Charise took a liking to the girls immediately, chatting them up in the tightest of Bajan accents but with a softness to her voice than made it almost sweet. Yes, I did cringe at hearing her misuse "she" and "he" for "her" and "him," something that drove me mental when anyone did it. "Look at she! She think she doin' somethin'!" She played with their hair and tickled their legs while checking to make sure we were not trying to abscond with an extra pork loin or one more 16-pack of toilet paper than the receipt implied. She was studying childhood development and education and wanted to open a daycare center. I'd toyed with the idea of having her come and sit with the girls, but as she was always at PriceSmart, I just couldn't imagine when she'd have the time. I was also a bit shy about having a woman we chatted with at the store come over to the house and be so intimately involved in our lives. I know, paranoid. But I just thought the level of mystery and separation was right in this instance. I felt guilty about it almost every Sunday after she'd slipped me her number yet again asking if I knew anyone looking for a sitter.
We really don't know her. Just our impressions from the mornings spent at PriceSmart. She has a sweet smile, works very hard, seems to be well-respected by other employees on the job. Her birthday is in April. I know this because when she once asked about Virginie's birthday and I started to say April, I was unable to get the words out completely when she jumped up and said, "Mine too! Mine too!" with the lift on TOO. There is an innocence and openness to her that only the young possess and I was excited by it. In a class system as structured and unforgiving as that in Barbados, I believed she would break out and create that day care center. I'd seen her work her way through university, saw her studying in the aisles of PriceSmart, heard her talk enthusiastically about what she was learning. I told other people about her and told the aunties at the girls' nursery school about her in the hopes that she might work with them before starting her own place. I saw hope and opportunity for this young lady and I was thrilled.
One of the most heartbreaking and frustrating things about Barbados for me was how easily people accepted their lot in life. Surely there are ambitious people, people trying to improve their plight, but in the working class, even with the offer of free advanced education, training programs, apprenticeships there is so much lethargy. One can see it in the faces of workers everywhere. A bitterness, a resignation, a hopelessness. Life looks very long and exhausting when you are sitting on an island of 285,000 people working the same job, resisting the same boss/company/authority for your entire working life. Didier and I often remarked to one another while driving through the country about the countless young people, boys to men playing checkers and drinking a Banks in the morning, girls to women carrying small children in the early hours, very young mothers, when we would take the girls to school, workers in the kitchens, grocery stores, shopping districts with hooded eyes looking at you with contempt or disinterest. This was the Barbados that tourists, expats living high on a big company salary with little contact or attention paid to the locals, ever had to see or consider. Maybe I didn't either, but that is not the kind of person I am. I do consider. It hurt to see.
So when we showed up at a jam-packed PriceSmart yesterday, full of people doing their Easter weekend shopping (from Good Friday through Monday is a holiday on the island with all days but Saturday completely closed) and spied Charise in the sea of craziness, I sighed with relief. She came to me with full, rosy cheeks, a bright smile and a hug. "Look at I. Do you see I?" And then I did. I did see. Charise was pregnant. A little over three months but on her tiny little body it was already completely apparent, a little bump had formed low over her belt buckle. I held her and congratulated her slowly. She seemed happy, a little apprehensive, but happy and I did not want to appear tentative in my happiness for her.
In stand-still traffic leaving the shopping district, I finally sighed and said aloud to Didier,"She was my hope for Barbados. I am sorry that I am so sensitive about this. I know it's silly. But I wanted for her so much more." There were tears, a quick surprising outpouring of love for Charise. I know it's her life and it is certainly not written in stone that she will not achieve all that she'd dreamed, many have. But I feared that the monotony and struggles of raising a child would get the best of her and she would have just her dreams as the proof that she got so close. I don't know her boyfriend or her family or her situation. I don't even know her really. For all I have come to love about Barbados, it is the lost dreams, lost hope, monotonous existence that tear me down each time. I can leave Barbados now. I have seen the cycle so clearly and whether one lives well and comfortably or poor and with struggle, it's all the same. All the same. Over and over and over.
*Not her real name.
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
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