Country Bumpkin, the farmer. Artwork: Patrice Piard

Dickson Igwe. Photo: Provided

Females, especially, were even more religious and God fearing in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. When not on the farm and out under the hot sun, or in the outdoor kitchen making myriad foods from the produce of the land, the women were to be found at the ubiquitous prayer meeting. In those days one either worked or starved. There was no in between. Life was very hard.

Now, Bumpkin was also known as King Fungi. He was a bush man. He was also a legendary calypsonian, folk dancer, native philosopher, local historian, and a keen observer of the world around him. He was a veritable village square Plato. Had Bumpkin been European he would have been described as a 'Renaissance Man.'

Yes this was the real Country Bumpkin: son of the soil. He was a very big deal in the Virgin Islands, no matter how one looked at him. A powerful peasant and farmer: a rustic man of deep pedigree.

And his was a voice of gold. His songs could open up the very doors of Heaven. His powerful hands played all instruments found in his village at the time, from the banjo to the conga drum, and from the ukulele to the steel pan. He was the salt of the earth, a vast and prodigious reader, and a scholar with a peculiar and rustic humor.

This was a "thinking yokel." His favourite place in his Virgin Islands village and hamlet of Ballast Bay was the tiny public library: a donation by the Duke of Badminton, and the Ladies of Lawn and Tennis.

Yes. Country Bumpkin was a man well worked. He was as tough as rock. Bumpkin was rugged, tanned and hardened by years of labour in the hot Caribbean sun.

He was a man when not tenaciously working his land and minding his livestock, would usually be found under the bougainvillea tree in the village square. He would be found seated on the ground, his straw hat shading his forehead and eyes from the bright, hot, West Indian sun.

He read with a profound but joyous concentration. Knowledge and wisdom were the sweetest honey to this extraordinary man. And here was a man, when not working his body on the land, worked his brilliant and resourceful mind. A man well read! He was the classic thinker, and then some.

OK. These are the Virgin Islands of the 1950s. Life is very hard. Traces of the evils of slavery remain manifest, even after the end of that evil era. King George the Sixth sits on the British throne.

Our farmer friend is today lying on a hammock on the front verandah of his little clapboard house. His home is located high on a lofty, rocky peninsular, overlooking a spectacular Ballast Bay.

Ballast Bay is a unique geography. It is a valley graced by a beach of round stones and pebbles. The stones are delightful hews of white, grey, and black that sit on a white sand floor. This is a beach created by deity. Ballast Bay Beach is washed by the Caribbean Sea.

Ballast Bay is furthermore a rural hamlet on the idyllic Caribbean island of Tortola. Scores of simple homes sit safely on top a mountain that rises sharply from the valley floor. The dwellers on top the mountain are blessed with spectacular views of neighboring islands and islets that appear to float on a sea of deep blue.

Cattle, goats, and sheep, amble about the hamlet. A number of farms, fruit and vegetable patches and orchards, simple homes, and fishing boats on stilts, compliment the rustic landscape. There are fishing nets strewn over the beach. Mules, dogs, and chickens engage each other in mysterious collaboration.  

OK. It is another heavenly morning on an idyllic geography. The calm blue seas of the Bay teem with marine life of every type as the motley mix of birdlife hovering over the waters determines. A seagull dives spectacularly towards a shoal of fish lingering on the surface of the water.

And as usual Country Bumpkin is in deep thought.

Mrs Bumpkin is in her kitchen preparing a delicious lunch. This is a fully fledged Caribbean affair. There is spicy mutton stew, fried plantains, and sweet potatoes.

The two Little Bumpkins are playing out in the yard: a game of bat and ball using a local bat made from a well exposed palm tree branch and tennis ball.

Bumpkin is keenly aware that his brilliance at cultivation, and rearing livestock, add his exceptional skills as a fisherman, is a profession that is in deep trouble. Farming is in decline as the local economy changes to a trading economy.

All the young people in the village are leaving for the towns and cities of the world, seeking excitement and glamour, and a questionable better life. So, who will carry on with this all too necessary occupation of rural farmer? Bumpkin is clearly worried.

Mrs Bumpkin needs some help in the kitchen.

She steps on to the porch and pokes her Bumpkin in the stomach with a broom handle. Next, the lovely Lesser Antillean with long black hair that moves in the opposite direction of where she ambles, add fully curvaceous features in harmony with a beautiful face, throws up her hands in the air. This is a typical act of exasperation, vexed despair by this West Indian Eve.

Why. Well: Bumpkin is not responding. The bush philosopher is gone. He isn’t there. This is a common feature of her marriage to this strange but complex man. He is thinking so deeply he is practically comatose.

Our "Fair Lady of Ballast Bay" understands this moment. Her man is not responding, because he is far away. His mind is in that mythological Island named the Cerebral Antipodes. This is his own favourite sanctuary. It is a place of escape located on a glorious archipelago deep in Bumpkin’s mind.

To be continued...

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