It was the next morning that I appeared at Bea’s, as promised.As I arrived I went to work right away, feeling that I had better before the sun found out that I was around. Determined to finish the job I had started the day before, I lifted my machete and started to work even before announcing to old Bea that I had arrived. Continue reading
Posted in Bocas del Toro, West Indian Panamanians
Tagged Baseline, Bea, Bocas del Toro, Changuinola River, Rundon, West Indian women
Many Westindian women found honest work following the work camps and washing and cooking for the laborers.
Sadness held us together as Bea continued her story. “All I could do is tell the boys them to take me to see him. ‘Take me to him,’ I said to them. So they take me to look at him an’ I still could not believe that he was dead. They, I mean we, all bury him and had the wake in this same house.” She sensed that I was grieving for her lost lover of yesteryear so she switched the conversation to a more pleasant note. “You should bring your family and stay with me a couple of days,” she said and I found words enough to respond. “I will,” I answered. Continue reading
Posted in Bocas del Toro, Silver People of Panama
Tagged banana plantations, Banana-empire, Bea, Bocas del Toro
A West Indian washer woman washing clothes at a stream about 1909.
In Homage to West Indian Poetry on World Poetry Day
My Mamí was talking to me
What’s more, I think she was praying.
“Look you shirt! Bran’d new shirt,
an you keep it like this!
What happen this time?
No, don’t tell me, I know,
some Paña boy call you Chombo!”
The look she had on her face
made me answer:
“Well, that’s what allway happen,
I go to school with them an’…”
She did not make me finish
as she started the same old talk I call her prayer:
“Oh yes, you an you alone
goin’ fight the whole world ova’ a name?
An you such a smart boy!”
“Look, if I said it once
I say it a million times,
I don’t want you fighting,
fighting in the streets!
No, no not you!
You have to listen to me!”
“How it is that you goin live
long enough to become president of Panama?
You answer me that!”
“Look, son, them bad blows
will tell on you laita’, man.
If I was a smart boy like I know you are,
I will listen to my Mamí
instead of listening to some boy
calling you Chombo or anything else.”
“You keep your mind on this,
say it ova an ova,
‘I will become the first
Westindian president of Panama.’
You a Paña boy!
An the Lord has to work
in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.”
“I ask you now,
wha you think they call that president,
wha his name?”
“Arnulfo Arias!” I piped up an said.
“Yes, that one ‘Nulfo!’
Yes, what they call him
when they want to talk to him?”
“Mr. Presidente, I suppose?” I said
as I found myself still standing near her
as she gave me a lecture prayer I’d remember all my life.
“Well, yes! That is what
everybody has to call him.
That is what you is goin to be called,
Not Mr. Chombo President!
So, there you have it, then.
All those ladies you meet at Ancon Laundry
Will say to me “Mrs. Reid,
We hear your boy is president.”
I will be proud to have the Lord
take me home
as angels sing, “It is well,
It is well with my soul.”
“See, son, what I mean for you?
That would make me very happy.
Now you go inside an change
then look in my purse an take money enough
to go to Big Market fo’ me,
like a good boy.”
An early photo of West Indian workers chatting.
In that year of early 1956 when I met Bea, I wasn’t much more than a teenager, an older adolescent. Bea was as an older woman whose age I calculated as being in her early sixties. But she still had that glow of a young woman as her beautiful brown skin did not reveal the wrinkles of old age. Nevertheless she might have been cruising in her early eighties. But it was my first encounter with a woman who had seen the beginnings of the web of railroad tracks laid to be the only transport available in the area and all of it was run by the Chiriqui Land Company. Continue reading
Old photo of West Indian working men doing their own laundry. They were not fortunate enough to have the help of WI women.
As I got back to the work at hand a cool sea breeze reminded me that the surf was a short walk from where I had ended up that morning. Then I looked up and my host had disappeared into the house. Time seemed to fly and my muscles were not yet tired. The sun at that hour of the day had become merciless, however, as I continued to whack away all my troubles thinking, time and again, that I had better just jump on the first ferry and take may sorry self up the line and plead with my boss to give me back my job. Continue reading
Posted in Bocas del Toro, West Indian Panamanians
Tagged Bea, Bocas del Toro, Westindian women, widow
Typical washday at a stream; in this case under Lagarto Bridge.
Courtesy of www.czimages.com
The presence of women who followed the laborers into the areas of construction of the railways was vital to the morale of the working man. Those women as first pioneers were hardy and won the respect and admiration of most of these roughneck Westindian men. Later it would be my understanding that many other people were attracted to the area of work because of those first groups of pioneer women. Continue reading
Posted in Bocas del Toro, West Indian Panamanians
Tagged banana plantations, Base camp, Bea, Bocas del Toro, pioneer women, Women
