Q & A for June Wood Agamah, author of Caryl’s Closet

Note: I met June last year through my sister Laurie. June contacted me since she discovered I’m an editor. While I didn’t edit her book, I gave her some writing and publishing tips. And I enjoyed hearing about the premise of her work-in-progress, Caryl’s Closet. As you’ll notice in the Q & A, June is a go-getter and within a year, she not only had the book written, but published as well. She was generous to keep me informed of her progress, and I recently asked if she’d guest post on the blog. I thoroughly enjoyed reading her memoir as I discovered about her home country of Guyana, her life adjusting as an immigrant, her strong faith, her mission work in Ghana, and living as a Guyanese in the predominately white community of Springfield, Illinois.

Q & A

1. One of my favorite sections in Caryl’s Closet was the narratives about your mother, Walterine Wood. She leapt off the page as you described how she beautifully decorated your childhood home, to her culinary skills as she made her “famous” wedding cakes, sold pastries to the local factory workers, and her work ethic as she held several jobs to help make ends meet.

“My mom always had mouthwatering pastries, breads, coconut buns, pine tarts, beef and chicken patties, and other snacks to offer her visitors. She exuded a kind, warm, and gentle spirit, and to this day, I attribute some of my personal habits and bent to that of her genealogy.” (Excerpt from the memoir.)

Question: What were some memories of your mother that resonated as you wrote Caryl’s Closet?

June: Ever since I was a youth, I pondered these questions in my heart: How do you measure life? Should life be measured by the words we say, love we express through a hug or a smile, or the kindness we share with others? I think it is all of the above. My mother, Walterine Wood, taught me how to love and serve others unconditionally. I don’t recall seeing my mom sitting around idly at home. We were poor, but she used whatever was in her hands to create something beautiful. Whether it was to spend hours washing and ironing clothes for the rich people in the village, decorating beautiful three or four-tiered wedding cakes, or using her hands to help ease pain in people’s body, she did it! As a child, the safest place I have ever felt was lying in my mom’s arms, listening to her heart beat against me as I laid on her chest! When I was ill and could not eat, she patiently fed me my meals. I think those qualities are the greatest legacy she left for me to pass on to my children and the next generation as written in my memoir, Caryl’s Closet.

2. In Caryl’s Closet, you say, “When I came to the United States, churches always talked about building community. In Guyana, community is the fabric of all they do.” Please share examples of how community is naturally woven into the Guyanese society.

June: What is community? I think my village, Buxton-Friendship is the greatest representation of what a communal life is like. When I was growing up, everybody knew each other’s business. When someone excelled academically, we all celebrated his/her accomplishments. When someone was leaving the village for further education abroad, we all dressed up in our suits and fine dresses to go to the airport to see them off! Birth and death announcements were made, and everyone came to welcome, celebrate, or mourn the loss of one of us. There was an unspoken rule that we are all invited! Guyanese usually greet each other by asking about how the family is doing. They genuinely care about each member of the family. People are generally generous with sharing their meals with each other. Whenever I visit Buxton-Friendship village, visitors bring their best fruits and vegetables from their gardens to share with me. They spend time and themselves with me, and its implied that no matter where I go, I should remember, I am a Buxtonian!

3. Like your mother, you’re very determined, energetic, and creative. Please share the various obstacles you overcame to get a master’s degree and pursue the future you wanted to have.

June: After graduating from the University of New Orleans, LA with my undergraduate degree in 1989, I was accepted to graduate school. I had completed the first two semesters when we moved to Evanston, Illinois for my husband to start his Internal Medicine Residency at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston. I got pregnant with our first daughter, Sarah. I needed to find work to supplement our income. I worked in Chicago for a private, liberal arts college, Aurora University. Then within four years, our family had ballooned from three to five! This was a defining period for me and my husband. Should I quit work or continue? I made the choice to become a Domestic Engineer (Homemaker). However, by the time we arrived in Springfield, Illinois, with three children under five, I still wanted to complete that degree. So, while my husband took care of the children, I attended graduate school at nights at the University of Illinois at Springfield. I completed my Masters in Public Health (MPH) in 2001. It was in this public health arena, I acquired a clearer understanding of addressing the core values of public health and how the social determinants of health affect the poor in the United States as well as globally. Thus, armed with such knowledge, opportunities to improve the quality of health care in the poor villages in Ghana, West Africa, was going to be my life’s calling and purpose.

4. You share since God blessed you and your husband, you both wanted to give back. Please give a summary of what inspired you to open a hospital in Ghana, your husband’s home country?

June:

When my husband, Dr. Edem Agamah, described his mission dream to me, I was floored. I am from a poor village in Guyana, South America. He is from a poor village, Agbozume, in the Volta Region of Ghana, West Africa. My forefathers were possibly taken from that very area by the British and sent to Guyana. They were stripped of their dignity and culture. They were prevented from learning to read and write. Alas, this was my Joseph in the Bible moment for me. I had to trust and obey.

The first time, in April of 1996 when we arrived in the village of Agbozume, I fell in love with the people. It felt like home-going. We were welcomed with singing, drumming and dancing. We feasted on delicious Ghanaian Cuisine and soon discovered that there were no medical doctors or nurses for miles!

So, for the next four days, my husband and I, a volunteer nurse and a local Ghanaian nurse from Accra held our first clinic under a mango tree. For four days, we tended to over 400 people, most of them seeing a doctor for the first time! One night, drained and exhausted, we knelt by our bed to pray. We gave thanks to the Lord, and I heard the clear message, “I love people more than anything.”

