Fernando Perez, parandero from Venezuela

Culture Matters

Tales of Christmas past

DARA E HEALY

THE WIND howled around him, stinging raindrops piercing his eyes.

The boat rose and dipped with the ebb and fall of the waves. Fernando pulled on the seine, his strong arms flexing with each rhythmic tug on the coarse material.

His wife and children hated him to go out in the small boat in this weather, but it was what he lived for. The preparation – inspecting the boat to make sure it was safe, checking the bait and the fried bake with saltfish or whatever his worried wife would thrust in his hand at the last minute. In any case, on Christmas Eve, the early morning air was always crisp and gentle. Under the rising sun, the sea would shimmer in defiance of the impending heat, its calm surface refusing to reveal the many secrets of the watery world that dwelled underneath.

On this day, hardly anyone else would be on the water, which is what Fernando loved about being out on Christmas Eve. He also loved to test his strength against the vast ocean and his ability to bring home a bountiful catch. But today was different. Darkness came quickly as it usually does around this time of year, but the weather also changed sharply. As Fernando battled the wind and the rain, he pictured Sylvie pushing out her mouth at him.

Fernando had come to the island as a child. He and his family travelled from Venezuela in a boat very like the one he was in. They lived near to the indigenous peoples, the Warao, who survived on the richness of the land and the sea. He remembered learning how to create almost everything around him, from the home that was their shelter to the boats they fished in or the instruments they played.

As times got harder, more people left to find work and build new lives for themselves. Greedy smugglers convinced the simple, trusting people that they would help them, but the boats were often too small and too filled with people to survive the unpredictable waters. That day, Fernando was the only one to make it to the island alive.

He thought about all of this as he battled the elements, in his mind promising to finally listen to his wife and children. Exhausted, Fernando dragged the boat ashore. The sand was soggy from the rain. As he walked past, the smell of fresh bread, black cake and ham floated out. He stood up outside his home looking at Sylvie busy organising and the children running around, getting underfoot. He could see other family members too.

Fernando went around the back to take off the wet shoes – best to avoid another reason for his wife to buff him. As he walked inside, he saw the family lighting a candle in front of his photo that was on the old-time buffet that belonged to Sylvie’s mother. Next to him were photos of her grandmother, and also her father who passed the year before. The children placed a little saucer with food. One of the cousins lit incense. Aunty Florence was praying. Someone handed Sylvie a cuatro and she started to cry. Fernando looked closer. Engraved on it was the name Fernando Perez and the proud word, parandero.

Fernando gasped. Suddenly he understood why no one was speaking to him. It was not because they were punishing him for going out on Christmas Eve. It was because they could not see him. As he listened, Aunty Florence prayed for his safe travels from this realm to the next. Sylvie prayed that his beloved ocean was kind to him as on the day his family disappeared.

Cousin Wayne gently took the cuatro from Sylvie. As he sang in that slow mournful style, the rest of the family joined in with chac chacs and box base: “Río Manzanares déjame pasar/que mi madre enferma, me mandó llamar. Manzanares River, let me pass/my sick mother sent for me.”

Sylvie wiped her eyes and got up to dance with one of their sons. Fernando backed out of the house and headed down to the beach, the plaintive sounds of Rio Manzanares following him. He was going to give his family the peace they needed. Fernando Perez, parandero from Venezuela, climbed into his battered boat. He headed towards the final phase of his transition, enveloped in the crisp air of Christmas morning and the gentle ebb and flow of the ocean, shimmering in the dawn of a new day.

Dara E Healy is a performance artist and founder of the Indigenous Creative Arts Network – ICAN