thepancollective

lights, tears, action

This morning I drove with my lights on, wearing black, to have a meeting with a friend at CCA7. All the way there, whenever I saw a car with headlights on, I felt a lurch inside and tears came flowing out. I was deeply moved. At one point, in Aranguez, I was turning a corner and the man driving in front of me stopped and called out to a young male driver on the other side of the road (who had his lights on): "Yuh have on yuh lights!" (Clearly he didn't know about today's lights-on-wear-black drive).  The male driver said "Is okay. We supposed to have on we lights today ..." (and he started to explain why). To his (and my) surprise, the other man started shouting at him. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but he sounded and looked angry (his body language). Let's call him No-Lights. All the time that No-Lights was shouting at the young male driver (Mr. Lights), I held my thumbs up out of the window for Mr. Lights to see tat he had support. In defense, Mr. Lights shouted back at No-Lights: "I is a Trini! And I keepin' my lights on fuh alla dem!" At that, No-Lights pulled off abruptly and sped off, his body language indicating that he was arguing with the person in his passenger seat about what had happened. There appeared to be two small children in the back seat. I blew my horn at Mr. Lights, held out my hand out in his direction and called out: "Don't give up!" He reached his hand back towards me and called back: "Yuh damn right I not giving up!"

in memory of sean luke

The women of The Pan Collective are deeply horrified and saddened at the news of the brutal killing of 6-year-old Sean Luke. 

To the family of this little boy:  we send you our most heartfelt prayers.  May you somehow, some way, find peace.

To our readers:  Trinidadian citizens will be wearing black on Friday, March 31, 2006, in silent protest of Sean Luke's death.  We invite you to join us, wherever in the world you might be.

dedication

Here comes the Washerwoman, walking down the road; She sees you sitting by the river with your load. She runs to meet you like the river meets the sea ...She comes to wash you, to set your Spirit free.  Feel her run her gentle water fingers through your mind. Let her show you how to leave your heavy load behind.

Bright sun, blue sky, white clouds, float by.

Here comes the Washerwoman, walking down the road. She sees you sitting by the river with your load. She runs to meet you, like the river meets the sea. She comes to wash ... you.

When I first wrote this song, Washerwoman, I envisioned a simple but powerful woman wearing white, head wrapped in white, walking towards the river (the one at Salybia which meets the sea). Perhaps this baptist-type image is what reminded of the song today in particular (Spiritual Baptist/Shouter Liberation Day) ... in addition to my feelings upon reading 'the load' in today's papers. Symbolically the song represents Someone or Something powerful which comes to remove one's 'load' (whatever that load may be) and set your Spirit free by releasing the weight or darkness and restoring a sense of faith and hope. People are speaking increasingly about 'the dark cloud' over Trinidad and Tobago ... no longer yearning for or asking for, but demanding a turning point. There is that much which can be done by human effort. The rest is Divine. Today, as a personal gesture, I dedicate and unleash the Washerwoman ... to lift 'the dark cloud' (the load), to wash us all and bring positive and sustainable transformation. 

but what does it mean?

It's funny what you take for granted, or rather it's funny what you never think about investigating. I grew up with the poetic names of beaches, villages and towns ringing in my head, never once occuring to me that they weren't English, that the way they were spelt and the way they were pronounced were so far removed from each other. Grand Anse, Morne Jaloux, Grand Etang, Sauteurs, Point Salines, Beau Sejour, Lance aux Epines, Requin..... the list goes on and on.

One of the things that my husband Lucas loves about Grenada is that so many of the place names are French. Before becoming a British Colony in 1783, Grenada, like many other islands, was owned by the French, and the majority of names in French have stuck. While we were there last year he regaled us with the real meaning of many of the names of towns and villages. The most famous beach, Grand Anse, literally means large handle, no doubt because of its curved shape. Grand Etang? Large pond (this is the famous lake at the top of our one and only volcano).

Sauteurs is the town on the northern coast of the island where in 1651 a group of Caribs, the indigneous people, jumped to their deaths rather than submit to the European settlers. The actual spot where they jumped is now called Carib's Leap. Well guess what? In French the word sauteurs means jumpers. This one clicked for me when I was telling Lucas this story last year.

