I am writing Kamla Persad-Bissesar's concession speech

I am writing Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s concession speech for her to give after the recount. 

Dear people of Trinidad and Tobago and my dear suppor- porters. Pardon this little stutter, although it is not as bad as Joe Biden’s, you know the thing. In 2010, the UNC was one of several parties which came together in the coalition People’s Partnership to win the elections and form the government. I quickly forgot that it was a coalition that won the elections and sadly and regrettably I behaved as if it was the UNC. All the forces in the country opposed to Patrick Manning, may God rest his not so gentle soul, were party to the Fyzabad Accord. People say that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, or something like that (looks to the left and grimaces). I never had absolute power. If I did I would have kept Anand Ramlogan throughout that administration and I would not have had to appoint Garvin Nicholas as Attorney General. Garvin has his good points, but producing a clone named Phillip E Alexander is not one of them. After Anand departed, I felt we should have a passably good looking AG and Garvin fit that bill. It looks like it will be a long time before someone as pleasing to look at will fill that position again. 

I am writing Kamla Persad Bissessar's concession speech 2. 

Anyway, let us get back to the matter at hand. While we were preparing for these most recent elections, I wrote a little history of myself detailing the struggles and hardships I endured as a member of the UNC. I said that I contested the Siparia seat in 1995 and became the first female to be appointed as Attorney General in this country. It will forever gall the present AG that he cannot lay claim to that achievement. I called out the leadership of the UNC for unceremoniously removing me to put Ramesh Maharaj in that position. It was only after publishing, that someone reminded me that I was holding on to the post, not as they do in pole dancing eh, until Ramesh cleared his desk at his private law practice. It was a toss up who was the better candidate for AG as I was adept at handling traffic cases and he touted himself as a human rights advocate. I use the word ‘tout’ advisedly. If we are to focus on tangibles, you would know who was better suited to the job. Anyway if I offended him, that accounted for no loss of votes. I must check to see if his and Lynette’s names were crossed off on the polling list returned by our clerks. I need to confirm if they voted for the forty third descendant of the prophet, the guy who also building up his own lineage of “for profit”. The people put me to sit at a desk in a corner and I had to take my own cushion from home so I could make myself as comfortable as possible while I dreamt of the day I could be prime minister. At the time the word ‘misogynistic’ was not popular because Hillary Clinton… let us not worry about people who only come close to power through their spouses. If I ever needed to be propped up by a spouse, I would have taken Dr. Bissessar to that little desk in the corner. People said I should not have called Ganga Singh, John Humphrey, Joe Theodore and Ralph Maraj misogynistic. Maybe Trevor Sudama, yes. Trevor showed a lack of respect for women doing house work when he called his appointment to the Agriculture Ministry as “Minister of Pumpkin and Bhaji”. What he wanted to be, Minister of Phoowa and Bhouji? I am just practising my Bhojpuri for when Clarence and Marlene cross the floor. What you say, Clarence lose, (looking right and rightly confused) he lose again? Well I don’t want him then. 

I am writing Kamla Persad Bissessar's concession speech 3. I am using her full name in case the auto correct puts Kamala. 

"Somebody told me I shouId have asked Clarence to cross the floor in the last administration, but you could just imagine Camille pleading, “No Clarencedass no, no, no! No Clarencedass, noooo!”. I had to remind them that Clarence was a senator. I just want to say a little more about the misogyny before we move on. In case people think that I discriminated against colleagues on the basis of gender, I want to say that the first person I demoted was Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan who won a seat none of us would have even attempted. I moved her from the Ministry of Energy to bring in Kevin Ramnarine. I reiterate that it is better to have a man around who bows under pressure than a woman who gets in one’s way. In my first draft of this speech, I didn’t have that word around, but I decided to include it for clarity. You all saw Kevin on the tv on election night, he doesn’t have a clue what is going on but is an expert just because of me. It was almost as if he drew a ‘blank’. I love that word ‘blank’. They really should not have put him on that stool to sit. The imagery! Then I moved Mary King and Verna. I had a little fear that Bhoe would have stood up for them, but he stayed quiet on Mary, his colleague from Tapia House and he too drew a ‘blank’ on Verna. I have full confidence in Bhoe knowing that when you put two slices of bread together, the butter goes inside, not on the outside and he also knows where the butter is stored. I held on to Anand and Jack and Anil until I didn’t have an excuse anymore. People say I shouldn’t have brought back Anil in this campaign, but I felt that since the prophet great great grandson legalise the pot, a man with a hookah might not be a bad thing. To tell you the truth I was glad last time that no calypsonian write any lyrics saying “Roll it, roll it!” 

