Lise-Rose The day of my first communion was something, boy! My day. My dress. My gloves. All of it arrive the Monday that just pass there. Everybody could see me smile from far, oui! The dress come wrap up in paper and it roll up so. When I unroll it I hold the dress up to me. I never see a dress so pretty in my life. Is my pawen that send money for my muddah to buy all of it for me.

Ma Gweno have to go all the way to town to Ms. Idris to get the parcel for me. She say I better be grateful because my pawen does risk his life for me. I ask Papa Agwé what Ma Gweno mean. He say my pawen working on something call the Panama Canal somewhere on the other side of the sea. He say he does have to blow up big rocks and things to make way for water. I never heard of people making way for no water. Water always find it own way.

Ma Gweno watch me quiet like she always do. She watch me open the parcel and watch how I look at everything. Her eyes follow everything I do but she not say a single word. I watch her too. But I don''t let she see me watch her. She would fly something my way if she catch me watching her. I know Ma Gweno and I know how she does be. I watch perspiration drag itself all around her black skin that does be on her face.

She take out her little piece of cloth she have in her waist and wipe her face with it. I never know what Ma Gweno thinking. Even though she my muddah I don''t know who she be. Her body itself seem like something far away to me. She like the big mountains that come up up on the side of the house. Something I does see every day but I don''t know nothing about. Her legs reach up so like paw-paw tree just outside of the house. Our house have two rooms now.

So Papa Agwé and Ma Gweno does sleep in the room at the back. The front room is where the boys and I does sleep. We one of the few with two rooms. Papa Agwé put a nice roof on our house too. He find some big pieces of wood by the estate on the other side of the lallay, and hardly any rain does come through during hurricane season. Everybody else have small small pieces of wood nail around their whole house. Ma Gweno don''t like that Papa Agwé take the big pieces of wood from the estate. She say that stealing.

Papa Agwé say they steal from us so we just making things right, that is all. But I don''t feel bad, oui! Papa Agwé work hard to build this house. Sometimes I lean out that window and look out at the yard at the chickens and the chicks that like to stay under the house. In the early morning when the sun be bright but not too hot they does come out looking for food all over the yard. But they never go far. The kitchen behind the house is as far as they go. Ma Gweno always give them some rice from what she cooking. She spend most of her day in that kitchen on that coal stove Papa Agwé make for her.

The kitchen does be so dark. I don''t know how Ma Gweno does see properly in there at night. We always have to bring the kerosene lamp for her. She hang it just by the door of the kitchen. Sometimes I ''fraid the lamp drop and a big fire will break out, like the one at Evo''s house across the road. Our kitchen barely standing as it is. So many old pieces of wood nail one on top of the other. Every now and then you see smoke, and the smell of salted, smoked and fried fish does escape through those holes.

I always know when Ma Gweno make hawansò because I smell the smoke herring from those little holes. That is when she does send me to the garden in the back to get some cucumber and tomatoes. I have to pass all those rocks that trouble my toes and make it hard for me to pass. Papa Agwé does put big big rocks that he find by the sea to hold the house and prevent it from sliding down the lallay during hurricane season. Sometimes the chicks get squeeze between some of the smaller rocks and they make small noises one after the other. I does have to help them along. When I make it past the kitchen I see the garden Ma Gweno have in the back near the small small river that does pass behind the back of the yard. That is where we does get our water.

I does have to go there to get water every morning, noon, and late afternoon for Ma Gweno. I like that little river. The water look so fresh and it col'' col''. Papa Agwé say it coming straight from the mountain just beside us. I wonder how the water reach the mountain in the first place. Papa Agwé say the storm bring the water. I don''t know nothing about that. Sometimes I have to go by the lallay to get the water if it rain too much.

By the time I does reach the small garden Ma Gweno have, I can smell the latrine. It behind the kitchen in the yard and boy, I does hate that thing. Sometimes on a hot day it does be so strong. It smell like rotten food those street dogs fight over and flies fight to feast on. Worst of all there does be big big cockroaches in there. Every time I have to go in there I have to hit the floor with the board to scare the cockroaches away. They does be as big as my eyes! My bruddah always say that the white cockroach will get me one day. But Papa Agwé say there nothing called a white cockroach.

