Bajan Hotsauce Short Stories
Topic: BAJAN HOTSAUCE – PUDDIN-N-SOUSE
Purpose: A story about one woman’s resolve to follow her religious convictions and raise her children in the face of conflict with her spouse.
Friday night in Chimborazo, the sun casts its shadow over the wild, lush, green East Coast landscape. The view from Chimborazo overlooks Bathsheba and Hackelton’s cliff with a carpet mixture of sugar cane, guava, mile trees, banana groves, and various other plants covering the rolling hills. The hills slowly fade and end at the Atlantic Ocean. It’s sunset and the blue ocean sparkles and white caps stand out against the sky. 
Directly across the street from their humble cream-colored chattel house, neatly trimmed with green is the little white church. The church is full and overflowing into the street,
holding a revival, and the people are singing, playing cymbals, and dancing. Under normal circumstances, Evelyn, a beautiful light-skinned and pleasingly plump woman, a mother of eight and a devout church member, would be there. She loved God and guided her children in the same direction. Most evenings, she would be attending the services with her six younger children nestled beside her. But this Friday night was different. There was something noticeably odd and deliberate about Evelyn tonight. On this Friday evening, she made the children clean up early and, after cocoa tea and dumplings, turn in for the night. She also turned in early with hardly a word to Darwin. She was reviewing, in her mind, how she would approach the subject of attending a different church. Darwin was a rough man who controlled his house with fear, a shout, sometimes barely a glance and, when needed, his 3-inch leather belt. He was both respected and feared in the village and Evelyn didn’t oppose him on anything. But he was a good provider and worked hard to ensure the best for his family.
The next morning, Saturday morning, the village slowly came to life. For Evelyn, it seemed that the hours between sunset on Friday and sunrise that Saturday were an eternity. She hardly slept during the night knowing what she was going to do that morning.. As the sun rose over the horizon on the East coast of Barbados, the roosters in the backyard welcomed the sun, and the other animals stirred, each making unique sounds as they woke up.
Darwin is also up and sitting at the table waiting for Evelyn to make him breakfast of cornmeal pap and raisins. Some soda biscuits and a piece of salt bread with tea finished out his breakfast. Darwin was always up early on Saturday mornings to head to the butcher to help slaughter the pigs for the village. The air in the house was different this morning, the reddifusion was off; it wasn’t playing the usual music and local news about deaths. Evelyn was also quiet as she went about the business of preparing and serving breakfast to Darwin. She timidly placed the food in front of Darwin and then she quickly fixed breakfast for the children.
Evelyn approached Darwin cautiously as he sat at the table eating and humming as he ate his breakfast. Her face was flushed and her heart pounding as she found courage to speak. “Darwin, I was studying the Bible with some of the Adventist and listening to the Voice of Prophecy and I would like to take the children over to the Adventist church today”. “Adventist church? You gun tek me children over to them Seven Days?” Although normally loud, this morning he was just quietly stunned that she would dare approach this subject with him. She never even consider talking to him about controversial subjects because she had become so afraid of his anger. She didn’t answer, but instead lost her courage to speak further. She went into the small bedroom to think about how she would fix this, because she was sure that attending the new church was right.
While it seemed like hours since she first approached the subject of attending church, it was barely 20 minutes and Darwin was still sitting at the table after consuming breakfast. “Evelyn”, he belted in his usual gruff and demanding voice, “get me a cuppa tea”. “Yes Darwin” and she proceeded to follow instructions as always. With shaking hands she placed the cup of tea on the table, looked at him directly and in a quiet but deliberate voice said, “we gine to church this morning”. “You ent tekking me children to no Seven Days and besides when I get back from the butcher, you baz be her to mek me my puddin-n-souse”. Red-faced, his eyes were wild with rage, and his look would stop a raging bull, but Evelyn was determined. Today, she would follow what she believed to be truth or die trying. She had put off this moment for months because of her fear. She was no less fearful this morning but felt this was the day she would finally stand up to this bully. Evelyn went to her room and got her Bible and returned to the table.
She opened the bible to Exodus 20 verse 8 and calmly read, “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy”. “Stop”! he shouted, “wunna ent gone one step out dis house today!” Determined, and with tears streaming down her face, she turned the pages to Leviticus 11:7 and shyly pushed the Bible in front of him. “Darwin, can you read what it says there in verse 7”? “You know me eyes ent good, I kyan’ see that small print, tek it from in front of me” with a bit of embarrassment. Darwin was a successful entrepreneur and leader in the village, but he also left school young and he was a proud man; he never wanted anyone to know that he could barely read. Evelyn knew this, but she wanted to use this event, this moment to just have a little power. “I will read it for you” “It says here in Leviticus, And the swine he is unclean to you. Thou shalt not eat it or touch it’s carcase”. Darwin stood up hastily, he was a short man, but when angry he seemed so much taller. “You telling me you ent gine cook no more pork in my house either”? “Woman, you mus’ be losing you min’.” By this time, the children were out of bed, but remained out of sight. They knew nothing about their mother’s plan, but from the conversation and tone, they knew this was not going well; even the younger children hid with the older ones in the safety of the bedroom. This is was a different today – tense and serious.
“Ok Darwin, let me send the boy down the street to Tilda Smith to get you some puddin-n-souse and a sweet bread”. Evelyn felt a compromise at this point was prudent and necessary because, though she was afraid of the outcome, she was also determined to walk the two miles in the broiling sun with her children to the Seven Days church. While the boy went to buy the puddin-n-souse and sweetbread, Evelyn called and fed the children bowls of cornmeal pap with raisins and cocoa tea. Without any further discussion, she dressed the children and herself for church.
“Darwin, we leaving for church now. We gun pray for you and the food is on the table”. Darwin sat down angry but resigned, looked at her with disbelief that she would stand up to him, and as bravely as he could, he said” Ga long, I gun deal wid wunna when ya get back, now…pass the hotsauce”.
Written by Stan and edited by Jeanne.