I awakened as the plane touched down in Port-of-Spain. I should have been excited at the prospect of a first trip to Trinidad & Tobago, but more than anything I was cautious. My work takes me to a number of countries each year. Sometimes that means disappointment a few times each year.

Too often I’ve arrived with the image of pristine beaches in my head, only to stare open mouthed at the cooling tower of the nuclear power plant on the horizon.  So I no longer read travel brochures or allow myself to be seduced by their strategic photography.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t know anything about this country of two islands before arriving. That’s not my style. For me it’s important to be as inconspicuous as possible as I move across the world. From my studies I thought it shouldn’t be so hard in Trinidad & Tobago. After all, my brown skin and generic features would be run-of-the-mill among a population of African, East Indian and Middle Eastern descent.

My first memory in Trinidad is of standing under the overhang at the sparkling white international airport watching sheets of tropical rain pour across my field of vision. I was strangely comfortable just standing there, in no hurry what-so-ever to get to my hotel.

I pretended not to hear the taxi driver who kept asking if I needed a lift. It was a perfect moment at the beginning of this adventure and I allowed it to elongate on the humid breath of this summer monsoon.

When the shower stopped, as if someone turned off a giant spigot, the air was briefly washed clean of its oppressive humidity and everywhere there was a charged freshness. I could almost hear the push of growing things out of the earth, rampantly lush and abundant. Massive palm leaves hung slick-shiny and water proof as rubber in the gathering dusk. I wondered, as I had in so many other places, if the light was quite like this anywhere else.

I finally arrived at my hotel; an annoyingly clever monstrosity designed so that you checked in at the top and took the elevators down to your floor. My room’s balcony was instantly its best feature and I caught the last of a bronze sunset retreating across Queen’s Park Savannah.

The next morning I looked out at that expanse of green (260 acres) and saw games of football (soccer) and cricket being waged with a life-or-death intensity. The participants didn’t seem to notice the heat, which I felt even at this height. When I looked straight down (90 ft / 27 meters) from my balcony I noticed rippling patches of air. It was only 9 A.M! What would it be like later in the day?

I learned the Savannah is Port-of-Spain’s largest green space and in many respects the heart of the city. People come here to jog, play cricket, walk their dogs, meet up with friends. At almost any time it is full of couples and families enjoying this sea of green under a sky that is mostly blue.

Along the Savannah’s western edge men who’ve spent their lives in the sun sell coconuts, roasted corn, oysters, and something called Bake and Shark. This is a dough pocket friend golden brown and filled with shark nuggets. Served with a little pepper  or shadon beni sauce it is not to be missed.

One of the Savannah’s best features is the Magnificent Seven, a line of century-old colonial houses: Queen’s Royal College, Hayes Court, Mille Fleurs, Roomor, the Roman Catholic Archbishop’s House, Whitehall and Stollmeyer’s Castle.

Before I left the Savannah I had to try a round of "doubles”; curried chick peas on fried flat bread and roti stuffed with curried chicken or potato or goat chased with Mauby ginger beer.

But I was here to work, after all, so I dutifully attended round after round of discussions between university librarians about intellectual property and the digital divide in the Caribbean. What a stunner!

After four days of this I was faced with two choices; ruin my sanity for good or make a break for it. I found myself diving into a taxi as if I had just robbed a bank and I was off to downtown.

I should say at this point that downtown Port-of-Spain is not for the faint of heart. Seen from the surrounding mountains the city looks like a ragged carpet, its three sides gathered toward three sentinel towers that is about all there is of a central business district. The sea shines beyond and from this distance it’s easy to allow oneself the romanticism that is never far off in a place like this.

When the taxi left me on a bustling downtown street there was no romanticism to be seen or heard. There are people and more people everywhere, a crush. And music. The air is full of the music of people talking in that lilting way they all take for granted. Soca and Chutney pours from storefronts and shops. Representing Indian and African cultural elements, the two most significant in Trinidad, Soca and Chutney are music forms enjoyed by everyone.