But I does be careful because my other bruddah say that Ma Rosalind child fall in the pit one day. I don''t like to think about them things. I turn my back to the latrine and look for what Ma Gweno send me for. I see the sugar cane growing nice near Ma Rosalind house. Papa and Ma Rosalind share the sugar cane. All along the yard we have paw-paw trees and breadfruit trees. Oh I love breadfruit so. Ma Gweno make ton ton with breadfruit and that does make me so happy.

I have to help her pound the breadfruit until it smooth and creamy. In the rest of the yard Ma Gweno make Papa Agwé plant some provisions like yam and dasheen. I like the dasheen the best. The gray dasheen that feel so nice and smooth in your mouth when you eat it with the coconut gravy from the sancoche Ma Gweno make on Sundays. Ma Gweno make the best sancoche on the lallay. She grate the coconut fine fine. That because Papa Agwé make a gwaj for her that have fine fine holes so she can get all the milk from the coconut. When she making sancoche everybody does call out from their yard to Ma Gweno.

But she never answer nobody. That''s how Ma Gweno does be. She don''t look to her right, she don''t look to her left. When she walk in the street people always wave but she just keep walking down the lallay. Sometimes she wave but that is all. She never have much to say to anybody. But Papa Agwé, he so different from Ma Gweno. I never know how the two of them be married.

Everytime he come home the yard full of laughter, noise, and dancing. Papa Agwé love a dance -- his thing is Jing Ping. Every time he arrive from working in the North he like to sit by the outside of the house with his pipe, and he and his friends Uncle Leonard and Mr. Murphy pull out their instruments and play. Papa Agwé play boumboum, Mr. Murphy play the gwaj, and Uncle Leonard play the tanbou. Soon the yard fill up with people dancing and laughing, Ma Gweno would not allow us children to be part of the dancing. She say dancing disturb the spirit.

She warn me that my body should only be used for God''s work and not for man''s foolishness. So I have to lean out that window by the bed and watch Papa Agwé and his friends sing, dance, and drink. Ma Gweno say those things too was of the devil. She say anything that take you outside of God''s presence wasn''t good. But I don''t know where God''s presence does be. Me and my bruddahs still watch all night while Ma Gweno sit in the other room on her chair. Sometimes Papa Agwé sing a song with our names in it. And secretly we all sing along so quiet Ma Gweno could not hear us.

I so want to sing with Papa Agwé and them. But I already have so much trouble talking I don''t know how my singing going to come out. Whatever I do to make sound come out, it always feel like a knife coming down on tough meat. But I want to sing. Sleep always take us and we fall asleep on the bedding Ma Gweno had put down for us. I sleep close to the window. I want the moon to catch me when I sleep. Papa Agwé tell me to always let the moon fall on me.

He said that why he call me Sweet Lise-Rose, because I was born on the brightest moon and when he look at my face in the moonlight it make me look sweet like a rose. Whenever he tell me those things I just laugh because I know it not true. But I don''t tell him that. On the Sunday after we come home from church Papa Agwé take us to the sea. The sea big. It does be at the end of the lallay. When you come to the end of the lallay where Mr. Luke and Ms.

Katie house does be you feel like you going to drop. The cliff so high, I tell you! You can stand on that cliff and if you not careful the wind from the sea will fly you right in, I tell you. We take a long path like a snake to make our way down. Papa Agwé say you never approach something so big, straight. He say to always look for a slow steady path. He say it just like climbing the mountain beside the house. When we finally make it to the sea we have to step over rocks and rocks, I tell you. They does be everywhere like the bedding we put all over the floor of the house when we ready for sleep.

Sometimes we does look for the pretty shells that the sea push to the shore. But you have to be careful because if you step on a broken shell, oh pain will find you, oui! Sometimes the waters in the sea so troublesome but Papa Agwé take us anyway. He always tell us to put our feet in the water no matter how rough. He warn us to only do that when he there. On the very rough sea days Papa Agwé take water and pour over us as we.