“If you don’t like it here, why don’t you go back  there then?”

It was a year and two months after my move to the island and a plump market vendor wearing a startling clean and white apron was wielding a knife in my face.

She shouted again:  “Eh? I’m not begging you to buy my fruits.  Why you don’t go back there?”

 Her loud retort was not addressed to me and the knife being wielded in my face had just as little to do with me.  Her target was the slim-bodied young woman who had walked up with the confidence and assurance of a native to the stall where I stood along with others waiting to be served.

The slim girl had inquired after the price of a particular fruit in an accent which might have been some sort of American. She was unhappy with the vendor’s response and had taken care to let all gathered know the price she would pay if she was in a particular country or continent.   The market vendor, in turn, was not the least bit pleased and began waving the knife which she had been using to carve melons.  There was no threat of violence in her knife-wielding; it was clear that the knife was just an extension of her hand.

The girl’s small bosom heaved forward as if she was preparing to make some just as loud retort. But, she never got the chance as another nearby elderly male vendor in the public market piped in to inquire just what was the matter.  The knife-wielding vendor responded that it was nothing great- just that “this girl for Marcia* come back from foreign and acting fresh”.

The girl flinched as if to be identified or indicted as the daughter of this woman “Marcia” was somehow just too much for her. She retreated, without another word, just before the vendor got deeply involved in protesting about Antiguans who’d go abroad for a while and then return to spend everyday of their life comparing things and prices in the small island to things abroad.

“Antigua is a different thing to ‘Merica and those bigger countries,” the vendor took to addressing me with her knife.  “How she going to compare there with here?”

“For real,” a lady customer standing too close to me piped up, “and it’s not like things so much cheaper over there- if you do a dollar for dollar conversion.”

“Fresh she fresh and forward,” the nearby elderly male vendor observed.

“So some of them behave,” my vendor continued as she sliced a huge pumpkin. She mocked in a whiny voice: “this too expensive, that cheaper overseas, the beach too wet, roads too bad…sun too hot”

As I paid up for my selection of fruits and vegetables, I made a very conscious effort not to do any comparisons in my head. Indeed, when I stepped out from under the coolness of the vendor’s stall, I almost didn’t notice the ferocious yellow sun glaring down at me.

(V).Damien

*Name has been altered.