The singing stevedores
teetotaler, non-smoker and a “voracious reader” came up with a satisfactory solution. “Very often the town cask would not hold within a gallon or two of what had been contained in the original cask; we were then supposed either to waste the surplus rum on the deck, to run into the scuppers en route to the river, or send it ashore to the Custom House. Had I chosen the latter course the officials would not thank us (and had so expressed themselves, privately) for the bother we were giving them, and in the next place I should have had the worry of filling up no end of forms, and attending personally at the Customs; so we had a third alternative - rum shrub, and milk punch, made out of forty per cent, overproof rum. My (Jamaican, black) steward was a professional at the making; and they tell me, the result was very nice in hot water on cold nights in winter.”
Using then common but now derogatory terms to describe the East Indians immigrants and the former slaves and their descendants, Angel explained that ship masters had the privilege of employing “who they mind to as stevedore.”
“My old man was redoubtable, by name Douglas; he was one of the blackest specimens of nigger, but a good one, and he brought his own gang of stowers. We hoisted the cargo on deck with our engine and lowered it to him in the hold. The niggers were all notable singers, and in jack-screwing heavy hogsheads of sugar a ton weight, in the wings, or under the ‘tween decks aft in the run, they had their own shanties, in rhythmic time, and tune, screwing and singing, ‘Whar you been, Abram, whar yo been so long? Ebery time I turn in the bed,
I take the pillow for you - ew ew.’ And again another, ‘Sweet Evilina — dear Evilina…’ ”
He finds it “comic to see that black mass of perspiring humanity, a long way aft in the run of the lower hold, almost dark (for lights were not allowed owing to so much rum being about), with their great eyes rolling and blinking at you, caroling forth such ditties. It presented a glimpse of the nether regions, in more ways than one; for the heat where they were working was terrific, and the smells in the ill-ventilated hold of the mixture of sugar and rum fumes, overpowering to those not used to it.”
Impressed with the Guianese dockhands, he compares them to the “Trinidad coloured men” who liked “standing idle in the market place” while “praying that no man will hire them.” Angel contended that in contrast, the island’s “negro women, by some happy faculty in them, are notably more inclined to work than their men folk - whom they maintain as often as not; but they are very fond of dressing up to vie with, and if possible, outshine one another. It has been said that the first thing noticeable on landing on the wharf in Port of Spain, is the multitude of coloured men who are doing nothing…”
“The West Indian coloured population are very sharp in repartee, and in a battle of wits you are likely to be beaten, and badly so. As a rule they are good-tempered and can take a joke and give one back, and laugh and have you ever seen a negro laugh? When jokes are intended as such, they laugh - but there is no race alive that can be so contemptuously insulting as a truly angry negro; and they can be dangerous, too, not caring a rap for consequences,” he wrote.
Captain Angel marvels that with 8 000 humans in Port-of-Spain “without visible means of support” the city is “an Elysium” for “people can live there - not without eating, for everyone you pass is eating something or other all day long - but without working.” In comparison, “the labourers on board ship in Demerara worked well under their own Boss, and in the terrific heat that prevailed in the ship’s hold no other human beings could compete.”
ID sings “Stormalong” a favourite melody of the “Sheila”“I wish I was old Stormy’s son, He would build me a ship of a thousand ton. I’d fill her up with Demerara rum, And all my shellbacks they should have some.” undertaken by the ministry’s Green Generation Guyana Project, where children are taught safe waste management practices. The “3Gs Programme,” which was launched back in February, has seen over 2,000 students from Primary Schools across the country benefitting from waste management education.
In brief remarks at the launch, Owen Pollard, Assistant Chief Education Officer (Primary), stated that Guyana’s results in literacy over the years have not been of the best and students have demonstrated limitations in their vocabulary. He stated that the Ministry of Education welcomes any activity which will aid in word building skills.
Chief Education Officer (CEO) Marcel Hutson also addressed the audience at the launch. Hutson stated that environmental education is to develop an awareness of, and concern for the environment and other related issues. He further stated that a reorientation of learning through the environment is required.
“Let the environment become our teacher, in this case we need to listen to the environment. What is the environment saying to us? We must learn about the environment, through the environment, for the environment,” the CEO noted while adding, the fact that children are participating in the competition is a testimony that we are moving in the right direction.
“If we capture the minds of our children, in terms of how they treat the environment, I believe that as they grow older they are strategically poised to become agents of change,” Hutson opined.
The first competition saw more than 10 Primary Schools participating. The competition, which is aimed at students at the Grade Three and Four level, will be taken across all regions and will continue in 2018.