Montserrat Speaking Frankly

Destiny’s Revelation No. 10

October 8, 2008 on 1:40 pm | In Destiny Revelations | No Comments

Recently, Montserrat focused celebrations on the life of Olano Equiano, a former slave. I’m not sure about the spelling of his first name. In a portion of his anthology, Mr. Equiano described his life in Montserrat. His account of some of the treatment slaves on Montserrat endured was brutal to say the least.

What I found really interesting about Equiano’s anthology was the Souffriere Hills Volcano. Yes, he talked about it. Only back then, it was called ‘Brimstone Hill’. So, it seems this volcano has been kicking up its heels alive and well for some decades in the past, at least during the 19th century.

What’s a bit disappointing for me is the lack of a variety of information on Montserrat’s cultural heritage. As I hear more and more conversations, I’ve come to realize that Montserrat has some interesting folklore that could be bone-chilling at times. I never seem to hear the same story twice.

I have heard quite a bit so far. However, I’ll start with the ones that made me sit up and pay attention.

For instance, during a bout of heavy rainfall one evening while huddled in a tiny yet quaint road-side bar sipping on some gin and malibu, I overheard some locals discussing the events of a horrendous flood that took place over two decades ago.

As the story goes, this particular day received torrents of rain, with even more inches falling the entourage of high mountains.

As a result of this, Montserrat’s deep gourges known as ‘Ghauts’, pronounced like ‘gut’, began to succumb to the above normal volume of rain water washing down from the heights of the surrounding mountains.

On these huge ghauts in Montserrat, several Montserratians built their homes on the very edge of these ghauts and, in some cases, even on the flanks of the ghauts.

Because of this fact, when the ghauts began to overflow and flood, on this particular occasion, great landslides joined the rushing water as it followed the carved out ghauts to the sea.

Unfortunately, several homes where caught up in the flood and several families died as a result.

However, as every miracle would have it, there was a lone survivor of those affected by this dreadful event, a tiny baby boy.

He was found and rescued by fishermen. This tiny miracle was floating on a mattress unharmed, a short distance of the coastline of Montserrat.

As I am told, this young boy is now a grown man and still living here on Montserrat. He is referred to in the story as ‘Flood’. But, I hear he doesn’t like to be called by that name, which is understandable.

Should I be fortunate enough to meet this walking miracle here in Montserrat, I will keep that bit of information in mind.