Book Review — A Journey to Transformation

“Deep breath. Grab a fistful. Cut. The blade slice halfway through one lock and he have to cut again, sawing his way through. He stare at the black coils as they fall in the bag at his feet. Something catch in throat. Like walking uphill. Another fistful and the hill steeper, and it harder to breathe.”

This is the turning point in the story. It makes real Darwin’s decision to step away from the convictions of his Rastafari faith, at least temporarily. He comes to this place out of desperation, a path he takes because he sees no other way out. We have all had to make momentous decisions in our lives at some time or other, a path that we didn’t want to take, but felt we had no choice. He must transform himself, become someone else in order to maintain a semblance of balance.

He is Emmanuel, son of Janaya, a Rastafari Empress who wears her wrapped crown proudly. He is Darwin, a different person with shorn locks ready for the battle he must go through. This is Darwin’s dilemma in When We Were Birds.

AUTHENTICITY

London-based, Trinidadian-born writer, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, takes us on a journey through the ordinariness of Caribbean life that is peppered with myth, fantasy, loss, and the power of love. The story draws us in with its plain English, without pretentious flourishes that distracts. It’s authenticity is underscored by Banwo’s use of local Trini dialect, making for a good read that takes you back home, no matter where you come from.

The story of Darwin’s journey through selfhood and Yejide’s path to acceptance brings these two protagonists together on a magical collision course that transforms their lives forever. Their trajectories must converge, for it is this bond that allows them, and us, to embrace the truth of human spiritual nature—the ability to see and communicate with the dead. The mythical stories Yejide’s grandmother, the wise one, tells her about the corbeaux, vultures, who steal the souls of the dead, is symbolic of the inevitable, but is also a celebration of the power that should be acknowledged.

Banwo paints a picture filled with colour, dialect, and poetry. We first meet Yejide, a curious little girl enthralled with the story her grandmother is telling her about the birth of the corbeaux and its role in transforming a land ravaged by death and destruction. On that veranda in the big house at the top of the hill surrounded by forest, Granny Catherine already knew the child’s special gift. This was her way of teaching Yejide.

Then we meet Darwin, a hapless young man with little material possessions, looking for work in Trinidad’s sprawling, dusty city of Port Angeles. An honest young man who delves into his soul for answers for he too has the ability to ‘see’, but he needs a kindred spirit to open his eyes. He seemingly does the unthinkable for a Rastafari, taking a job in a cemetery as a gravedigger. But, it is this action that triggers the confluence of events the universe has designed for the inescapable encounter. He stumbles through the congested city and finally reaches Fidelis Cemetery and “a tall, black wrought-iron gate yawn open in front of him.”

TRINIDADIAN CADENCE

Banwo uses language that comes alive with the rich Trinidadian cadence of its people. It gives the story a rhythm that makes the reader feel comfortable, at home, part of the tale. His first day on the job, Darwin approaches the men he figured he would be working with.

‘I have overalls in my bag, I just didn’t know if we was doing a interview—’

“A interview?’ One of the boys on the steps laugh out loud.

‘Allyuh hear that?’ He look at the man next to him. ‘Jamesy, you do any interview when you come here?

Jamesy answer is a screw face that make Darwin feel like he is the one sitting on the steps and Jamesy looking down at him.

‘McIntosh’, the same man continue, ‘you had resume and ting when you come? McIntosh just steups and take another sip from the cup.

Darwin try again. ‘Listen, just show me where to find Mr. Errol and let me—’

‘Is shame, the boy shame, Cardo,’ Jamesy laugh. ‘Eh want them woman in town to know he does dig grave for a living.’

Before long, he gets to know Fidelis, he breathes it in, he memorizes the long wide paths, the graves, the markers, the palatial headstones. He smells the love, the life, the grief that resides there. It is in this place that Yejide and Darwin will face the truth of each other.

When they meet, the familiarity is palpable, the connection, the attraction is unquestionable. But why in this place where bodies and souls mingle? Yejide sees what Darwin sees. It won’t be long before they realize why their spirits are intertwined—to come to terms with their dead and acknowledge the spirit of the corbeaux that lives within them, to accept the gift that each possess—the power to speak to the dead.