The Women of Sapelo

Kind, round faces, soft, lyrical voices, outstretched loving arms with nimble, capable hands are some of the images I remember the women of Sapelo by.  I would gaze upon their beautiful, smooth skin of varying shades of brown and black, watch their animated faces with stories to tell  and wise sayings to impart while switching a fan back in forth to dispel the constantly buzzing bugs, heat or both. I never tired of hearing the sweet voices, intently listening to understand their language, their island way of speaking, and wondering why I could always catch more of what the women were saying  than the men of the island. Perhaps it was their softer and slower way of speaking.  The men spoke faster and sometimes their sentences came out like bullets of foreign sounds.

I have never yet again been surrounded by so many mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers and aunts.  Their ways of interacting, of being, and of living were a constant source of fascination and wonder to me.  They did not have a lot of money but what they did have was confidence in their living, and how to live right.  They were strong in every since of the word.  And capable of cooking the best food you have ever wanted to eat. Fried chicken, pork chops with rice and gravy, lima beans, string beans and black eyed peas and making lemonade so perfectly tart and sweet that on a hot summer day it made lunch at the dorm's dining hall the best meal you had ever tasted.  I remember the times the kids were allowed to join the students for a special lunch at the dorm, sitting in the cool air conditioned lunch room watching the students finish off their fried chicken lunch and desert, and wishing I could be an ecology or geology student just to be able to eat dinner at the dorm everyday .  I loved just hanging out in the dorm kitchen where Miss Rosa and Miss Viola worked.  Two more wonderful human beings there never were.  At age 9 I was chest height to them and my memories of hugging them are delightful, feeling nestled in the security of a mother's bosom. And how they liked to laugh and hear our stories and love us.