thepancollective

schizophrenia

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.)

the turtles of grand riviere

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. 

It makes you feel small.  Tiny.  But important.  And part of something so huge as to defy comprehension.

At dawn the following morning, we awoke and made our way back to the beach to see the last of the evening's turtles returning to the sea.  And lest my husband and I think that we were the only ones who understood the significance of what we'd witnessed, as we watched one of the turtles make her way into the waves, our little daughter, Alex, suddenly waved her two-year-old arms and cried out:

"BYE-BYE, MUMMY TURTLE!"

(This post is also cross-published at BlogHer.)

my granny the ancestor

It's been three years since my maternal grandmother Ida became an ancestor.
I wasn't here when she took her last breath, I went back to London three days before.  Two months before that I was travelling China when I had a series of dreams about her.  In one dream she was taking me around the family yard, telling me about things that needed to cleaned up.  In another dream my sister was showing me where she was buried.  Then I received an email from my mother saying I needed to get home soon, they didn't know how long she would be around.  I left Beijing on a Sunday, spent two days in London and was in Trinidad by the Wednesday. 
It was a worst case jet lag scenario.  But granny was in good form still. I spent two months in Trinidad, watching her slip away.  My mother and sisters, too traumatised by seeing the light going out of her eyes, left it to me.  I slept on the floor of her room, force fed her porridge, toyed with how much morphine to give her. Too little and she could spend the whole night in pain.  Too much and she spent two days tripping.  In her lucid moments she was her usual funny self.  Her favourite pearl of wisdom in those days was 'don't let anybody wash your panty'.  I think she knew she was ready to die when she was no longer able to wash her own.
To her that was the epitome of independence. As a woman, as a human.  To take control of your life.   She knew about that.  Her mother died when she was 14.  She had to forego school to take care of younger siblings. The boys got the education then.  She worked as a domestic to put her children through school. She was fired by her rich employers when my mother won an exhibition scholarship to one of the island's top high schools.  She was unfailingly committed to her children and to us. Perhaps to a fault.  Her joy was us and I always wonder if she had lived in another time, in another reality what wonderful things she would have been able to achieve.
She was out of it the last few days before I left. On the morning I was heading to the airport, I put my head in her lap and cried a long time.  Sensing she wouldn't see me again, she found her voice and put her hands on my head and gave one of her epic prayers.  She never spoke again after that and went in her sleep a couple days later.
So last night, on the anniversary of her passing, we held a traditional Ifa ancestral ceremony. 
Ifa has survived and thrived in spite of all past and continuing efforts to destroy it in the New World. 
In her life, my grandmother was 'poto l'eglise' - a devout Catholic, but never let any of us leave the country, do an exam with out giving us a 'bush bath'.  She used herbs to heal us, recognising plants even after glaucoma undermined her eyesight.
My mother was quite surprised that she didn't request a mass.  But as the Iya explained last night, something happens when they make the crossing.  They reconnect with what was lost.
We sang for her. Cooked her favourite foods.  Cried a bit and missed her dry humour terribly.  And in the end the Iya cast the obi.  The offering is accepted. 
Ase Ase Ase.

my mother's garden

My mother has a little house, but a big garden. It is filled with flowers of all sorts of colors, some in pots, others planted in the earth. We do not identify our house with the number anymore, but with “the house that has all the kelki geels (butter cups) hanging outside”. There are that many of them. Of course, such a garden requires a lot of trimming and pruning and shearing. I am convinced that the local garden supply stores would be lost without us.

My mother hates change. Because of this characteristic it was a tough decision for her to divorce my father and create a new life for her. The first appartment she went to didn’t have a garden at all. The second appartment that she  rented did have a garden, but she wasn’t allowed to make drastic changes to the garden.

She also struggled a lot with the decision of selling the property land that had been in her family for generations in order to finance the purchase of a new home. After assuring her that I did not expect her to stay in an appartment in order for me to inherit these properties, she decided that she was going to sell her land and buy a house.

