Good Friday always sparks the reflections

Apr 04, 2010 Features / Columnists, My Column

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By Adam Harris

Two days ago the nation observed Good Friday and today it is celebrating Easter. This happens to be the holiest time on the Christian calendar. Good Friday, in most homes, whether they belonged to the devout or to practicing Christians, people modified their diets.
The tradition is that people should not eat certain foods so many shied away from meat. Many simply ate sweet things with the cross buns being in the forefront. Rice porridge and other foods were there in abundance.
Of course many simply cooked these things very late so at noon when the children were supposed to be hungry they either had to wait or drink something that was available. Those who could afford had snacks that were supposed to keep the children happy until the meal was ready.
As a child I detested Good Friday because it meant starvation and some hefty slaps if I dared cry or protest. I had to go to church at noon and stay till three because the service was three hours long. In those days I attended St Jude’s Anglican at Blankenburg, West Coast Demerara. At first the priest was Hilton Carty. He was followed by David Samuel Hemerding who later made his mark at St Augustine, Buxton.
Not a Good Friday passed without my stepfather dragging me and my siblings to church. I was also a server. When I was smaller I sat through the service, kneeling at the Stations of the Cross and nodding through the sermon.
As an older boy I managed to sneak some salara or buns into the church and during the service I would slip my hand through the slit in the cassock and break off a piece. That explained the holes in my pants because the rats were also attracted.
I vowed that when I grew up I would eat what I wanted on Good Friday and I did. I still do. As a young husband I rebelled and simply had to face the kitchen.
Shops remained closed throughout the day and the radios played solemn music until Birthday Requests at 4:30 in the afternoon. I really did not appreciate the suffering of some others until I went to work at Bartica. All shops remained closed but the rum shops seemed to be the most targeted. I recalled the crowds from about five in the afternoon waiting for the various rum shops to open.
The place was quiet except for some heathens who chose to blare music sets. I still find that annoying and I suppose most people do because there are hardly ever such acts of lawlessness. This year, for example, the neighbourhood was as quiet as a grave. Even radios were muted as though people recognized the need for respect.
I suspect that for all the tough talk and the various shows of disrespect for God and man, people somewhere deep inside harbour that fear of a Supreme Being. I know that most are superstitious and they therefore have a fear of what they do not know or fail to understand.
For example, a neighbour who was known to cuss from dawn to dusk had a fear of spirits. One day the receiver of her abuse decided to put a stop to it once and for all. She got a frog and tied a red ribbon around its neck. She then set it loose in the woman’s yard.
I still smile when I remember the scene. The cuss bird had come downstairs perhaps to sweep the yard because people still sweep yards with the same regularity that they sweep their homes. Whether the frog was disturbed by the sound of the broom or simply looking for some way to shed the ribbon I do not know.
But it made its appearance. This brave woman dropped the broom and let out a scream. “Crapaud in de yard. Somebody send obeah pun me.”
In this country we have experts of all sorts. One of them suggested salt but the woman would not go anywhere near the crapaud. And the expert would not come to pour the salt. I laughed but I could not let them see because I would still have been receiving my share of the abuse.
For a while I made an enemy because I ventured into the yard and removed the crapaud by simply picking it up, removing the ribbon and placing it in a drain. My neighbour then asked me whether I don’t think I should say a prayer. I declined.
Good Friday has its share of superstitions. Don’t climb trees on Good Friday because you would fall off and die. I use to hear about a number of people who suffered such a fate. Don’t cut the physic nut tree because it bleeds at noon on Good Friday. If you get a cut on Good Friday it would take long to heal because it is going to bleed a lot, the same way Christ bled on the cross.
I am not superstitious; at least I tell myself that. Others can judge. There is the superstition that if breast milk falls on a penis the man would become impotent. I refuse to test that saying and I know many male doctors, none of whom is prepared to test the saying.
You should stay at home on Good Friday but I remember Forbes Burnham calling me out of my house one Good Friday to fly with him to the National Service centres. He used to do that regularly. He even got people out of their homes on Christmas Day to visit these centres. I remember saying to myself that Good Friday that I was doing a good and that nothing would go wrong with the plane.
I am not going to fly a kite tomorrow. In fact, I never owned one because my stepfather always said that kite flying is a mockery to God. But I am going to be with the crowd enjoying the spectacle. After all I deserve the break unlike my New York-based siblings and children. For them there was no Good Friday holiday because it is not. And Easter Monday is not a holiday there.

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