Soap, Snake & Roses.

Sun. Nov.27.22.

Greetings and salvation, my friend.

I almost wrote sanitation because I have to do a spot of cleaning in my little space.

Which got me thinking about soap.

A woman (on Twitter) from a wealthy country said that people in her country use soap; after all, she said, her country wasn’t third world.

I wish I could’ve shown her a photo of a rubbish dump in my lovely native land, overflowing with plastic bottles which once contained bathroom cleaner, dishwashing detergent, bath soap, body wash, bought by practically every man and woman with money in hand.

We also have blue soap which comes wrapper-free, but those exposed to a better life tend to scoff at this poor-people soap, manufactured in a developing country. It’s used to wash dishes and scrub the home. It’s also a laundry detergent. I mentioned this to a Guyanese woman living Abroad when we were chatting about soap and plastic bottles.

“Blue soap doesn’t come in plastic,” I said.

She asked, smugly, “And what makes the soap blue?”

Yeah, boy, third world people just can’t win, I thought.

Blue soap smells like rain but the woman’s question has tainted my enjoyment of it.

Damn. Everything clean seems tainted these days. Even bar soap, popular amongst we-the-citizens of Guyana, comes loaded with micro-beads a.k.a. minuscule plastic beads, wrapped in plastic-coated, shiny paper.

It’s just so darn ironic that something that cleans us creates a huge mess.

But, as a wise man once pointed out to me, life is dialectic. For bad, there’s good. Bar soap takes me back to a time of innocence, reminding me of a short story in my book, about a duck and a snake that fell in love by the giant water vat where the red rose bush grew.

They useta meet, the snake and the duck, by them sweet-smelling roses, and they dance and romance each other.

Fast forward from those long ago days of my mother’s childhood to my childhood.

I ain’t know if it is that same vat that grow old, or if a new one appear in we childhood when we the grandchildren go to spend holidays with grandparents, Nanee and Pa. It was countryside and, for a while, they didn't have running water in they home. A rose bush been growing there in we childhood too, don’t know if it is the same one from the time of the courting snake and duck.

As soon as sun settle down, them older cousins would bathe the little ones by the vat, filling the enamel bowl from a spout in the vat, washing we with the coldest rainwater and the sweetest smelling soap. 

Up in the house, we would put on pyjamas, Pa would light the lamp and tell we the best stories, then off to bed we go.

This last Friday night, I was telling my best friend in the Whole Wide World about my thoughts on soap and pollution. He said there’s a conference being held in Uruguay, from 28 November to 2 December 2022.

Plodding through the jargon and legalese, I see there’s also a forum open to all stakeholders. I don’t know who they mean by stakeholders but as far as I’m concerned, every citizen on earth is one. (I always picture a crowd holding stakes.)

Soooo…what do soap, snake and roses have to do with that conference? Everything, my friend, everything…earth, pure, clean, plastic-free, nature not poisoned by manufacturers.

Speaking of clean…back to that Twitter lady’s remark. Wish I’d told her that most 3rd world people believe you need to bade as soon as you wake up. If the water is too cold and you don’t have a heating system, you boil water and pour it in a bucket.

Anyway m’dear, I’d better go finish off that cleaning I have to do around here. Take care of you. Eat well, bade clean. Enjoy the two weeks until then. Plenty lurve, neena.