Bama-Wha?

Working at the coffee shop with Loida, a born and bred St. Thomian, has been wonderfully enriching in many ways. One thing I particularly enjoy about working together is learning so much about the local lingo.

I am often delightfully surprised by the old world elegance of some of the words she says. She’ll occasionally use a term I haven‘t encountered since my days reading 18th century novels as an English major. This coming from a young woman of Puerto Rican descent—beautiful like a puma, Gangstress tattooed on the inside of her right forearm, and don't fuck with me written on her face.

One day while relaying the details of an argument with her boyfriend, she said,

“Ashley, I was so vexed wit him dat I…”

“Loida, did you just say that you were VEXED with your boyfriend?” I interrupted.

She smiled. ‘Yeah, I was vexed wit him. Why?”

“I just don’t hear that word often. It’s old-fashioned, Loida, I’m so surprised to hear it coming out of your mouth! It’s great though. Okay, go on, you were vexed with your boyfriend, and you…”

Another time we were talking about the food offered downtown for lunch. She said something to the effect of, “I like to get my stew chicken or my salt fish and all of my provisions…”

Again, I interrupted her. “Did you just say ‘provisions’?”

“Yeah, my provisions,” She nodded, “Like my dumplins, my plantains, my sweet potatos,” she counted out on graceful hands, forever active when she talks, “…..Why you laughin?”

“That’s just another word I rarely hear out of an old-fashioned context. Unless it’s the military or something. Do a lot of people use ‘provisions’ when talking about food down here?”

She nodded, “Yeah,” and shrugged like it’s common, no big deal.

I’ve since determined that provisions is used to describe the variety of local side dishes. And they seem to be smaller side dishes, because I was quickly corrected when I referred to baked macaroni as a provision. 

And then sometimes the words are so absolutely island-sounding that I’m both surprised and not surprised at the same time.

A couple weeks ago, while lifting boxes of soda to store in the back room, Loida said to me,

“Ashley, you wan get a bamacoo or wha?”

“Wha you say?” I asked, doing my best island accent but still sounding very much like a white girl from the states.

“A bamacoo, ya know. You get dem when ya lift sumting heavy.”

“A hernia?” I asked.

“Yeah, a hernia. We call it bamacoo.”

“Oh my god, that’s a great word! How you spell?”

“I don’t know... ask Juel. She probly know. My granmadda use it. I tink all island people do. ”

“Okay, use it in a sentence for me, Loida."

“Girl, you done lift dat ting, you gon get a bamacoo, ya know.”

“I love it. Thank you.That definitely makes the blog.”