This morning I met a woman I'd never met before for coffee. (For the purposes of this story, let's call this woman "Clementine," which isn't her real name, or even close, but didn't you just love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?). Clementine and I share a mutual friend in Houston, who suggested that Clementine contact me while visiting Trinidad to determine the country's "livability." Always happy to help a friend of a friend (and talk about Trinidad), I obliged.
It's always very interesting for me to talk to Americans about Trinidad, because I find myself feeling rather schizophrenic. On one hand, I spent the majority of my life in America, and in many ways, I understand what Americans value about their home country. On the other hand, even given my extended time away from Trinidad, I feel more Trini than American, and so I find myself "selling" Trinidad whenever I speak to non-Trinis. So even though I talked about the crime situation here (because, let's face it, Clementine was asking about residing in Trinidad, and unfortunately, you can't talk about life here without including some mention of crime), I ended up spending a majority of the time talking about the lovely people! Beautiful scenery! Amazing music! Vibrant art! The Soca Warriors, for heaven's sake! Then, afraid that perhaps my Trini bias was colouring my description to her a little too much, guilt moved me to suggest she talk to my friend Joanna, who recently moved here with her family, to get a truer version of what it's like to move here from another country. Hopefully, between the two of us, Clementine will get a somewhat accurate picture of what life in Trinidad is like.
The other thing that I noticed myself doing (which I know I do all the time), is while I was speaking to Clementine, my American accent came on strong. Having spent so much of my life in America, I can do an American accent without even thinking about it. And its tone? Completely nondescript. It's like Newscaster American -- there's no mistaking its origins in the United States, but you'd be hard-pressed to assign a particular state or region to it. It is, come to think of it, like Clementine's (and by "Clementine," I mean Kate Winslet's American accent from Eternal Sunshine, not the woman I met today, whose accent is clearly from the northeastern part of the United States). And yet, when I needed to speak to the waitstaff at the restaurant where we were having coffee, I slipped right into Trini. It's like being bilingual, without ever changing languages. At this point, I don't even know WHAT my natural accent is anymore.
So pity my poor daughter, Alex, who, God help her, is surrounded by dozens of people speaking dozens of different ways to her. Her father has a distinctly Cornish accent, and I slip back and forth between Newscaster American and St. Joseph's Convent-girl Trini (there is, apparently, a special way girls who attended St. Joseph's Convent high school, as I did, speak, as compared to the rest of Trinidad). Celeste speaks to Alex in a rank Trinidadian accent. My parents speak to her in unspoiled Trini. Her schoolteacher is from Holland, though married to a Trini; and so she speaks to Alex with a Trinidadian accent slightly tinged with Dutch. All of Alex's friends at school are from both Trinidad and the rest of the world, but her best friend, Charlie, speaks with an Australian accent (though Charlie's grandmother, who Alex sees often enough, speaks to her with a Polish accent). Recently, anyone who meets Alex invariably asks me, "What is her accent?" My usual response: "Hell if I know."
Still, in a way, there's a part of me that is pretty proud of the fact that Alex is exposed to so many cultures in her day-to-day life -- I suspect very few children her age have such an international community at their disposal. But I can't help but also wonder to which country Alex will feel most of an affinity -- will she feel more English? Trini? American? Wherever we may end up moving next? I suppose time (and her accent) will tell.
In the meantime, Clementine (the woman I met today, not Kate Winslet), I hope I gave you the kind of information you were looking for. If the information seemed a bit random and disjointed, you now know why.
(This post also published at Chookooloonks.)
This past weekend, my husband, daughter and I went to the north coast of Trinidad to witness the nesting of the giant leatherback turtles. There's something about going out onto the beach at nightfall with one of the local guides, and watching the dark, lumbering shadows make their way out of the water, find the perfect spot, and each laying 80 - 100 eggs, before making their way back to the deep. 
Yesterday evening, my husband, daughter and I decided to take an early evening walk around and through the golf course near our home. As we walked among the poui trees, while the sun began to set behind the hills, and the tree frogs began singing their nocturnal songs, I was reminded...
Over the last few days, I tagged along with a girlfriend of mine to Miami to do some shopping (you can get just about everything here in Trinidad -- nonetheless, sometimes a girl just needs a Target). On Saturday, just as our plane was about to roll away from the gangway on its way back to Trinidad, the pilot of our aircraft suddenly came over the intercom:
While I'm from Trinidad, and now live in the Trinidad I spent the majority of my life in the United States. When I speak, my accent sounds a bit of a hybrid of American and Trini. To complicate matters, my husband is English. So save for the occasional meal that I cook, or music that we listen to, our home is not a particularly Trini home.
When I was a teenager, for about two years I lived with my grandmother. My grandmother is one of those distinguished West Indian women who believed everything had to be just so. Everything had its place. Things were done because that's just how it was done. She was the type of person who would actually iron and starch her sheets. And while she was a warm, lovely person to live with, I knew that I had to mind myself.
As is common in Trinidad, I was raised Catholic, by my good Catholic mother. I went to a good Catholic school. I attended good Catholic mass.
This past weekend, my family and I decided to spend the Easter holiday in St. Lucia. We had an amazing time -- partly because we went with some great friends, but partly because my husband, Marcus, and I were able to go diving for the first time in three years.
"We are too quick to put labels on things. It is my profession. I get up and paint. Everyone wants to put a label on it, but I am a free spirit, so I fight against that."
This is a photograph of my grandmother. In two months, she'll be 100 years old. While her body is frail, her mind is as sharp as a whip, and she continues to bestow small nuggets of wisdom on the generations who follow hers with a relevancy and an incisiveness that is breathtaking.