Gina Ch. 01

10 paragraphs of 75 words each. Keeping a positive thought for King Ogg.

Gina - by Polly+Anna (750 words) Dangriga (1/26/20)

ca. 1675 o.s. - 9:37 A.M. Tuesday morning

Fortune, who had previously turned her fickle back on my ancestor Juho, had returned to him just in time. Water, complicit in his capture by the soldiers of the Compagnie du Sénégal as he bathed in the Cross River, was repentant as well. A tropical storm tossed the ship sailing from the Bight of Biafra. A slaver filled with young Mokko men. It floundered as it neared Bequia, a small island near Saint Vincent.

Long before the arrival of Europeans, the ancestors of my great-great-many-times-over grandmother's father traveled to the Lesser Antilles in tiny boats. Those Orinoco assimilated the Taíno and Galibei and became known as the Carib. Fishermen, they had taken shelter on Biafra from the storm that freed Juho. Once its fury had passed, they took the survivors back with them to Saint Vincent. Juho and the other young Ibibio were appreciative and strong - they were adopted.

In Carib society it was taboo for men and women who had reached their eighteenth summer to remain single. As full members of the tribe, Juho and the other young men whom had been saved first from a hopeless fate as field slaves on a Martinique sugar plantation, and secondly from the storm, participated in the tribe's ritual of courtship. Juho met and fell in love with Leyha, a maiden with whom he soon joined.

The tradition on the island was that boys who had reached their fourteenth summer moved from their mother's home in the main village to a single gender 'town.' As if in boarding schools, two groups separately learned what they needed to know in order to be men and women in their society. Then as their nineteenth summers began, the two groups rejoined in the main village. They were expected to select a partner and become parents.

Dangriga, Belize - November 19, 1993

Garifuna Settlement Day began as I and a thousand others watched a reenactment of our ancestor's arrival here from Roatan in 1832. I enjoyed some hudutu - a spiced fish soup, machuca - pounded plantains, and ereba - griddle cakes made from grated yucca. Cassava is at the heart of Garinagu culture, in the Carib language Karifuna means 'Cassava eating clan.' You may be what you eat, we are a people named for what we eat.

When I had been younger, I enjoyed watching the flirty Punta dancers compete for attention and listening to Garinagu Kriol music with its risqué humor and biting social commentary. But today I needed something more, I sought out an Obeah practitioner. My grandmother had passed away while I was enjoying myself in New Orleans after graduating from school. Obeah is a system of traditional spiritual practices including communication with ancestors and spirits and healing rituals.

I sat in a canvas chair and enjoyed a glass of home-made gifiti - an herb and botanical infused beverage similar to spiced rum, and closed my eyes as I was seeking my mother's mother, but my journey went much further back. Leyha had spoken to Juho and had seen him naked in the surf. She felt heat from her own body, from the place between her thighs where her body wanted him to be.

The buyei - shaman - continued her ritual. Leyha was a virgin, but then so was Juho. It was their time to obey the timeless forces of nature. She beckoned him and he moved closer to her as she laid upon a rock. He kissed her, and their tongues danced. His hands cupped her beautiful round breasts. His tongue journeyed deeper. She threw a leg across him, straddled him and pushed her hips into him.

Her body was ready for what it had never experienced, her vagina was soaking wet. She could feel every bit of his head sliding inside her, encountering and brushing aside nature's initial resistance. He felt so big in her and she felt so tight and warm and wet to him. He began to push, to thrust into her a little. With each push he was getting deeper. Soon he was most of the way inside.

He continued. Her body was adjusting and his movements within her became easier as her excitement grew. She moaned and panted with each thrust. Juho was amazed that anything could feel like Layha did. He pushed into her soppy vagina harder and harder. He continued to push into her for several more minutes, until she suddenly screamed, and he shuddered and released into her. In that moment I could see my own history being made.