I'm not sure why when I was growing up I didn't realise this French connection. I don't recall it being mentioned in history class beyond the fact that we were once a French Colony (perhaps I just wasn't paying attention?) And at the time that I was attending the St. Joseph's Convent in St. George's, French was not offered, the only foreign language available was Spanish. This has since changed, as a number of my little cousins proudly demonstrated to Lucas and I on our visit. My only hope is that the French teachers see the opportunity right in front of them to engage their students, and step outside the boundaries of their assigned textbooks to make it a living language.

on your mark...get set...go

This is a great week to begin my journey with this blog collective. It is a week of firsts. This is my first experience “blogging” and this Thursday, Jamaicans will be inaugurating our first ever female Prime Minister- the Honorable Portia Simpson Miller. In the same vein as Liberia and Chile, they have decided that “Since men have gotten us into this mess, let’s see if a woman can get us out of it.” Now, Jamaica is an interesting climate of matrifocality and chauvinism, which means that while more women than men earn the money that supports the households, most men still feel comfortable expecting their every desire and opinion to be taken as law. So, are Jamaican men scared about this shift in power? Yes… but they are more than kind of intrigued by this female politician that is known to be Bible-quoting, baby-kissing, and just the right amount of feisty. In many ways, it is her matronly persona that won over even the most sexist of men, who will always have a soft space in their heart for their mamas.

Electoral races are not the only places where ground- breaking Jamaicans are coming in first. We just participated in the Commonwealth Games, which is where all of England’s old colonies compete athletically in what could be deemed a mini-Olympics. Now, the existence of these games is highly problematic in 2006. The idea of the Queen of England sitting in an aerial seat, looking down on “her subjects” throwing javelins, jumping through hoops (gymnastics), and running around in circles, is slightly too Medieval for me. But no one seems to mind and 53 countries competed. Jamaica won the 7th highest number of medals, mainly by sweeping all the track events, and it has been a great source of pride for all here. And this is so different from how I experience patriotism in America. For one, almost every Jamaican followed the games, as if they personally knew every athlete competing, and with every medal won there was a public swell of pride. It exemplified for me how people here believe that they belong to something bigger than themselves. It is a first for me to experience such national unity and pride.

pondering roots

What does it mean to have roots? To have your navel string tied to a place? I have eaten Cascadoo once (curried), so maybe, as the legend says, wherever I go in my lifetime, I will return to Trinidad to die. 

Lately I've been thinking about the concept of having Caribbean roots and realising that I don't fully know what it means. It must mean something different to everyone, but I have never felt or explored it consciously. 'Roots' must be archaic and far reaching, touching mystical and unknown depths within each of us. What does that word/concept really mean? 'Roots'. My roots are here in Trinidad at least to the extent that I was born here. My even deeper and older roots are in the Caribbean at least to the extent that my parents and many of my forefathers/mothers were born within the region. However, my leaves, branches, flowers and fruits are Universal ... not tied to a specific place. What nutrients do I get from the ground in which my roots are fixed through birth? And when I bear fruit where are they readily harvested?

 

singing wind

The 40 days after carnival are marked with heavy winds in Aruba. When the trees bend to extraordinary lows and the wind whistles with piercing sharpness through the house, people will turn to each other and remark: Tempo di cuaresma tey.

Cuaresma is what we call Lent, a period marked with eating a lot of fish and taking it easy, to recuperate from the exhaustion that is the carnival season. A few people abstain from drinking alcohol in the 40 days starting from Ash Wednesday,

Houses are harder to keep clean, because the wind nudges the dust in all corners. Gardens are also at risk, because the wind can be strong enough to destroy flowers and shrubs. 

And don’t even think about going to the hairdresser. There isn’t enough hairspray in the world to withstand the lashing that the wind will deal to your hair.

The strong wind also makes for the most beautiful views when the waves crash harder and higher on the rocks that form our northern shore.  The sky is a breathtaking blue. The dunes look as if they have had a facelift.

Yes, a lot of wind can be annoying sometimes, I don’t deny that. But when you’re safely tucked in your bed, it sounds as if the wind is singing you to sleep.

And there aren’t many sounds that can top that.

memories

My auntie Em came over for a visit this evening. Somehow the conversation becomes about my mother's and my aunt's childhood.

Auntie Em: "We never went out to dinner as a family either. We would always celebrate milestones at home, with meals cooked either by Viola [their housekeeper] or one of our aunts would come over and bring something to eat. There was none of this 'we aren't expecting any visitors this year nonsense' either that is so popular nowadays. If there was a birthday, or a baptism, or a graduation, people would visit."

