#BTColumn – Something sweeter Part 1

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Jade Gibbons

The sound of the Spanish guitar and a pulsating rhythmic bass permeate the air. The vibrations from the massive speakers cause the road to tremble.

Crowds of squashed bodies fill the road moving behind the huge flatbed trucks. What were once white shirts are now covered in an assortment of colours.

Blue, red, green and yellow paint have been thrown on them and white powder as well. These now mingle with the sweat and the mud.

The streetlights make the road visible enough for the mass of people gathered along the sidewalks to observe the spectacle. They are aided by the myriad of glow sticks and light-up neon shades.

The humidity makes the night atmosphere seem hotter than it actually is and nullifies the effects of the little sea breeze they are getting.

Occasionally someone from the trucks or who has been planted in the midst splashes a fresh coat of paint on the crowd. The road widens as the crowd draws nearer to Fontabelle Road, the penultimate one.

The chorus of the song mixes with the shout of the crowd. Andy raises his hands in time to the song, spilling his drink on his head.

The scent of fermented sugar is now added to the musk that emanates from his body. He looks to Paul who is holding the gyrating female in front of him by the hips, moving in time with her.

Andy starts giggling uncontrollably and then heads to the drinks truck to refill his cup. Stumbling against the side of the slow-moving vehicle, he hands his cup to the bartender.

“Youngsta, wah yuh want?” asks the clean skinned man.

“De doctor gi me a prescription.”

The bartender fills up the cup with rum.

Andy joneses his way back to his friends, stopping to thief a wine from a female who he reasoned by her posture, or lack of, was asking for it.

He weaves through conjoined bodies and dynamic hips and pelvises. He throws his arm around Paul, only to be shaken off and shoved.

This force, which under normal circumstances would have been inconsequential, sends him crashing to the ground. Andy looks up at the annoyed face of a man, whose features are alien to him. He is obviously not Paul.    

Mechanically and methodically, Andy checked the figures of the latest test paper in his hands against the ones on the score sheet.

When finished, he placed the paper back inside its folder. Having completed that folder, Andy placed it on the top of his completed seven hundred’s pile.

The massive stack of boxes that encompassed him seemed to be self-replicating. His colleague Syri bounced in her seat beside him trying to generate warmth and wake up her numb legs.

“Syri, really?”

“It’s cold!” replied the slim girl.

Andy shook his head and chuckled. Syri’s upper body was being swallowed by the red and black track suit jacket that Andy had given her this morning. This was her first time working for Beehive, so she didn’t know that it was air conditioned. Luckily for her, Andy always kept a jacket
in his car.

“What you need is some insulation?” A cheeky smile was drawn across Andy’s face.

“What?”

“Fat, you need some fat on your body Syri.”

“I know!” she exclaimed slamming her hands on the desk. “I blame Josh, he stole my three pounds.”

“You’re seriously going to blame an eighteen-month-old?”

“Yes, I mean look at it…” Syri shoved the pile of completed folders into the empty box next to her and pulled a new pile from the box that sat between her and Andy.

“When I was pregnant with him, I gained seven pounds. He was seven pounds two ounces at birth and then I lost eleven pounds. Therefore, seven pounds I gained were him and he took my other three with him for no reason.”

Andy smirked and said, “You know the fact that you only gained seven pounds means you were actually losing weight when you were pregnant right.”

“Oh whatever Mr Doctor.”

“I’m not a doctor yet; four more years to go before I’ll have that title.”

An hour later they left that marble white building that housed the entry system for CXC. It was called Beehive. Andy’s logic behind it was that it was because they worked like bees, on a system methodically.

Either inputting figures if you were called in for that leg or if you were like him, checking a sample of the raw scores against the input that the computer had. They were part of a system of quality control.

All from the same cloth, university students, or at least over a certain age having received certain grades in their own CXC’S, now employed during their summer break to work in the processing of secondary school examinations.

Jade Gibbons is an arts and business graduate with a keen interest in social issues and film-making.