Who Jah Bless

Every time ah hear how de Police had to be called in to remove de lickle vendors (mainly women) from under de side-walks; ah does say to me-self : “Father forgive us, we don’t know what we are doing.” If we could only find ah lickle booth foh as many ah dem small vendors as we possibly can, we would be surprised to see in ten to twenty years time, de many C.K Greaves, Bonadie, F.J Dare, E.D. Layne et al we will produce. Ah was just ah lickle youth man when C.K. Greaves himself returned to SVG from Aruba.{{more}} Ah not claiming him now, but he was married to my Aunt, his first wife. He and Simeon Cumberbatch ran ah small shop at Calliaqua; dey moved into Kingstown between F.J. De Nobriga and Royal Bazzar, opposite de Customs.

Cumberbatch moved back to Calliaqua, C.K stayed on and today, C.K. Greaves & Co owns more business outlets than any one else in SVG.

Let me side track ah bit; C.K didn’t do it alone; his second wife and business partner, Leila was, and still is de engine dat drove it all. At age twelve, she had completed Class Six in Primary School, parents were too poor to afford ah secondary education. She went to wuk at twelve years ole, talking bout child labour?

Mom or Mother as she is affectionately called by wukers, is eighty-two years young, She been wuking foh de last seventy-years non-stop, and still wuking half-day at de Supermarket in town. Public Servants does wuk thirty-three years wid Guv-ah-mint, tek dey pension at fifty-five and go home to vegetate; to vegetate ain’t mean to plant vegetables eh. Dat C.K. Greaves business is ah Dynasty. Every branch ah de business is managed by ah close member ah de family. Every child, every grand-child and dey spouses are employed wid de company, every one ah dem is trained in Canada in some aspect of Business, Accounts, Marketing, Computer. De family is de Business and Vice-say Verse-saw.

Pry-minister Gone-soft made many ah unwise promise, but de good Lord will never allow him to fulfil many ah dem. One was when he declared war against Supermarket owners Bonadie, Veira and in particular Greaves, promising to use Food City to bring dem down. As it turned out, de PM is now left like Haman to heng on his own Gallows.

Haman de Agagite did set out to destroy de Jews, to subject dem to bow-down to King Xerxes, like how leaders today want people to lick he But-tucks. Mordecai ah fearless leader among de Jews, refused like de Greaves and others of today wid independent mind and pocket. So Haman decided to get at Mordecai, reporting him to de King. De plot fell thru and Haman instead was hanged on ah Gallows he had built 75 feet high to swing Mordecai pon. All ah we PM’s plans back-fire-in pon him, he is now praising de Greaves on de opening of dey new Supermarket on de Leeward side; attributing it all to de Company’s con-fee-dense in de ULP. De new facility will employ 65 persons, dis brings de number ah employees at C.K. Greaves to over 500.

Lie-Za asking me if ah know of any business, owned by ah ULP supporter, employing at least ten persons, dat was opened since 2001. Ah beg her to call Star Radio and find dat out.

Congratulations to C.K. Greaves & Co. Ah love de wide variety ah local produce ah see on display. Best ah luck to Derrick de young manager.

DAT IS SOME SOAP POWDER

Yuh must have ah legal ‘mine’ like our Pry-minister to be able to figure out why ah Venezuelan fishing boat will come hey all de way from Margarita /Venezuela to deliver a package ah Soap Powder, ah legal item, and when the Coast Guard attempted to search the boat, dey tied the Soap Powder on to de anchor and throw it over board.

It will tek even more legal ‘mine’ to overs why dey would put dey lives on de line in defense of ah legitimate commodity like soap. Fool ah talk, but nah all time fool ah listen. Even de lickle youth-men dem dah does be liming pon de street wall next to my house, got ah better over-standing ah way go down. Dey were saying not even de Fishermen knew it was Soap, it was suppose to be coke, but no coke ever left South America, somebody was about to get rip-off, big time, Soap foh Coke!

Lie-Za did her investigations and say ‘contra bond’ is not to be ruled out. She swear is Soap Powder, ah special Three-in-One Soap Powder: Tide, Breeze and Surf containing ah powerful Death-urgent dat washes White. Dat is de latest decoy, ah creation ah de drugs cartel to deceive de Coast Guard.

When de Venezuelans threw de package ah Soap Powder over board, all three ingredients were suppose to open; firstly de Tide was suppose to change suddenly and push back de Coast Guard; second was de Breeze, dah was suppose to blow strong and push de Fishing Vessel ahead and de Surf was suppose to stir de sea into raging swells and force de Coast Guard boats to tun back. But de package got trapped wid de anchor, and only de Death-urgent functioned, it actually washed White clean over board.

Dat whole incident stinks, doesn’t mek any cents at all. Four men killed over ah package ah soap powder. Ley me laugh..Ha! Ha!

And wid dat is gone ah gone again.

One Love Bassy

Bassy Alexander is a land surveyor, folklorist and social commentator.