Me: "But surely Viola was on vacation at times, or too busy to prepare a meal. What would the family do then?"

Auntie Em: "Then, if there nobody  else was in the mood to cook, we'd go over to one of our aunts' for dinner or to a cousin's house. Also, sometimes, what would happen is that . . . " 

My mother: " . . .  Mai [my grandmother, their mother] would get what was considered 'take-away food' then. She would go to the Eagle Club with a 'porte-viande"

Me: "A what?!"

My mother: A porte-viande. It's some sort of multi level aluminium pan that she take with her to the club and the cook there would fill it up with meat, rice and beans.

Auntie Em: "That's right, I still have it"

Me: "Mai went with a pan to the Club?"

My mother: With what else was she supposed to go with? In those days there was no styrofoam"

Me (sheepishly): "Oh, yeah."

Pictured is my grandmother, Mai, at what I hope is a costume party. 

the price of progressives

When it comes to matters of service, I can be a bit of a pest. I'm the type who walks into doctor's offices armed with my own diagnosis, which I then pit against the doctor's to see which makes more sense. Of course I'm exaggerating, but I am the sort of person who usually demands explanations for things and is assiduous about making complaints. A couple of weeks ago, however, I lapsed: I let an optometrist con me into getting progressives (also known as "no-line bifocals").

I wear glasses to read and to work at the computer. I do not need to wear glasses at any other time (even eye specialists agree with me on this). While my eyes certainly feel less strained when I'm wearing my reading glasses, I haven't yet reached the stage where they're absolutely essential. (I'm not wearing glasses now, for instance -- though that's because I'm too lazy to look for them. Where are the damn things anyway?)

As I see it, progressives are for people who need to be wearing glasses more often than not. So why did my optical people attempt to foist them on me? The argument they give is that you'll eventually have to wear them, so the sooner you start, the better. In that case, why don't I just invest in a walker and start using it right now? Or pull out a few of my perfectly good teeth and get some bridgework, since I may eventually have to deal with that as well. Hell, I'm going to go out right now and invest in some adult diapers.

What they also don't tell you is that progressive lenses cost several times the price of conventional ones (and I know it's my own damn fault for playing against type and not asking about this).

The more important point of the story is that I couldn't even see in the damn things. The area of the lens designed for reading -- the area I'll be using most often -- was about a millimetre wide, and I had to keep my neck locked at a particular angle in order to see anything clearly. Within a week I'd have been wearing a neck brace. So last week I marched back to the optical place and demanded that the progressives be replaced with conventional lenses. They ran through all the arguments again, but I stood my ground, and tomorrow I'll be collecting a pair of proper reading glasses.

While I've never met anybody who actually likes them, I suppose that progressives are right for some people. And perhaps one day I will need them, in which case I'll gladly go through the required period of adjustment. My particular problem, however, was an easy one to solve, and didn't involve invasive surgery or loss of a major organ. You hear all the time about women who have hysterectomies that they learn afterwards they didn't need, or C-section deliveries because their ob-gyn preferred to do things on his/her schedule, not the patient's. The lucky ones among us have people in our lives who look out for our best interests; but in many cases this person is likely to be you yourself.

listen

One of my favourite things about waking up every morning is hearing the loud chorus of birds outside my window. I always wonder what makes them burst into song at what feels like an exact moment. I seem to remember being told it has something to do with the earth's electro-magnetic fields ... the same thing that inspires parakeets to streak across the sky in screaming pairs at sunset. On a few occasions in recent times I've noticed pairs of parakeets screaming their way over the house around midday. It seemed abnormal, but with the way things are going with the Earth these days, it's no real surprise. The Earth is confused: certain plants flowering at odd times of year, dry season coming like rainy season, egrets walking about downtown and crossing the street in peak traffic instead of just riding on cow's backs and eating ticks and worms in the fields as they normally do. But, amidst all the changes, there are still happy constants: like the birds that keep singing. They're singing now at 10:51 a.m. ... an eternal song that's easy to lose and take for granted ... unless you take the time to stop and listen ... or until you go to larger country and realise 'something' is missing (then return home and realise it was the keskidees et al). Tune out from the 'machines' in our lives (televisions, computers, telephones, radios, cars) and tune into the birds. One could ask: "If they had words, I wonder what they would be saying?" But why wish them words? Perhaps the messages they bring through their warbling is far deeper than our intellectual minds could ever comprehend.