I grew up in Guyana and came from a beautiful family of nine, with five loving, protective, and ambitious boys and four beautiful, quiet girls. If the girls ever got into a quarrel, the boys would fight for us. I am the sixth child in the family out of the nine. We used to live in a small wooden house that was painted white. We lived in one apartment, and someone else lived on the other side. It was a two-bedroom apartment. The front door was painted red and the back door was painted brown. The windows were clean and clear.

We had three stairs to the front door and three stairs to the back door. We would clean the stairs by scraping them with a knife. The rooms were so small that the boys used to sleep on the hard floor and we girls slept crossways on the big bed. My mother was strict, loving, caring, and ambitious. She loved to bake and cook because we were so many. Every weekend, she would bake plait bread and sponge cakes. She didn’t want us to beg anybody. When we got home, we would have bread, buns, or cakes to eat with a glass of cold milk. If we got buns one day, we got cake another day. 

She taught us how to do our chores and how to keep the place clean and tidy at all times. She would also tell us that even if our house was small, we needed to keep it clean and tidy. She had us do our chores while she went to town. She told us to keep the place clean in case she fell down on the road or was taken ill. If someone picked her up and took her home, she wanted to make sure the bed was made when they placed her on it.

If your place was clean and tidy, you could offer a cup of water to someone who was passing the house, and they would stop and think, These people are clean. That’s why they would drink the water from you. 

Our washroom was not attached to the apartment. It was separate from the house, so we had to get the boys to take us to the washroom in the back of the yard. The boys would wait for us to finish. It was called a latrine, and sometimes you would see the worms below. My nephews were born in Brooklyn and have come to Guyana multiple times for vacation. They would take pictures of the latrines. They had never seen anything like that. They wanted to bring the pictures back to their friends and teachers to show them the difference. It was surprising and even exciting for them. 

Small days were good days for me. Growing up, my small days were always on my mind. We were always together and took care of each other. We grew up with this bond of love. We never fought because my mother taught us to love each other, to look out for each other. She told us that we are from one mother and one father so we have no need to fight. We must look out for each other. That is what I teach my six children. You are from one mother and one father, and you need not to fight each other. My children do not fight each other. I instill the values I received in my children. My mother taught us when to say please and thanks and, when you see someone on the street, to always say “good morning,” “good afternoon,” and “how are you?” If you see someone that wants to cross the street, you help them cross. It doesn’t matter if you are busy, you help them cross.