Chickens in Trees

I had no idea that the natural habitat of chickens were trees. Like any other bird, that's where they sleep. My mom was talking about how at night they huddle into the tree branches and in the morning you can hear them crow and drop off onto the ground. She loved the chickens, and there were so many, except the only part she didn't like was butchering them. Apparently there was one time she typed for someone and in return got a chicken which she and Grandma Remy had no idea what to do with because they didn't want to butcher it.

She talked about the 3 uses of umbrella (shielding from sun, rain, and the eyes of others when peeing in the grass) and how she would often walk to school without shoes on, even when she had slippers. And during the rainy season her grandfather would carry her over the fields because she was scared of the worms (all of them except earthworms). Her grandmother was mestizo, fair-skinned with a Spanish nose, and her grandfather was heavily built with black skin. Sometimes, people would call my mom mestizo because her nose wasn't as flat at others. She talked about how she lived with these grandparents and was sleeping next to them when they died, quickly and painlessly from a heart attack or stroke.

She talked about Bebot, the bad boy brother who drank a lot and would always be on the run to Uncle Ben's house, who would whip him into line. All of her brothers she said lived there and Uncle Ben would teach them right from wrong. She talked about how there were A classes and B classes and how she was in the A class while Marilyn was in the B class--she probably got her smarts from Grandma Ansing.

Grandma Ansing was salutatorian in high school, and her husband (my mom's biological father) was the valedictorian. They had competed a lot in high school, with clubs and academics, and go figure, ended up married. My grandfather was a bookkeeper in town, a really smart one apparently, especially in geography and history. He could have gone far, she said, except for his gambling. Grandma Ansing still reads his love letters.

Mommy talked about how she came to America: a federal order from the government brought her there after passing the international exam to get in and another exam to stay once she and 25 of her friends came to the U.S., living in government-subsidized apartments next to D.C. General Hospital. The first time, she failed the exam because they had only 2 weeks since arriving and had no time to adjust, especially when the exam was in New Jersey and they were living in D.C. Lifesavers the candy and lifesavers the tire were confusing, and when they ate at the cafeteria, they would keep their paper plates and plastic silverware as to not waste, to reuse them all.

Growing up, they used everything from everything. Their shampoo was dried rice stalks, burned, and mixed in a coconut shell mixed with water. It made your hair smooth and shiny, and though it wasn't very bubbly, it was soapy. She hated to beat the bundles of drying rice, but it was much easier when the mill separated the bran (fed to the animals) from the grain (fed to the people). The best, though, was the cacao that they would roast and pound together was tagapalut (molassas/sugar). And the large blueberries you would smash between rocks and combine with salt to make a tangy sweet and salty snack. She remembers the bonfires keeping them warm when it was cool, and how her grandmother would be pleased just to get a match from town because the way she did was by striking flint and sparking a fire.