Glenda Simms

Miss Mattie informed her listener on the veranda of the One-Stop-Shop in the village that the February 18th edition of The Gleaner carried some interesting stories that featured many issues related to cemeteries. According to reporter Gareth Manning, St. Thomas, Clarendon, St. Catherine and Manchester need more public cemetery spaces to accommodate the growing number of persons who bid farewell to their earthly existence in these locales. Maas George remarked that the local cemetery still has lots of spaces for sinners and Anglicans alike.

Miss Mattie was also intrigued by Daraine Luton's report of how the famous cricketer Collie Smith's resting spot is kept clean in the midst of the rot, decay and overgrowth in the historic May Pen Cemetery. This uplifting report of a family's commitment to the dignity of their dearly departed reinforces the stance that Miss Mattie has always taken on how to keep the historic Anglican cemetery in top shape. She believes that all those so-called high class people who have laid members of their families to rest amongst the district people should pay some of the youths in the district to keep their plots clean.

Hottie-Hottie agreed with Miss Mattie. She argued that such engagement with the youths would assist them to be more focused. For instance, those like herself who are involved in farming could earn a few extra dollars to buy fertiliser and weedicides.

While the women kept quiet long enough to give Maas George a space to voice his opinions, he declared that the cemetery story that he found most intriguing is the one about the old man who lives in the May Pen cemetery but who is now "tired of living amongst the dead".

The man is now ready to stop sleeping on a tomb and cooking in a graveyard. He reportedly is "expecting to marry and possibly have children". "Yes!" exclaimed Maas George. "This is a man after my own heart." Indeed, this man?s ideas coincided with Maas George?s vision of the good life near to the end of his earthly journey.

Hottie listened respectfully to Maas George's philosophy of life. At the end of his long speech she remarked, "Maas George, there is no fool like an old fool."

Miss Mattie intervened at this point and informed both Hottie and Maas George that her research into people living amongst duppies has highlighted the millions of poverty stricken people who live in the 'City of the Dead' in Cairo. These people have survived changes of government, revolutionary delusions of various religious sects, the after-effects of global warming and all the topical social, economic and political changes. They have survived and raised several generations in the tombs and monuments of Egypt's largest cemetery.

Maas George was very excited by this real life account. He wondered if the residents of the cemetery in Cairo were Moslems. Hottie-Hottie rolled her eyes and asked Maas George why he was choosing to "go down that road".

Maas George straightened his spine, looked Hottie directly into her eyes and said in his most authoritative and macho voice, "I figured that not too many of these Egyptians in the cemetery would be Christians because everybody and his dog know that Christians are afraid of duppies and many of them believe in demons."

Miss Mattie is always energised by her friends' remarks on the substantive issues of the day, so in an effort to put an end to their verbal sparring match she lifted her right hand, smiled broadly and said in her best Sunday voice, "Christians are afraid of duppies because they believe in life after death."

■ Glenda P. Simms is a gender expert and consultant.