ANGELA HAMILTON
It was Sunday like all other Sundays, when my uncle comes home from the market, from the city. He would leave on Thursdays and come back on the weekends and bring back groceries for Sundays. Every Sunday it was a ritual. At 6:00 a.m. my grandmother would wake up the grandchildren, likewise my uncles and aunties and we were all out the house at 8:00 a.m. We would do what we had to do to get ready for church. When we were ready for church my grandmother would then get herself together.
It was like clockwork to see the family moving like robots, getting ready for that one thing that my grandmother believed in. On many occasions my grandmother would not let us even sweep the 'ard (that would be the yard) because it would take too much time. She would say, "you can be late for anything bu yu na ganna lae fa god words." What my grandmother was saying is you can be late for anything, but you should not be late for the words of the Lord
The ritual continued after church. We would come home at the same time every Sunday. I remember on a particular Sunday my grandmother went in the kitchen after taking off her good clothes and started to boil a pot with hot water. When I saw her boiling the water, the only thing that would come to my little girl's mind was my grandmother was going to make tea or coffee. However, as an adult I now know the water she was boiling was to help soften the chicken's feathers to make plucking easier.