First Draft

There only a few things in  this world i would say that i fear those being heights, snakes ,my dad and my mother’s rubber dinky slipper .She is a master of sarcasm. As a  young child she has always placed emphasis on me speaking in “standard english” but i never really understood as most people around me didn’t. My parents and I  grew up very differently. I was grew up in a normal stereotypical urban city , my parents both came from families of farmers, from the countryside , like depths of the country, im talking backdams, mud beds,caimon as pets and  the rich smell of manure early morning ,when you go behind god back, keep going cause you aint reach yet kinda depths hence why my granny would call me a town man/ city bhai

                                                                      Ive always enjoyed seeing the interactions between those who use standard standard english and those that dont especially my parents and how they switch between the two, young me saw it as a special kind of code they used  yet i wasnt allowed to speak in that dialect as if it were taboo.My most memorable experience occurred when i was 16/17 and my interactions between my country  and me . My parents took me to their home village a handful of times to give some perspective but never for more than a day at a time as it was a running joke that “a town bhai could neva handle country man life” so as a bet with my parents i decided to spend a summer. See the part i left out was I had attempted this exact thing several times before, but each time i begged to go home but this time it was going to be different i swore it.In previous instances i stayed with my uncle who though he it definitely wasnt the city he wasnt in as deep country.This time i was in my grandparents house, the depths of the berbice , where the sun shines hot all day, 

                                                                   Night one was the hardest they were no street lights and when the sunset that was it, you’re not seeing anything just the pitch darkness and the buzzing of mosquitoes and them constantly biting though I was completely covered, i honestly dont know how they kept getting to me . In  the Morning the first words i heard  were “ Marning pickney abi des aguh by de market fi buy one two ting fi cook” i stared at her as i understood nothing, “ wham to yuh? Jumbie ride yuh or wuh?” , again, confused i replied with a ‘

weak ‘huh?’ fortunately my cousins came to my rescue explaining that they were heading to the market and asked if i was hungry . After my grandparents departed my cousin said “Uze bike” i replied of course,me and my trusty bicycle had seen the entirety of georgetown so it was my surprise when he brought out a dirtbike that was bigger than me, i failed to mention me and cousin daren shared a similar stature in terms of height, weight , and any other physical attribute we were practically mirror images of each other with the biggest difference being how we spoke. Confidently i took the bike , i had seen videos and played the games , they cant be that hard i thought as i launched the bike into the fence before even getting on it . “OH Skites banna, is bruk yuh want bruk up de fence or wuh” he exclaimed and fell down laughing, a brief tutorial and a 2 falls later we were cruising, the air here was different , its  was seeming cleaner granted the roads were horrendous and it was as if we were in a dirt rally rolling over hills and getting used to the area. That night and following days  i spent learning creole from my cousins and grandparent and also the cultural stories like about kanima, old higue, sensibill and stupidi bill and names for certain things like how lizards are called ganga sacka and balloons balata,

       In the following weeks my creole get a lil  beta and mi start fi use it somemore, granted, it wasnt the best , mi had hiccups here and there but overall , it was something i was proud off, i spent the rest of my summer chasing sheep up and dung a backdam, driving tractuh , swimming in creeks and trenches with caimon and small watuh snakes.

                                                                                         At de end of de summa  when my parents a cum for  mi i had specifically remebered i needed to switch back to standard english, when they arrived and i spoke as i did in the city no difference , i was praised for lasting this long and taken back home. Some of my friends came over after i returned to the city to ask about by my experience, as cell signal was poor in that area we hardly spoke . Whilst elaborating to dem mi unknowinli slip bac inuh a creole and i said “ yes budda abi dees” i heard a whooshing sound on my left and i turned to see what it was a rubber slipper smacked into cheek, though there wasnt much force behind it the shame and shock froze me as my mother proceeded to correct every word i had used and barrate me for the use of those terms and my father for letting me stay in the country to learn them, at the time i never understood why she stood so firmly against my use of that kind of language. It never made sense to me,it was the way that she spoke sometimes and they dialect of her parents, yet why was it that taboo?As i grew older i began to understand she just wanted to protect me as people who spoke that dialect were viewed in a lesser light and she didnt want that for me