I am writing Kamla Persad Bissessar's concession speech 4. 

As to these elections, I have this to say. The party now has 18 seats categorised as safe and fairly safe, about the same now when there are 41 seats as when there were 36. I am aware that citizens who are yet to decide on who they will be voting for, look at the people who will form the main cadre in the parliament. I myself, I am not a strategist. Let me digress one last time to give you a rundown on why my advisors have failed me. I now regret that in my election profile I did not deal with an important aspect of my involvement in politics. I began as a member of the Organisation for National Construction… come on who sabotaged my print outs… Reconstruction. My guru was Suruj Rambachan who ran against Trevor Sudama in 1981. It was my own feeling that Trevor who seemed laid back, I have to stop using these terms yes, could never defeat an energetic and high profile member of a well-known family in that part of the country. I became a member of the NAR when the party contested the 1986 general elections and the following year I was made an alderwoman and chairperson of St. Patrick County Council. Had I known that the county extended all down to Icacos, I would never have accepted that post, except that I viewed it as a stepping stone to leadership. I could barely make it to the statutory meeting, much less to Columbus Beach. When the NAR broke up I breathed a sigh of relief. I was glad some people had gone so there would be room for me at a higher level. I was selected to contest the Siparia seat in 1991. My huge defeat in that election showed me that the days of the NAR were numbered but Ganga Singh and I still hung around until we took the plunge into the UNC and were rewarded with seats in the 1995 General Election. Outside of the natural coming together of people in 2010, I have no idea how I would have got Vincent Lasse and the late Rupert Griffith to cross the floor. When I think back on it, this guy Dr. Griffith took so many risks, faced opprobrium from PNM supporters and I didn’t think twice about firing him when I had to show the public and the press that I was doing the shuffle, or ska or whatever. 

I am writing Kamla Persad Bissessar's concession speech 5 .

"People say I am doing too much talking, but I want to remind them how long Cynthia Nixon talk when she lost the NY governor race to Cuomo and nobody complained. To cut a long story short, the UNC is now run by the NAR guys who put me as the figurehead to secure the UNC base. The term people like to use is “hijacked” but we don’t have no terrorists here. Let me put it as clearly as I can, There are guys around like Suruj who have no political base. They grouped together to give me leadership of the party because of my stance on the eve of the 2007 elections. It took money to remove Panday and Jack was the facilitator. Even Ramesh Maharaj opposed Panday on my behalf and walked away without asking for anything. I still exercised my right to call him misogynistic. Well, enough people say there might be some truth in that, but I don’t want to go to court. I will have to represent myself and Panday always say that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. I saw Robert Mayers on the tv elections night hoping we would win. It would have been a dream come true for him… 32 years of waiting but I will talk about that another time. In these elections I tried to change some things. People still asking how many cabinet posts I expected to have. Was I going to put Vandana Mohit, Anita Haynes, Khadija Ameen in the same ministry? People never ask that about Stacy Rooparinesingh. Gary Griffith was one of my advisors and he never asked either. Was I going to put Ravi Ratiram, Dinesh Rambally, Arnold Ram and Saddam Hosein in Legal Affairs like Rowley did with the propheteer and Stewie? So it was OK for them to have young blood and hot blood but it not OK for we? By the way, Darryl Smith didn’t contest again, did he? If I have to do it over, I would remove Barry Padarath from Princes Town and put Sean Sobers, let Barry run in Dade County if he want. I would give the San Fernando seat to somebody who could take some of the Presbyterian and Muslim vote, not like how we put Raziah last minute in 2015, eh. We already give Deyalsingh a 25-year lease on the St. Joseph seat. But I tell you, the amount of money we spend in the north east, we could ah buy the refinery with it. Joe Toney couldn’t even get a good candidate for Toco. Is like he still doh know who his leader is. But to tell the truth, I like the young lady who contest there eh, rolling in money and all that. More… just one more.

