Journey to Freedom

Chapter 1 Growing Up I was born in the beautiful island of Dominica, one of nature's gems in the Caribbean; full of lush vegetation, rain forests, and large plantations filled with all kinds of foods, vegetables and all of nature's goodness. It's a place that is breathtaking, where you can live in harmony with nature and enjoy God's creation. As the eldest son in a family of nine, four boys and five girls, I recall there were good days as well as rough days because most of our sustenance came from the soil. In other words, we had to work very hard in order to support our family, and I mean manual work. This was the only way of survival. For us, things were a little different than most of our neighbors. We had a nice home; my father was a very hard-working man who saw to it that his family was well taken care of. In the village of Wesley, Dominica, where we lived, Dad was one of the prominent business people, he ran the second largest grocery store and also cultivated his land on which we grew bananas, yams and other crops. We were looked upon as "well-to-do" people back in those days. I remember we always had animals to take care of. We had rabbits and chickens. Every day after school, we would dash home, grab something to eat and set out to find the rabbits' feed. Sometimes we would have to walk long distances, often over one mile away from home, but for us that was fun. Besides, our fried "Johnny cakes" and fried fish kept our minds busy. Back then time never seemed to be a problem. Once, while walking through the bushes, I was bitten by a snake. Our country has many different species of snakes, but fortunately for me it was just a "couleuvre", one that is not venomous. Still, I was scared stiff because we heard so many horrible stories about snakes. After that day I watched carefully when I ventured into the woods. I made sure not to step on anything. When I grew a little older, I would gather the feed hastily because when I returned home and washed up I was allowed to help daddy in the shop. There would be the smell of the fried "Johnny cakes" being prepared by my mother's skilled hands for the evening's customers. Dad would let me cash, I even got to settle accounts for the "creditors" who took stuff and paid for it monthly. My brother Mashew, who was one year younger than I, was not granted this privilege and that sort of put me in control. We were extremely troublesome boys, full of energy and always at it. It was hard for our parents to keep up with us because we were nine. On one occasion when we were punished, I don't recall the deed since we had so much to our account. We were left at home naked while Mama and Daddy took my two oldest sisters to the fields with them. To ensure that we would not venture outside (we had a history of running away to escape punishment) we were left upstairs. In those days, it was a normal thing that children be left naked and walked the streets barefooted. I remember being naked twice. The second time, my brother and I ran away from our house and hid ourselves trying to avoid our punishment. I remember walking in what we call "small tracks" between the bushes and trying to hide our "kiki" (familiar word for penis) from being seen by the passers-by. Other times, as soon as they turned their backs, we sat ourselves on the foot pedal of Mama's SINGER sewing machine. The wheel that guides the belt was the steering wheel for the brand new car we had just "bought". And that SINGER machine took us places we had never seen, our imagination simply went wild. If our parents only knew what went on back at the house, they would have thought twice about leaving us alone. By the time we cranked up the sewing machine (our brand new car) we forgot all about our previous punishments and Daddy's instructions. Our mouths became the motor and we were driving at high speed passing our little friends, climbing rugged and dangerous hills, until we were finally in town with the police chasing after us...we outran them, of course! Just then, the machine belt came out of its track, and our car stopped. We were in a lot of trouble, having a sewing machine in your home meant high living standards; we couldn't let daddy get home and discover what we'd done so we decided to fix it. By the time we finally got the belt back into place, we lost interest in driving. I must tell you that a child's imagination can go wild. One of our problems as children growing up was that we were looked upon as nuisances, so no one really took time out to explain what life was about or what was going on. I now know what the word of God means when it says that foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction drives it far from him, Prov. 22:15. So, anyhow, we were sitting there, searching for something new to do, when our eyes caught the broom...Now, allow me to pause while I describe this broom. Our brooms were made of dry palm leaves fetched deep in the forest and attached to a handle. It was not that we'd never seen a broom before (we had helped our father make them countless times.dad sold them). But this day, to two little busy bodies, it held a certain compelling attraction, we soon got a box of matches from high on top the shelf and set the palm leaves on fire. It was not until the flames started to glow that we realized we were in trouble. Here we were two little boys aged 10 and 11, upstairs, naked, locked into a house with the top made from wood with a blazing broom. Panic-stricken, we tried to put out the fire by trying to blow on the broom, but only succeeded in helping the flames to grow. We could not put the broom down because it would set the house on fire! But how long could we hold on to it? When the curtain caught fire, I suddenly remembered that my parents poured water on coals to put them out, so we frantically searched for water. We finally found a bucket full that was kept for drinking purposes and plunged the broom into it, then, we put out the rest of the fire. Exhausted, we sat silently waiting for our fear to subside. We had to figure a way out of this mess! How were we going to explain having matches, when we were strictly forbidden to touch them! There was no way to get out of this. The entire house smelt of smoke, the curtain was charred...Before we could figure out what to do, we heard voices, our parents were re-turning from the field. Boy, had we done it this time! There was no time to switch brooms in order to cover up our deed. We had to act fast. We timed them and waited until they got into the house, halfway up the stairs, they had already seen the smoke coming from the window I suppose, and out of the top window we went...well yes we jumped from the first floor win-dow! We landed in the front yard and down the street we went not even thinking of our nudity, but rather dreading what awaited us if we were caught. My father was a high advocate of the Bible's quote: "Don't spare the rod and spoil the child." My mother's parents lived about 5 miles away in a village called Calibishie and we intended to reach there (surely they would protect us). We were determined to run those 5 miles with all the speed our little legs would allow us to. I don't think I've ever ran faster than that in my whole life. We kept cheering each other on. In the villages of Dominica there were always people by the roadside, sitting, chatting, and selling all kinds of homemade things. As we dashed by, everyone was wondering who those two naked boys were, then someone yelled, "T'IS TILO BOYS!" By that time my father was after us yelling "hold dem boys, hold dem boys foí me!" Everyone was alerted by now and our pursuers were numerous. When we passed the last house down the street two men blocked our way, they had seen us from afar and just waited for us to run right into them... We were handed over to our father and started walking home, our heads hanging low.