Indeed you notice the multicultural aspect of Trinidad everywhere you look. Besides the dominant African and East Indian cultural components there is strong influence from the British, along with Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Syrian and Lebanese influences. So it is that in downtown Port-of-Spain the exotic becomes ordinary, submerged in the push to make a dollar.

There is something seedy about this town, a patina of tropical rot that covers everything. There are no new buildings downtown, and no construction of any type going on. Instead imagine ancient wooden buildings slowly rotting in this steaming heat. The people, beautiful and elegant, pace themselves, having resisted that same rot.

I wander into ’Jimmy Aboud the Textile King’ at the corner of Queen and Henry streets in downtown Port-of-Spain. At the beginning of this piece I said I’d done my homework on Trinidad & Tobago. When I read there was such a strong Indo-Trinidadian flavor I thought SARI SILK! 

Jimmy Aboud is the place. I ignored the looks the hotel staff gave me when I asked where to buy fabric, especially silk. Finally one of the cleaning staff told me about Jimmy Aboud and now I was here!

You’ll need a moment of preparation before you go in. It looks as if someone backed a dump truck through the front of the place and spilled tons of brilliantly colored silk. But first they painted everything lime green and fuschia. Come to think of it, looks like a giant flamingo lost its lunch in there! 

Suja came to help me. She wore a brilliant smile and a green dress so tight it had to have been sprayed on. Bits of her lunch still clung to her front and there was the sweet smell of curry about her. I knew we would get along right from the start.

Suja is Indo-Guyanese, born in that country and raised in Trinidad. She is a Caribbean girl through and through, but still grinds Masala and wraps a Sari during Diwali as her great-great-great grandmother did. She also has quite a respectable knowledge of Indian silks.

I soon learned you don’t converse with Suja, not really. You ask a carefully composed question and stand back! Like many Trinidadians Suja’s normal speaking voice is what we call FULL VOLUME back home.

Jimmy Aboud seemed to go on and on (like Suja) as I was led through aisles piled head high with Kanchipouram, Benares, Thanchoi and Bandhni silks. Suja told me about the different weaves available, the patterns and types. She also made my day by telling me the exchange rate (one U.S. dollar = 6.25 Trinidad & Tobago dollars / one Euro = 8.04 Trinidad & Tobago dollars).

I asked Suja what sort of woman Indo-Trinidadians like to see in a sari. About this time I lost most of the hearing in my left ear, but what I remember is something about “Trini-Man don’ wan no bone in a dress!”

When I walked out of there I had $400.00 in deep indigo Indian silk, a killer headache and, I think, a friend for life.

Dougla

Express history lesson: The African slave trade was abolished in 1807 in this part of the world and slavery itself legally done away with in 1833. From about this time until 1917 the labor gap was filled with indentured servants. Initially they were Free West Africans, Chinese and Portuguese from Madeira. Then “Indentureds” began to arrive by the thousands from all over the Indian subcontinent. The Indian community continued to grow until this ethnic group comprises about half the population today.

The transplanted Indian cultures, ranging from Kashmiri to Gujarat to Tamil, preserved many of the traditions and languages that reminded them of who they are. But successive generations, born with roots firmly planted and nourished in the Caribbean, were something different.

The rigidity of caste slowly dropped away. A new language, technically a creole, replaced the languages of India as mother tongue to these children. The sun, sea and circumstance of the post colonial Caribbean stamped them indelibly as Trinidadian.

All things being equal, and all people being Human, racial admixture was inevitable. Both Africans and Indians resisted, the latter group dubbing the children of these unions the politically incorrect and even vulgar "Dougla”-bastard.

Today most people, on and off-island, don’t know the origin of this word and use it to describe a person of mixed ancestry, particularly East Indian and African. But its story is one of pain and mistrust that persists in this paradise even today.

