BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

(bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt)

An ear­ly morn­ing trip up to Belle Gar­den in the east­ern side of To­ba­go, called en­gine town, be­gan just at 6 am on De­cem­ber 28, 2018. But the prepa­ra­tion for the tra­di­tion­al an­nu­al all-day gath­er­ing at Randy Davis’s 'wood­en' get­away spot, which stands sin­gu­lar­ly atop a hill of the fam­i­ly es­tate, and over­look­ing a scenery of lush green, be­gan since Box­ing Day. Fish in all its glo­ry was go­ing to be the day’s menu.

Ap­proach­ing the house, the smell of fried fish and hot co­coa in­vad­ed my nos­trils, send­ing me back to my child­hood days liv­ing in St Barbs, Laven­tille, at my grand­moth­er’s home, where hot co­coa was a sta­ple at the break­fast ta­ble. To my left stood a mod­ern-styled out­house, even equipped with mod­ern plumb­ing fit­tings, again, send­ing me on a trip down mem­o­ry lane.

Al­ready I can see un­cle Willy (William Davis), as he is af­fec­tion­ate­ly called, an as­tute ser­vice­man, seat­ed at a makeshift ta­ble adorned with the finest ar­ray of spir­its. He is the "con­nois­seur" of “fire wa­ter” bev­er­ages, and al­so quite the co­me­di­an, pos­sess­ing a wry but yet in­fec­tious hu­mour.

He is chat­ting with one of To­ba­go’s re­al es­tate "god­fa­thers", Calvin Dick, who hap­pens to be his cousin and broth­er in glass knock­ing. It’s at least three gen­er­a­tions hud­dled at the house where these two pa­tri­archs are en­joy­ing the fruits of their labour. The jokes are non-stop, some clean while oth­ers should be cen­sored, but all the same, they bring show­ers of laugh­ter over the morn­ing menu of co­conut and fried bake ac­com­pa­nied with bat­tered fried fish. Sa­da roti and baigan cho­ka are still to come. But in the mean­time, every­one is try­ing to ease their pant­i­ng from the pep­per hot mur­tani, made and served by a friend of the fam­i­ly, on­ly iden­ti­fied as un­cle Cha­too—a Fyz­abad na­tive liv­ing in To­ba­go.

Over yon­der, Bri­an Davis, the "al­chemist" of the fam­i­ly, is at work on his farm while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly mount­ing bricks for the re­tain­er wall he's now build­ing around his home.

"Aye, come and take a drink!" yells un­cle Willy. In no time Bri­an, a wise-look­ing Ras­ta man, of­ten re­ferred to as the "bush­man" is strut­ting up the in­cline with a home-made wag­on in tow.

From his gar­den, he brings gi­ant yams and ochroe, not like I have ever seen be­fore in my years of "mak­ing mar­ket".

But that's not all; he al­so pulls out some un­la­belled bot­tles of a brown-black and pear coloured sub­stance. I sub­se­quent­ly find out they are what he refers to as "roots drinks". These "roots drinks" or "ton­ic cool­ers", as he some­times de­scribes them, evolved from a mix­ture of var­i­ous roots and herbs with the main in­gre­di­ent be­ing sar­sa­par­il­la. He is a huge fan of the sar­sa­par­il­la root, which has been sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly proven to have many heal­ing prop­er­ties and has been ef­fec­tive in the rem­e­dy­ing of pso­ri­a­sis, arthri­tis, cur­able STIs, erec­tile dys­func­tion, and even in the treat­ment of can­cer.

Davis is very dili­gent about how he pre­pares these "root beer-like" drinks. He ob­tains the roots in the for­est him­self and at his home, the fi­nal prod­uct is made through a process much like that done at a dis­tillery.

It’s been 25 years since he has been mak­ing his po­tions. He was first in­tro­duced to the sar­sa­par­il­la root's heal­ing as­sets when he suf­fered from a stub­born skin con­di­tion on the right side of his body, which he claims on­ly dis­ap­peared per­ma­nent­ly af­ter us­ing the root.

"That took it away, so I know that it was good. And I al­so felt re­newed in my body, like I had more vigour," he says.

Davis's drinks are quite pop­u­lar on the is­land among the health con­scious. And he has re­cent­ly gained an in­ter­na­tion­al clien­tele in Los An­ge­les, Cal­i­for­nia. This, af­ter a group of tourists vis­it­ed him in­clud­ing a me­dia crew from Hol­ly­wood, he re­veals.

But quite the mod­est type, he doesn't re­gard him­self as any 'ma­jor vein', rather, he said he finds joy in just mak­ing oth­ers well.

Need­less to say, for the non-al­co­holic con­sumers at the gath­er­ing, Davis's drinks came in quite handy.

As the day grew, the as­sem­bly mul­ti­plied—friends and more fam­i­ly joined the "sweet lime", all bring­ing with them bright smiles and more drinks. I could not fin­ger­print a re­cent mem­o­ry or even a pre­vi­ous one, of when last I had this kind of ex­pe­ri­ence in "moth­er­land" (Trinidad). And for a split sec­ond, I was sad­dened.

Nonethe­less, the late­com­ers were in time for the an­tic­i­pat­ed callaloo bush and fish soup—a first of its kind for the few non-To­bag­o­ni­ans present.

This meal was cooked out­door on pure wood fire with the use of an old truck rim turned up­side down in which the wood was filled.

Callaloo bush and fish soup may not have sound­ed quite in­ter­est­ing or en­tic­ing for that mat­ter at first men­tion, but once it hit my taste buds, it was an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent sto­ry. In­deed it would be­come one of my "try it again" meals. Nat­u­ral­ly, it was thor­ough­ly en­joyed!

It must have been my last spoon­ful I was about to take when sud­den­ly the sound of a rhythm sec­tion per­vad­ed the at­mos­phere. It was the Davis men and 'com­pa­ny' beat­ing bot­tle and spoon, iron and old drums, while the dee­jay sang in a "drunk­en man-type" tone, fum­bling over lyrics of songs played by the se­lec­tor.

Time flew and the sun was set­ting now over the 16 acres of land once worked by the Davis fore­fa­thers. But the 'vibe' was still nice and no one want­ed to leave. Af­ter hugs and the ex­chang­ing of mo­bile num­bers to stay in touch with new friends made and fam­i­ly re­con­nect­ed, we re­luc­tant­ly chipped our way down the hill we for­mer­ly as­cend­ed hours ear­li­er.

A hol­i­day in Belle Gar­den was over but the ex­pe­ri­ence lin­gered. The food, new-found re­la­tion­ships and sense of fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty won my heart and so I anx­ious­ly await De­cem­ber 2019, when I could do it all over again!