Bro,

Your absence from the Shop seems to have guided you along the beacon path of Clozier with time to forge a relationship with your alter ego, Selwyn, while feasting on Big Rats .....ah mean Manicou and Armadillo. But Sah!, if there were any concerns about your "Gouyaviness", you have laid them to rest with this piece of yours; not that you needed any authentication but more so because you have captured in true spirit, the colloquial parlance and phraseology of our people.

I remember very well, the resistance I was met with during my advent into blogging on another familiar forum. I was simply trying to bring out the accent/twang of our people through spellings( incorrect though they may be) that would capture the sounds and tones of the words/pharses being used in our everyday language. Worse yet, it was coming from someone with a sobriquet like "Gouyaveman" which must have awaken their gene of hate from its dormancy in them.

"Well! Who tell me to do dat?"

Every Tom, Dick and Harry who were trained under the British Crown came after me for violating Her Majesty's language. Some telling me, in every unflattering terms immaginable, to "keep 'that' up there". Others saying that the language was typical of country-bookies who were illiterate and did not know how to speak or write. So in true West Indian/Grenadian style, I was placed in the hole of my pedigree, the Pigeons, where I laid comfortably.

And when I thought their derisions were enough, I made a post reminding them of the uniqueness of Gouyave. I pointed to her educational, professional, athletical achievements and her contributions to our nation building through government participation, all in the Queen's language.

Do you know the same people who were so vexed, all wanted to know who this Gouyaveman was? Then strangely, the Gouyave connection in them began to come out.

Hear dem!

"Boi! me Gran muddah on me Faddah side came from Gouyave, you knoooow. Dey use to live some way by the Ole Stall Downstreet"

Others saying,

"Me good fren in PBC/GBSS was ah fella from Gouyave and boi, he was brite for so!"

Another fella confess that he was born in Gouyave, went to school on Boulevard de Upper Depradine in the French Quarters but his parents migrated to Town taking him and all his good memories with them. Then all of a sudden, it was nice to be a Gouyave man.....lol

Padnah, it is always refreshing when one chooses to take time out from the rigourousness of writing formalities to engage in  lively, spirited or even mundane conversations. It is even more fun when one engages in writing in the third person.

But to infer that my French designation is fraudulent as indicative of my lacking in the knowledge of Patois, I would proudly respond  in the parlance of my Mother and Grandmother and  say " sac e fey? Oue fou!?" Lol

Noice post and funny like hell

VJL

Vern,it is always a pleasure interacting with you, Tony and the other posters here.It is not surprising that your Guaveness, was treated with such scant courtesy on that other forum,my grandfather used to say a little knowledge could be d dangerous, and with everyone now a secondary school graduate, they consider
it their civic duty to enforce the rules of syntax.
It matters little to them that English as spoken on the streets and Grenadian TV,may well have been a second or third language to them.They grabbed the opportunity to pounce on a country boy from Gouyave,totally missing your deliberate introduction of our colloquialism into the discourse.
But as we know one has to be tired of lobster, before we can appreciate the delicate flavors of "pick on gouge" so let them be.
That they tried to suck up, once they figured that you had some pedigree is stage two of that Grenadian malady. aka Mal khadi , that I spoke before.
There used to be a time when folks wanted to know you so that they could help build you up and be proud to have contributed in whatever way to your success.
The new Gren X Ers see it differently.
Someone once said to me, "Boy dis is ah block and tackle society, if dey can't block you, dey go tackle you" true dat, but once they realise that you will succeed regardless,they line up to be your BFF.
There was no need to wake up ah ageable person foreday mornin to arx Dem for a few patois words, you ah arx me,sac etan parle lot.