This slim volume calls itself a memoir of a woman whose life was affected by the volcanic eruption of Montserrat’s Soufrière in 1995. Weekes was born in London of Montserratian parentage and she grew up there and in Montserrat.
She describes herself as writer, performance poet, actor and educator, and all these identities take turns at directing this intensely personal narrative.
Essentially a journal of the experience of being in Montserrat during the period leading to the devastating eruption and her attempts to restructure life afterwards, the book shifts tone continually, a reflection of how each situation invoked a different aspect of her character.
Whatever the difficulty or her approach to it, from setting up theatrical performances so the dispossessed could pass the time, to scrubbing stubborn ash from her new car every single day—Weekes keeps faith with the poet inside her. Thus, her descriptions, her laments, her curses and remedies are infused with a conscious lyricism that suggests the artist’s eye takes precedence over all else, whatever the travails.
The book opens with her comings and goings between London and Montserrat, first in childhood, then as an adult trying to get a grip on the landscape that is cascading bleakly around her. Feeling helpless, she takes her son off to stay with his father in London, then returns and promptly regrets it, eventually reclaiming him from disapproving relatives.
She is Director of Culture, working out of a secondary school that also houses 200 people; and seeing the plight of these waiting souls, under the heaviness of an uncertainty further weighted by omnipresent black ash, she begins to rethink her role. She forms a group of strolling players who go round to some of the 26 shelters putting on shows to help people cope.
The relocation of all her friends, her son’s anger over her hectic schedule, and exhaustion finally cause her to pack up and go to Barbados as a student. An explosion in Montserrat changes the course of her research and she shifts it to crisis management, returning to Montserrat to gather data and finding out how inadequate preparations were.
Caribbean people have not had much by way of counselling on how to cope with disasters arising from the forces of nature. No hurricane or earthquake guides explain the psychological effects or how to cope with them. How does one leave a life behind? How to start afresh? In its honesty and frankness, this book could be helpful in the way it maps this journey, especially in these days of extremes.
At times, Weekes slips into a journalist’s tone as she relates events; when she rails against the British Government’s indifference, she is the voice of righteous indignation; over her son and her friends, deep concern scrambles out of her fear.
Her writing becomes her solace and outlet. “The mountain is my muse,” she writes, even though it haunts her sleep. Poetry is woven into her prose, sometimes conventionally, sometimes simply by the sheer force of her lyricism. This is what makes this book stand out as more than a memoir of a turbulent time.
This review first appeared in Caribbean Beat, March/April 2008.
