HOME PEOPLE

Thoughts, Prayers & Poems

Chrystal Charles

Hi, my name is Chrystal Charles, and I am a Voice of Turks and Caicos.

We continue with the series, Throughts, Poems and Prayers, body of expression that has been accumulated over many years that I’ve decided to share.

We are in the month of May, a time that should stand in honour of our one official National Hero, the Right Excellent James Alexander George Smith “J. A. G. S.” McCartney, and in celebration of ourselves as a people.

Yet over time, I find that the story of the man behind the movement has been softened and reshaped until many of us know only pieces of who he truly was and what really happened. And perhaps that is something we often do - not only to our heroes, but to one another.

We tend to believe greatness belongs to a certain kind of person, when in truth our people have always been far more complex than that. We are imperfect, gifted, resilient, spirited people, shaped by faith, heritage, struggle, and grace. Still, in our own ways, we continue to create excellence worth remembering and celebrating.

This piece is rooted in both truth and celebration. Some parts may challenge familiar narratives, but truth does not lessen our legacy, it deepens it. What follows is a reflection on the people, practices, and spirit that continue to shape our community, and the beauty found within it all.

With that said, here’s a poem for you….called HOME PEOPLE:

Home people look like melanated hues,

Some of them black and some white like Fox News.

Some born so, some bleach so, Marisa and Ponkey coulda pass for both, you know.

Home people smell like good food and good manners,

Clean clothes on the line and salt ponds.

Home people smell like fish and grits,

Johnny cake, souse and stew conch on a Saturday morn.

Home people sound like bells and shells,

PDM and PNP, Like last names matter,

Although our slave masters gi dem to we.

Home people look like flora and fauna,

The women’s lobster tails getting bigger and bigger,

The dainty flowers dripped in Dolce and Gabbana.

We look tingsy,

Like the Arawaks, who ain’t we kin.

Our boy Columbus

Sort out they sorrows before we knew the ship we was in.

Home people sound like me and you,

Bahamians, Bermudians,

Gullah Geechi people too.

Home people smell like Salt Cay candies,

Cream cakes and Dulce

Banana, plantain and butatah bread,

Outhouse, Elvis and fever grass,

Rat root, brasileta and snake stick

Drink ’em Saturday and double when you sick.

Home people sound proud,

Big voices and compassionate, with sweet hearts,

And filled with goofanotin man

Who don’t love they wife like how they love they sweethearts.

Home people feel like sunshine in the morning

And lay down in ya bed when it rain.

Home people feel like government workers,

Always asking when government paying.

Home people look like they love hair like silk and skin like milk,

South Base babies and Trouvadore survivors,

Black, fluffy bodies, beautiful like the stars.

We feel like warm hugs and belly laughs after someone pass,

Family reunions for funeral and wedding,

Cousins making dozens and wrong daddies sharing.

We taste like soup with plenty tings.

We sound like Queen conch blowing for fish and hurricane,

One of the greatest leaders of our time - Mommy name Miss Mary Jane.

Home people sound likemMa, Pa, Murrah, Farrah,

Sorrid, Norrid, Eastid and Westid.

We sound like we love white Jesus status

More than we practise it.

Home people feel like grace,

Extended mostly to oneself and family.

However, you? No!

We won’t let you live down nothing from 30 years ago.

Yet, We have short memories for colonisers, thieves and rapists and so and so. Oh, ho ho ho ho.

Hmmph, the mounta children done get feel up by teachers, pastors,

And y’all brothers and sisters.

Now everyone listening to this part asking,

 “Could we skip this?”

No.

Home people like they thrive on confusion

But turn right round and don’t like confrontation.

That’s why we quick to de-complexify our issues with Haitains

Not addressing our lack of strength in culture and celebration,

OR

Of sell out culture and overaccommodation

NOT to mention their lack of assimilation.

Because it’s not required, by those who we have sired

With the ability to curate and change this nation.

All the while we rowing one another,

Our hearts humanity erodes like Leeward Beach

Because without strength in ‘idenity’ and self determination

We could NEVER accept, nor set the standard for those we teach

Anyway, back to the good,

’Cause we don’t really fix nothing, we just does say God is good.

Home people sound like the rip saw,

The shakers and the goatskin drum,

Sound like Yoruba tribes where we from.

We sound like Bambarra rum,

We sound like big dutty skorks and family time,

Nice houses and clean kitchens,

Two living rooms,

Five meats, four rice and eight sides on Sunday,

Diabetes, hypertension and obesity boxing you down on Monday.

Home people look like

Caves and World’s Best Beaches,

Lil drugs, big guns and maybe not enough snitches.

Home people are gay and lesbian and pan,

Y’all need accept yinna family and move on, man.

Home people sound like the world’s greatest storytellers and chefs.

Be time we add lil razzle-dazzle to story and the food.

Wene realise the truth up and left,

Taste buds so tantalised by the crackpot in the kitchen,

Mesmerised by being in a seafood haven or a harbour house.

Who worries about truth when you eating Carmen souse?

RIP Miss Hattie – GT.

Home people sound like Blythe and Bill Clare,

Carlton and Oliver Mills got to be in here,

Mrs Roseta Butterfield and Hilly Ewing,

Nathaniel Bops Francis and Jags know what dey was doing.

Double O—oh, the things I’ve heard,

About this man who we chose to serve.

The man that had the grit, the man that had the nerve.

Home people sound like

All d Astwoods and All the Missicks

Our loyalty to both greatness and nonsense, defy laws of physics

They are Honorable, no one doubts, each and all

And with them, our First pilots, sailors and boat and peacemakers name’s should be called

Home people sound like MC Expo, Crabfest and Regatta,

Rake and Scrape, Cactus Fest, Salt Cay Day

And Courtney Shows Extravaganza.

Home people look like they lazy - ’cause how many years later

Shanice was still Miss Turks and Caicos, baby?

Rest in peace to Oehleo the visionary,

Your energy and excellence is a miss,

Healing energy to Kazz Forbes

And creatives who are listening to this.

Home people sound, look and feel like you,

The exquisite and the gifted few,

The artists and the talents that fight the good fight,

That come back to this land after they’ve taken flight,

Always thinking they can enhance and shine a light.

But when we reach down to pull anyone up, it’s a hell of a fight.

Home people look like David Bowen,

Honoured in Japan but not here yet.

I just will leave that right here, cuz I soon change dat

Home people are warm and beautiful, pristine,

They are the truth and the best liars,

Somebody wife know what I mean.

They are docile and with bad mind,

That’s why they love call the Queen.

One day, I doubt I’ll be around,

But we will stand firm and free.

Home people accepting exactly who they be

Will one day, some day, be the only key.

Home people make up both you and me,

And forever a home person, I will be.

My name is Chrystal Charles, and I am a voice of Turks and Caicos.