Pomeroon Chips: Knickers

Knickers! That crude but satisfying derivative of the 19th century 'knickerbockers'. What has that to do with what follows? Practically everything. 

Setting: Rayfield, Nigeria 
Decade: 1970s
Me: "Mummy, why do you iron my panties?"
Mummy: "It's important to iron pants."
Me [totally baffled]: "Oh. Ok."

Thanks to my sojourn in the Pomeroon, all is now rendered crystal clear.

Most things in the Guyanese interior are so vast, so expansive that I'm stilled into welcome moments of reflective awe. At the opposite end of the spectrum there is the invisible sandfly; a disagreeable little blighter that thrashes my skin on a daily basis and leaves my cinnamon brown covered in throbbing red welts. For some inexplicable reason Rod is spared this merry hell.

Ok. So what happened yesterday? Fed up with sandfly bites, I wore socks and pulled them over the bottom of my full-length trousers; wore a long sleeve shirt, wrapped a light shawl around my shoulders and tied a scarf around my head and over my ears. I had started off (in the ubiquitous interests of decency) by popping on my undergarments.

Fast forward. It reach mid-day and the sun punishing. I sweating bad. Guyana speaks, makes sure I don't forget exactly where I am. I begin to itch: itch like I bin hauled and unceremoniously dumped in duh pit of sandfly hell. Itching round mi bubbies, itchin' round mi belly, itchin' round mi leg-top, itchin' round mi bamsie. Mi uh hollering all duh while mi tear off mi cloodes and tro ice-wata pon mi body top. Today, same darn thing and the dollar has jus' dropped. Invisible critters in mi undies! Score! This is a quiet war I probably caarn win. But let battle begin. I puttin' a big pan pon duh oven top. I gwine start by boilin' mi bras and cookin' mi knickers!