As I always say, there’s never a dull moment in Barbados.
When it ain’t one thing, it is the next. For a long time now it was the lot o’ break-ins of people homes and the crooks carrying way people jewellery or men riding ’long side ya pon bicycles, snatching off gold chains from ’round mainly women necks and flying and gine ’long wid it.
Well, the chain snatching ain’t happening as often as it used tuh, partly because people like duh decide not tuh wear the lot o’ gold like before, so dat has died down a lil bit in recent times. Ya still getting the break-ins and such like and ya still seeing the cash-fuh-gold ads in the papers evah day.
But what doan seem tuh be dying down but seem tuh be becoming more prevalent and bold is the lot o’ killings, what the people calling domestic violence. Dat like it refuse tuh die nuh matter how much people talk ’bout it and nuh matter how many women die at the hands o’ men who say duh love dem.
Look, I ain’t know if this sort o’ thing would evah stop and the truth is, I doan know how duh gine stop it. I often wonder what makes a man beat a woman senseless time and time again or take up a piece o’ wood or something heavy and break she hand or get a sharp object and stab or chop she up.
Then the same man more often than not does come back tuh the same woman telling she how much he love she and how sorry he is and dat he want the two o’ dem tuh make up and go back together.
Story after story ya does hear the same thing: everything was good for a few months and as soon as she let she guard down, believing dat he really change in trute, outta the blue the brute does come in and unleash a set a o’ blows in she tail more vicious than the ones before because he know she love he more than she’self and ain’t gine nuhwhere tuh tell nuhbody or she too shame tuh tell anybody anyway because evahbody done tell she a million times tuh get away and stay away from the man. So she gotta grin and bear it by sheself.
People crying out fuh the law tuh be less lenient towards these woman beaters, these savages, these hateful, angry people, these brutes but I ain’t know if it got anything tuh do wid the police, the Government nor the law at all. Ya see, a lot o’ the blame got tuh rest squarely pon the shoulders of not all, but some the women who get beat all the time and some o’ the ones who eventually get kill.
Ya see, some women believe dat if dem doan have a man ’round dem, duh ain’t nuhbody, something wrong wid dem or duh gine dead. So duh does go and get involved wid a man in two-twos before they could get tuh know the man good, where he come from, he family, if he got children and how many and from how many women. Duh doan check tuh see or know if he is a thief, a drug pusher or user, a child molester, a thief, a robber or a jail-bird. Dem does be sleeping at the man, the man at dem; he does move in wid she or she at he.
Most o’ the time she does end up at the man place, so dat when the blows start tuh share and she want tuh run and get way from he, she at he aw’ready and ain’t got nuhwhere tuh go, so she got tuh take the blows and come out the next day showing a good face.
I would nevah understand how a woman could stand wid a man who does come in and insult she time and time again and in front o’ she children too. I cahn understand how she does stand wid a man who does beat the fuzzings out o’ she evah chance he get and then tell she he love she and she fall fuh dat. She like she doan understand dat by stan’ning wid or going back wid a beat man, she giving him permission tuh kill she.
Then, on the other hand, I cahn understand why a man think dat he got the right tuh brutalize a woman like she belong tuh he. But I blame the women. A lot o’ dem only got demselves tuh blame because from the time he put he hand pon me, it gine be the last, ’cause, ya see, he got tuh sleep and when he wake up, he gine find he two hands next tuh he. He will nevah beat another woman as long as he live.
• Mavis Beckles was born and raised in The Orleans. She has an opinion on everything.
