Rain
by Jilliana
Ranicar-Breese
Despite being
a youthful Travel Agent at Global travel in the
late 60s, I was disorganised without any hotel
booking. I arrived in Rio from 2 weeks in San
Paolo in 1970 and asked the taxi driver to find
me a hotel downtown.
I had no idea where to go and had not consulted
my bible, the Frommer guide to South America on $10
a day. Consequently I ended up at a cheap hotel
laden with two large suitcases as I thought I was
staying and beginning a new exciting life in
Brazil. I spoke very little Portuguese but with
my knowledge of Italian I made myself understood.
Somehow I found myself in a street with an open
air travel counter. Just then the heavens opened
and it rained so hard that it was impossible to
cross the street let alone stand up in the
downpour. People on the street fled who knows
where. It was the first time I had experienced a
deluge and I relied on the surprised travel agent
to help me.
He kindly said a friend of his, originally from
Guyana who spoke rusty English, would help a
British damsel in distress. He phoned Dora from
Georgetown and explained my predicament. No place
to stay and not much money either.
Dora, like a mother hen, took me in. She was a
large black woman of about 60 who had never
married but with a winning smile was a joyous
individual. She hadn’t spoken English, her
maternal language, for 40 years or more and was
delighted to have the opportunity to converse in
English.
I stayed on Dora’s couch for about a week.
She refused money for my board and lodging saying
that it was a pleasure to speak English again.
It worked out. I revived her childhood memories
which brought tears to her eyes as she remembered
Georgetown, the home she had left behind forever.
She reminisced about the places like the Stabroek
market, St Georges Anglican Cathedral and the man
she never married all those years ago, while she
shared her simple meal of Brazilian rice and
beans or Guyanese Creole pea soup with Roti.
I never forgot her generosity all those decades
ago.
Written
25/2/25 at Nightingale.
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