Family Reunion

Saturday was the big day and reason for my trip. Our family reunion would be held in a cousin’s backyard in Scarborough. To free up space in the car for my parents to pick up my aunt and uncles I decided to take the train there. The public transportation is excellent because even deep into the suburbs of Scarborough there are regularly running buses. I got off the bus and walked 5 minutes into a neighborhood and could hear the soca music blasting so even without the Apple Maps I could have followed the music! 

When I arrived 4 hours after the posted start time only about 10 percent of the people were there. Typical Caribbean style. But hey, that allowed me to chop it up with relatives I’d never met! 

Immediately upon entering the garage I ran into a cousin who remembered me and reminded me of the time he melted our video game cartridge by accidentally by placing it on top of a kerosene heater we used to use. lol I had forgotten about it. But upon being reminded I immediately remembered the deep groves in it when we eventually found it and pried off the cooled-off heater. Later we sat and talked a while about all kinds of things from church, to working out, the best ways to use and invest in AI, and email lists to subscribe to related to tech and innovation. 

Then I met some relatives who had traveled from Ottawa, which was a few hours away from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). I then met a family of daughters also cousins who all had Sisterlocks so you know we had an easy topic to bond over lol and that we did later and that later segued into other topics like college and later computer science. I soon discovered that I had recently met the brother of one of those cousins in Guyana and hadn’t made the connection till he showed me a pic of him with his brother!  🤯

Later in the evening one of my uncles got up to share some family history. He explained how we are all connected and how my great grandparents started it all with their children who are our parents and grandparents. Several people mentioned how they didn’t know most of the people at the reunion so this history deep dive was much needed! Maybe I should build some kind of family tree app. 🤔 

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the FOOD! All Guyanese staples and a few extras! Cook-up, curry & roti, salara, bbq chicken, Mac & cheese, chow mein, dhal, pholourie, cassava pone, salara, cheese straws, etc soooo good! 

And let’s not forget the DJ. He was spinning all types of soca and reggae from my era. much of which was still family friendly. He also played a series of Guyanese folk songs. It was fun to see my older cousins and uncles dancing and singing along in their family t-shirts. A great time was had by all! And for the locals they’ll be doing it all again at the same place in 2 weeks the day after Caribana which is the big Caribbean carnival in Toronto.