which landed with little or no effect.

Red Corner takes up the challenge;

Big & Bad Questions Lean & Mean’s gender and parentage and a shoving match ensues,

Lean & Mean then steps up to throw another punch and is promptly put into a head lock, to his credit Big & Bad did not issue any blows to Lean & Mean while the head lock was applied, but instead lifted him off the ground, preparing to do a full body slam to the ground. Now enter the girl friend, Sleek & Slim and several cheering on lookers, seems there was not time to place proper bets on the event, so it is broken up.

After much posturing, more insult throwing, threats, Lean & Mean returns to his vehicle. Now Sleek & Slim feels it’s her duty to throw in not the towel but one last insult at Big & Bad, which is promptly answered and brings the crowd to a new frenzied pitch. Seems Sleek & Slim is ready to finish what Lean & Mean started. To his credit Lean & Mean recalled his trainer Sleek & Slim and both left in a

Cloud of dust and shouted insults. #$%^*&!@

Now like all good sporting events, the instant replay, was very animated, colorful and a real crowd pleaser. Amid much arm waving and foot shuffling, bets were placed on who they thought would have won if they been allowed to finish.

My money would have had to been on the Sleek & Slim, I truly believe that given the opportunity she could have whipped them both.

And so ends another week, dust has been settled by a couple of impromptu rain showers, but stay tuned word has it that fish stories will be on the menu for the next few days, with the return of the wayward fishermen.

One can only hope that stories may be cooked and eaten, not just cooked up.

Other points to ponder, Could it have been Vie’s Jumbie, and he got vexed at my offer and decided to follow me home?

Will Sleek and Slim go to GT to become Guyana’s newest lady boxer?

Will Shefishs ever get to go fishing?
Stay Tuned for the further adventures of “As the Rupununi Spins”

April 2004

Shefishs