DOWN MEMORY "FOREST" LANE

EPISODE 3:  THE VOYEUR (BYE LOOKÉ)

By T.M.Pyneeandy,forestry_mauritius

Laundry site at River La Savanne, Surinam

In the 1970s, many women in rural areas used to go to the nearest rivers to wash clothes.  Some of them had to do all the household chores before toiling hard in the sugarcane fields from dawn to dusk.  Indeed, it was almost a slavery-life for many women at that time.  They usually went to do their laundry during the weekends, and many of them took the opportunity to bathe and relax in the cool water.

Bye Looké relished the sight of women washing and bathing in the river.  Hence his favourite task was to patrol river reserves.  One hot Saturday morning, he posted himself at a suitable spot on the river bank of River La Savanne very close to a laundry site.  He was well camouflaged in the bush.  He was a very patient man.   After one hour, many women were already busy washing clothes.

 

 In the past, there were no concrete steps and retaining wall.

 Bye Looké enjoyed the   show.  He listened attentively to the women’s conversation.  Finally, the climax would be reached when some of the women started bathing in the river.  Some of them kept their clothes on whilst others removed their tops in the absence of men.

 Afterwards he took great pleasure in narrating to his colleagues what he saw and heard at the laundry scene.  One day he told his colleagues that he overheard a very "juicy" conversation.  One woman related to her friends her intimacy with her lover the night before.  She described how she reached the seventh heaven/zenith during a torrid love-making by comparing it to the river eel that slipped inside its lair.  Bye Looké said that he was nearly caught as he couldn't suppress laughing.  Fortunately, the women had burst into a roar of laughter and didn't notice him!!!