Maiden, Mudda, Mousie: The Story of the Caribbean Woman

By: Bethany Maymattie Sukhnanan 

For my mother, grandmother, aunty and GG. For de Maiden, Mudda, and Mousie—may we be them all.

All I have, all I am, comes from the sacrifices you have made. From the love you had for me before you ever knew me. I carry you like a second skin—woven into my walk, my laugh, my tears. When I think of Caribbean women, I see beauty and backbone. Grace with grit. Fire wrapped in fabric. This is the story of you—and how, through you, I became me.

Mousie is what many Indo-Guyanese people call their mothers sister, their aunties

Maiden

She is the beginning—the soil, the seed and the first sacrifice. 

My Great-Grandma, was born in Vreed En Hoop, Guyana, 1934

A time when girls became wives before they became women. 

Married at 14

First child by 15 

Yet filled with dreams all her life 

With her she brought existence 

She carried us across oceans

Sang Indian songs while she plaited my hair 

Smelled of Estée Lauder 

And taught me to crush cookies into my milk and eat it with a spoon 

She didn’t just speak of strength — she lived it.

She built this family’s spine with her bare hands. 

Held grief in her chest and still offered love with both arms 

She is everything I hope to be 

To be a maiden in Caribbean culture is to begin before you are ready. 

To set sail into the unknown 

To bear the world, your grief and all its secrets 

To build without blueprint 

To plant roots on unfamiliar ground, and pray that they bloom. 

Mudda

She is the blaze — the fire in the belly, and the storm wrapped in warmth.

My mudda is made of fire, gold and a fierce determination 

The kind you can’t bottle, 

The kind that echos across generations 

At 19, she had me 

Becoming a fortress and the flame all at once 

She set the world ablaze to protect me 

She is steel, coated in the finest silk 

Grit and grace

She taught me to climb 

Even when bruised, broken, and bleeding 

Facing more demons than anyone should ever have to 

Still she rises 

Again and again, like the tide 

Her heart is warm, her skin is tough 

Someone who has lived through too much 

My grand-mudda’s love is quiet, but it always finds you when you need it 

Her love is gentle, unshakeable, unconditional 

She taught me to belly dance 

And how to make midnight milo 

To know her is to be loved by her

Her soul is made of the sweetest stuff 

Room enough for all of us 

To be a Mudda is to become more than you ever thought you could 

To give when empty

To be the home you never had 

To light the path when yours is still dark 

To birth not only children 

But generations of possibility. 

Mudda’s are the keeper of our becoming 

And if I am to be a Mudda one day

I pray to do so with her fire in my bones  

Mousie

She is the breeze — the balm, the balance, the bridge. Where the Maiden began and the Mudda burned bright, Mousie is the calm that holds the heat, the laughter that lingers.

My grand-mousie is the green thumb in a concrete world —

plants on every windowsill,

pepper sauce in every fridge,

faith in every corner of her life

She taught me how to talk to leaves.

How to pray at the mosque 

And how to make bake swell 

She is the one who tells you when yuh dus get big 

And when yuh dus get small 

And loves you in between them all 

She is joy wrapped in resilience,

the softness that follows survival.

She makes room — for the noise, the mess, the mistakes —

and still finds a way to make it feel like home.

To be a Mousie is to be a second mother 

To be the keeper of secrets and spices 

To feed the belly and the soul equally 

Mousie is a reminder 

Of the pleasure, the peace and the prayer 

We — The Becoming

We, the daughters of these women,

Carry them in our hips, our tongues, our hands 

We are the echos of their every prayer

The result of their every sacrifice 

The next breath in a long exhale of women who never gave up. 

We are the Maidens, 

Beginning before we are ready 

Planting ourselves in the present 

At the dawn of our becoming 

We grow into the Muddas —

Stretching love across generations 

The keepers of legacy 

Builder of homes, hearts and bodies 

Givers of all 

We will flourish into Mousies —

The sacred in between 

The pepper and the power

The cassareep in the dish 

To be a Caribbean woman is to live many different lives inside one body 

To carry, cook and conjure 

We are not just made from them 

We are becoming them 

We are every plait, prayer, and pot on the stove.

May we live long enough to carry the torch 

To honour the ground behind us 

To bless the path in front of us 

And to become them all 

Maiden, Mudda, Mousie