rootsandculture

M y father died in 2007 from complications caused by diabetes. It was not a good thing. He was 85 years old with a mind that could last another 15 years, easily. So whenever I meet folks and they say, sometimes so casually, that they are diabetic, I ask questions. Everywhere in the Diaspora, Africa, the Caribbean and particularly North America, our people are under siege from this epidemic. So when recently in Clarendon Hills, close to the beginning of the Rio Minho, Auntie Nuncie mentioned here condition, I listened. Frankfield, Clarendon, Jamaica is deep country in terrain and lifestyle. Yam is King and the pig queen…., no Jack. Stories are told over a meal of roast yam and roast salt fish washed down with boiled rainwater and Auntie Nuncie is a skilled proponent of all but not since the diabetes, the arthritis, and the ‘pain in the flesh’. But a story, well, she can still tell and she has plenty like them pills she takes one for the ‘pain in the flesh’, one for the blood press...