Thus, twenty-five years later, we have taken 37 mission trips to Ghana. The IHDN Mission Hospital Outpatient and hundred-bed Inpatient facility, a five-story staff apartment, and other infrastructure, lie on twenty-three acres of land in Weta, Ghana. The new Solar Farm and Clinical Laboratory Department building is currently under construction. This building will house Pathology, Hematology, Microbiology departments and the Blood Bank. This hospital serves 30,000 patients annually, and we are currently building a Women and Children’s Maternity suite off campus to provide ready access to women and children in the remote village of Worgbator.

5. How Caryl’s Closet came about is a story in itself. Please share how your daughter was the catalyst for this book.

June: We immigrants live by the paradigms we know. We come to America. We put our heads down, and we study, work hard, and set our sights on accomplishing the American Dream. Yet, here were our three American-born children, totally immersed in this culture, and we expected them to think and act like we did! I was unaware of the seismic shift in my children’s universe. They were coming of age, born to immigrant parents from Guyana and Ghana. Our middle daughter, Aseye, is the writer in our family. She was looking for my baby photos and in my closet, found photos of me in my early twenties. She created a blog for my birthday. I know she loved to read and use big words, yet never once did I ask her who her favorite author was. I wrote extensively but never thought that being an author would be a thing for me! She was flabbergasted I had met her favorite author James Baldwin when I was in college at the University of New Orleans. She found what she referred to as “these treasures”, my old, worn journals in my closet, and challenged me to write my story! It was James Baldwin who said, “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they never failed to imitate them. They have no other model.”

6. Please share your journey with getting Caryl’s Closet written? (i.e., having a stack of journals, attending the writer’s group, sharing from your journal, writers encouraging you to write this book, getting a publisher, then having a finished product.)

June: Do you have a hobby that you do regularly or a pastime you never tell anyone about? Throughout my journey, I have written excessively. I love to paint pictures with words and write stories that put you, the reader, in the moment. Our daughter Aseye also loves words; she writes and studied English and writing in college. She was constantly questioning us (her parents) about our past life. She was looking for a foundation to stand on. She discovered my stack of journals in my closet and challenged me to tell my story to the world. I resisted at first, I’m an immigrant, born in a poor village in Guyana, South America. No one wants to know about or read about me. I’m not famous, who cares about me? However, during the pandemic, I did not want to constantly turn the TV on and watch major cities get blown up! So, I browsed through my journals, and I could not believe what I saw! I called my friends and started reading excerpts from my journals.

They loved it!! I was shocked! My neighbors and friends would schedule times for me to FaceTime and read to them. Another friend introduced me to her reading and writing group. They wanted me to read to them. One day, I was speaking about how my daughter found my journals. One lady from the writing group said, “STOP right there! That’s it! You are unaware of the treasures in your closet. Your daughter Aseye discovers them, and she sets you on a different path.” So, Caryl’s Closet was born!

After that encouragement, during the pandemic of 2020, I resurrected my thoughts and researched what other writers have done. I took classes and listened to podcasts on how to craft a bestseller. I looked at publishing choices. I chose to engage Carpenter’s Sons Publishing company. They were able to walk me through the process and on April 6, 2021,Caryl’s Closet became a reality!

Themes: Essentially, there are two themes distilled throughout Caryl’s Closet.

The first is: we are so much more alike than we are different. So, why do we spend most of our time magnifying how unique we are, based on the color of our skin, our race and ethnicity? May God help us see and understand that we are the human race. Let us capture the Tossed Salad concept; many ingredients, with their own texture, flavor and taste mixed together, while maintaining their own individual structure, create a beautiful, tasty meal!

Finally, the second theme is: God sees us! He knows us, and He loves us all!

In Chapter 9 of my book, Caryl’s Closet-“Taking Risks and Trusting in God’s Promises, I told a story about the interchange I had with an African American friend who had a problem with me attending a predominantly White church. I had convinced him to go with me to a weekend retreat in Florida, and of course we were the only two people of color at the event. I think God has a great sense of humor because when the leader of the conference prayed, he had a message for someone in the room. I knew the message was for me because my right ear opened up and then returned to normal after the message was over. The message was that God had someone “special” for me, but I must be patient. A year later after I met my husband-to-be, I tried to avoid him, but God pursued me in my car on my way home from college. I asked aloud, “Who was Edem? And I knew then in my spirit that he was the “one”.

Moreover, in Chapter 12 of my book- “Mission Dream,“ I recalled an incident during our first mission trip to Ghana in 1996. On the fourth night, my husband knelt down to pray after four days of seeing over 400 patients, in the village of Agbozume, Ghana, West Africa. Most of the patients had never seen a doctor in their lifetime. God knew that we were about to give up because the work was going to be too difficult. He had to speak to our hearts. That night, we heard the voice of God clearly, “I love these people. You must love them more than things. I love people more than anything.” The God of the universe truly sees us, knows us, and loves us unconditionally!

Wintley Phipps, a singer says, “It is in the quiet crucible of your personal quiet sufferings that your noblest dreams are born, and God ‘s greatest gifts are given in compensation to what you have been through.”

About June:

June Caryl (KAH-RIL) Wood Agamah grew up in a tiny village, Buxton-Friendship, on the East Coast of Demerara, in Guyana, South America. Throughout her sojourn from her village to Barbados, then onto America, she experienced grief, loneliness, rejection and discrimination. Yet, she was filled with determination. She heard the voice of God clearly and experienced God’s abiding love. She had to learn to be an outlier, in order to be in God’s perfect will.

To order Caryl’s Closet:

An autographed copy of Caryl’s Closet can be ordered on June’s website: Junewoodagamah.com.
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