Well boy, I gine tell ya, the way how things looking and happening bout here nowadays, it is clear dat in a few years time it aint gine be safe or wise fuh people tuh live in certain parts o’ this country.
Look, the rain only got tuh fall fuh a couple o’ days bout here and some places in parts o’ St Joseph and St Andrew does be in bare trouble.
It is frightening; wha’ aint slipping, cracking or just plain breaking away and gine ’long bout it business just so.
I doan know how some people does handle it but I gine tell ya, it got tuh be real real frightening in trute when you could wake up and find dat part o’ ya house just break off and gone long down in a gully because the land slipped from under it. How ya does deal wid dat?
Ya cahn blame nobody nor ya cahn recover nutten. Ya cahn get back none o’ the blocks, the very furniture nor nutten else dat slide and gone ’long bout it business wid the rest o’ the house.
Tuh me it look like it getting worse year after year as the rainy season come in and even all like now so it is December, it is almost Christmas, the year almost done and the rainy season like it aint intend tuh done. It aint gone ’long yet, the lot o’ rain still falling so you could only imagine how dem poor people in these affected areas must feel.
Look, I doan know bout wunna but I doan know if I could see myself living in dem kinda areas so. Uh mean, when it aint one thing, it is the next and it is possible dat anything could happen anywhere and at anytime. Like fuh example, people does break in ya house, even sometimes when you in it; ya could experience a fire or some kinda flooding; anything is possible, this is life.
But you see this thing bout gine sleep knowing dat your next door neighbour’s house was there good, good, good yesterday and today all dat left is a big space? All o’ dat got tuh be unnerving and unsettling; it got tuh do something tuh ya mind.
The other thing is, you might know dat you could be in just as much danger as the neighbour and dat your house could literally disappear between the mud and the trees just so in a short space o’ time; it is possible dat the same thing could happen tuh you.
People does talk but you cahn just pick up a house and move it tuh another location or where you think might be a safer place; where the France ya gine carry it?
Life can be so rough hear? When I read about the plight of some o’ the people in these areas, especially St Andrew and St Joseph, it does make me feel real sad ’cause it seems like when it aint one thing, it is the other.
If it aint the water woes, it is the land slipping. If it aint the cracks in the house foundations, it is the big able craters in the roads or the roads getting wash ’way and the buses cahn pass tuh get people to and from their homes, work or church as they would like.
I think it is this kinda damage so dat cause the St Joseph Parish Church tuh close down. It cahn be easy living like dat under these kinda conditions.
I see there in the newspapers last Friday after we had dat lot o’ rain, people standing up next to and pointing at some big able openings in the earth like duh had an earthquake.
I doan know how duh gine do it but I think dat some o’ the people in these areas so are the ones who really need relocating. Uh mean duh got a lot o’ older people whose nable string buried in St Joseph who might not even want tuh move from there despite the dangers.
And tuh be honest, St Joseph is one o’ the most beautiful parishes in Barbados so ya cahn even blame dem if duh doan want tuh move, but fuh their own safety this might be the only thing tuh do.
This is something the Government gine have tuh give some kinda urgency tuh. Otherwise, wid all this lot o’ rain dat still falling, one o’ these mornings we might wake and hear dat half o’ the houses in St Joseph gone down in some o’ dem gullies. I would hate tuh see dat happen.