As a child I stood at the window upstairs in the village of Grand Roy on the island of Grenada and watched as bus load after bus load of people headed toward the city nine miles south of our home. I was about 10 years old then. My curiosity got the better of me and I decided to ask my mother why all these buses were heading into town after the sun had gone down under the Caribbean sea. Her answer was "English boat is in town." "English boat?" I responded and she answered me by saying "Yes English boat." Of course being the curious child I was and not understanding what she meant I said to her "Mammy what does English boat have to do with the buses. All I ask you is why all these buses filled with people are going into town after dark." You see our sleepy island basically shut the city down at 4pm every day and all buses headed north pass my house rather than south from our vintage point at Grand Roy. Mammy knowing that I would not give up until I had an answer. She decided to sit my siblings and I at the table to give us our first lesson about the migration of Caribbean people from the British colonies to England to seek a so called better life. The first thing she asked was "Did you see the large ship out on the horizon earlier this evening? and of course we all answered yes. "That was the English Boat." she said. "When the English Cruise ship stopped in the port of St Georges, Grenadian families would flock to the pier to say their good byes and to wish their family and friends good luck. Men women and children get on board these cruise lines which takes six week to cross the Atlantic to England. Port after port the cruise ships will pick up islanders and take them to work in the factories of England. Some never to return. Who knows maybe one day when you all grow up you may have to take that trip too to seek a better life." We listened intently to mammy as she explained to us that her sister and three brothers had taken the English boat some years before to England and has not yet returned. She explained to us that we had cousins living in England, Venezuela, France, Panama, Brazil, Aruba, Maracaibo, Barbados and Trinidad. She explained to us that she had no interest in leaving her beautiful island to suffer in any other country. She was satisfied with her job and did not see the need to make changes. Once she finished her lesson on the migration of Caribbean people to England I was satisfied that my question was answered. We had only moved to the Caribbean shores from the Atlantic town on Grenville a couple month before, and had not seen the process of migration on the Atlantic shoreline. Our new house was about one hundred and fifty yards away from the beach on a slope with the front of our house facing the Caribbean sea. Every day since we moved we watched as Commercial ships, Cruise liners, oil tankers, badges, warships, whales, dolphins etc make their way past our vintage point along the shores outside Grand Roy. It would be hard press to find a Caribbean islander who has not lost a family member to migration. For the people of Grenada the emphasis of migration shifted to North America rather than to England and Europe in the seventies.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Oct 2013 22:12:16 +0000
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