She did buy a house, one that she could afford, but the garden was growing close to be a jungle. Faced with this, my mother took charge. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t debate with herself, she inmediately knew what she wanted and how she wanted it. She organized the clean up of the garden, chose the flowers, decided on their placement and colors.

It was the first time that I had seen my mother so decided, and it gave me another reason to be extraordinarily proud to be her daughter.

This garden gave my mother the knowledge that she could make it on her own.

the trini-ness of it all

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.

My grandmother, like many women of her generation, believed that when company was over, you pulled out your best linens for the table; however, if it was just family or close friends you used handwoven placemats.  I don't know where she got these placemats, but it she always had them, and all her friends had the same ones.  I used to love them -- stare at the intricate work, and admire their sturdiness.

As an adult, I'm not as proper as my grandmother (much to her chagrin, I'm sure).  I use placements for everyone.  I don't have fancy bone china.  But recently, when I was in St. Lucia, I went to an open air market -- and there, right in front of me, were placements exactly like my grandmother's.  I bought 8 on the spot.

So now, every night, my family eats off of these woven placemats.  And I'm sure my grandmother is well pleased.

the end is the beginning

To begin  or not to begin.

There is no question. 

for the babies

Although I set out a black outfit, I didn't manage to leave the house yesterday.

A combination of too much work and also, I guess a bit of fear. I was terrified that Trinis wouldn't have heeded the call to wear black. That people would have dismissed the call and gone on with life as usual.  That I would go out and be more angry and upset about this Sean Luke thing.

So I stayed home, watching BBC, watching dead Palestinian children.  It's easier that way.  To think that the death isn't happening in your back yard.  To think that such barbarism won't ever touch your home.   But it does and it has and it will continue to do so, because we still don't know the value of our children.

In the evening, my niece and nephews came over.  Loud and energetic, climbing all over me, making me exasperated and happy and tired and hoarse all at the same time.  I can't imagine someone wanting to destroy such light.  We watch some cartoons and after a much arguing and bribing with promises of snacks, I switch to the news.  The newsreader is wearing black.  Sean Luke's picture comes up on screen.  The nephews watch and we share a rare moment of stillness and silence.

"Everybody talking about Sean Luke." Shomari says, I guess to let me know that they know but that they too can't make sense of it.   The moment passes.  I switch back to cartoons and the boys sigh with relief.  They go back to being their sweet, loud, funny, innocent selves again.  But I still feel powerless to protect them against the real monsters that live, not under beds or in a far off place with Anansi.

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 more things change, the more they stay the same

I grew up in a small fishing village in the south of the island of Trinidad, known as Mayaro.  When I lived there, in the mid 70's, Mayaro was a sleepy town with daily power outages, water shortages, and for a time, no telephones -- my father and his oil-company colleagues would use CB radios to communicate with each other (a privilege my friends and I took advantage of if given permission).  Nonetheless, it was a really wonderful place to grow up -- it was safe, and quiet, and every family knew every other family, so we kids could roam the area freely, and our parents knew that their friends were all keeping a watchful eye.  And the fact that the beach and its unlimited entertainment was only a few minutes' walk away made our childlike lives as pretty close to perfect as you can get.

After 23+ years away, I returned to Trinidad with my English husband and young American daughter a year ago, and as you might expect, Trinidad has changed quite a bit since my childhood:  Mayaro now has a supermarket!  And a KFC fast food restaurant!  And while we live in a wonderful neighbourhood near the country's capital, my daughter's experience here doesn't really compare to my childhood...

... except for a couple of weeks ago, when we took the ferry over to Tobago, for a little weekend getaway.  There, away from the hustle and bustle of Port-of-Spain, spending lazy days on the beach watching my daughter Alex paddle in the waves, I couldn't help but remember my own childhood with its lazy and wave-paddling days.  It's wonderful that my daughter can experience the same carefree childhood I had -- and only a 15-minute flight away.