To be Dougla is no longer controversial. And because of what is called “Douglasation” by some, there is no “typical” Trinidadian look. Today no ethnic group dominates numerically and English is the official language, but tensions persist. Calypso and Pan Music is a product of mostly African influences, while Chutney, an Indo-Trinidadian art form, is equally popular.  Some see a struggle for cultural supremacy, while others I talked to laud the mixture itself, putting their hope for peaceful co-existence in it.

The Sweet Taste of Lime

“Liming” has been described as the art of doing nothing and to the untrained eye a group of local folk hanging out would seem just that. Some expect too that liming would be popular among the lazy and the unemployed. Think again, liming is a Trinidad institution and, if you know what to look for, can tell you a lot about the people of this tropical island.

If you are in Trinidad on business or on vacation you will be treated with hospitality and a touch of formality that feels distinctly British. But if you can, find a way to go liming, or as the locals say ‘limin’.

So how does one lime? Firstly liming is a pluralistic activity. You can’t lime alone!  A typical lime begins when two or more neighbors, colleagues, relatives or friends meet more or less by chance. Could be anywhere, at a bus stop, outside somebody's home, or in the rumshop.

A place conducive to physical relaxation is essential. No sitting up straight is allowed. Conversation with no time limits requires all parties understand time is irrelevant here. And if others happen upon this lime? They are welcome to join in.   

Food and drink is shared, tall stories and jokes exchanged, often at the expense of participants. It’s a good lime if there is money for drinks and food (it doesn’t matter whose), and nobody is seriously offended by the jokes.  Music, poker, pool, and dominoes occur simultaneously.

An even better lime: someone shows up with a car and invites everybody to come lime on the beach or bet on a cockfight.

A bad lime? A bad lime: boring, sluggish conversation, no spark and finally you’ll hear "Leh we split dis scene man, dis lime doh have no juice." Any lime declared juiceless dies a swift and unceremonious death.

It is understood that you don’t actually leave a lime while it’s going on. The activity has no explicit purpose beyond itself.  There are places where liming would be considered shameful and slightly immoral. In Trinidad though it is a form of performing art; verbal improvisation, ingenuity and straightforward aimlessness. Oh, and all limers are equal.

With high unemployment there are many men of all ages who preserve the art of liming throughout the day. But it is not only the unemployed who lime. Taxi drivers, journalists, clerks and other white-collar workers, university lecturers, municipal workers, shopkeepers all lime, just on a different schedule!

At respectable rumshops, pool halls, and in restaurants there is a furious lot of liming going on. No matter what outsiders may think of this social institution, it is forms a network and social support understood by all Trinidadians.

A great deal is communicated about the social identity of an individual through his liming habits. People who lime together tend to belong to the same age group, to the same rank category with regards to occupation, and the same ethnic group. Usually, they live in the same neighborhood, and finally, liming is largely a male activity.

A last word on liming: avoid the Badjohn at all costs. Violent crime has been on the rise on Trinidad & Tobago, another result of the high unemployment. Giving a bad name to all the good people of Trinidad & Tobago, thug types (called Badjohns) are more than happy to relieve tourists of their money and more.

So keep your wits about you, leave jewelry (watch, rings, all of it!) at the hotel. Chat up the hotel staff: They are excellent ambassadors for this beautiful country. Listen to them when they tell you what places to avoid.

It’s really not so complicated; Trinidad & Tobago is a rich tapestry of blended humanity. But like the place where you and I live there is baggage and history, not all of it pleasant. In Trinidad & Tobago there is poverty. And this, as much as the yearly exertions of Carnival, soaks through and contributes to who the locals are.  Add to this that like many ‘exotic’ people, the accommodation they have come to with their unique essence is an uneasy one.

I’ve tried to convey a sense that for all the incredible beauty of the place, the people, this is not a paradise. There is an uneasy feeling that things are not as the locals would like them to be.

Still, we are to be forgiven if we still stupefied by the caress of the Trinidadian sun and the whisper of the water. Strange. It seems Patchouli and lime wouldn’t go together. But somehow it does.