I am writing Kamla Persad Bissessar’s concession speech 6 

Pronouns: She/her “I should not have considered Ahloy Hunt for St. Joseph the way his sister was involved in a Black Lives Matter controversy just before the election. We live in a time when information gets around quickly and stays around. Moreover Anil had launched vicious attacks on Hunt’s brother, changing Gary’s first name, no no, not that Gary who has changed his first name to Commissioner… Anil had changed Hunt’s first name into Isaac. People are not likely to forget that. I should have ensured that all the big jefes who were in the NAR with me do some work during the elections. Instead of walking around with Arnold Ram, Bhoe should have been in St. Joseph giving Deyalsingh thunder and helping Nakhid kick hell instead of soft ball in Tunapuna. Everybody wants to work in a sure seat. You would think Suruj would have gone to San Fernando West, but I can only guess that he ‘fraid Faris. Suruj was talking for Moonilal, telling people that Moonilal should be the next leader and he scared away people. He is still using all the tactics of 1981, like we didn’t learn anything. Truth is, we didn’t. Look at Devant Maharaj, I only made him a Senator because Sat Maharaj begged for him, he couldn’t ask for himself. Imagine he playing big and the best he could have done before was lose as a COP to “come and go” MP Kelvin Ramnath, but one really should not speak ill of the dead. I would have put back some of them in the senate and the Cabinet like how I make Ramadharsingh chairman of a regional corporation. Sometimes God works in mysterious ways. For the next five years, every day will be Groundhog Day. Having said all this, there is now no need to say that we lost the elections or to say who won. I thank Lord Krishna for all the blessings he has showered on me and I move on… with or without Mickela.

North by Northwest

 by Zorina Shah

#RoadTrip4 with Claire Watson and Allison Wong Wai.

Our road trip changed direction from extended coastlines of the SE, SW and NE to a shorter stretch, that of the North Western Peninsula from Port of Spain to Chaguaramas. 

The final stop was at the security post where the soldier told the Coast Guard Officer. “Go and talk to the lady!”, when all I wanted to do was take a picture of the mango tree. Claire identified the fruit as long mango. I told the officer that Claire could spot something on a tree from a distance and exaggerated about her ability to hear a bird whistling from a mile off. He was suitably impressed.

He told me his Commanding Officer is Aldon Jasper and I showed off a little by telling him that I had interviewed Commodore Richard Kelshall many years ago “right inside there”. I am sure I said “Commandant”. That was too far in the past, so I topped it off with how I had accompanied Kirk Noel to a training session where Anthony Franklin was present, except that Franklin was no longer commander of the defence force. He was Director of the Institute of Marine Affairs at the time.

I want to come back later to Chaguaramas and its rich history, what little I know of it that is, so I am returning to the point at Chaguanas where we linked up. Allison was driving and Claire looked like she was prepared for a day at the beach. There was no Saturday traffic and I found no cause to complain about potholes. There was no rain either. Our highways, Uriah Butler, Churchill Roosevelt, Beetham and the Audrey Jeffers Foreshore disappeared quickly. Our first stop was a little lookout before Peakes giving us a view of the coast, not quite a clear day when one can see forever, but good enough.

No trip without a sip

We went past some high density, paradoxically "percentaged" (population versus means) areas into the lower income community of Carenage before we decided that maybe it was better to call on John Humphrey on the way out, rather than on our return. John was happy to meet Allison who he had read about. It was turning out rather well, until Claire began to question him on his ideas on money. I realised the visit was going to be longer than we planned. 

The drive through Carenage, in the constituency of Dr. Keith Rowley, was a little too fast for me but I saw enough and heard even more. Chaguaramas has changed a lot from when I first went there 45 years ago. The government had leased Chagacabana to Alvin Dorset and I had written a story about it. 

The peninsula represents many things in our history especially as a wartime base, the march to regain it from the United States, home of the country’s defence force, the tumultuous and defining events of 1970, the high profile of the Convention Centre, its importance to mariners and now its transformation into a playground. It is a place that evokes mixed feelings, depending on where one’s interests lie. All these events are well documented, yet subject to debate.  

Tucker Valley in the shadows of the Northern Range is scenic with its own lush greenery and attempts to preserve historic places. It is true that most of it is out of the price range of lower income Trinidadians. Ah, I remember that I once interviewed Glenn Tucker at the offices of Navarro on Wrightson Road The meeting was arranged by my friend Nizam Ali, may his soul find eternal rest. Tucker confessed that he had never spoken to a journalist so he did not know how much he should say. 

Macqueripe Bay, open to visitors during the pandemic, was not crowded. The walk down the steps took us a while but not as long as the walk back up. As usual I did not want to get my feet wet but misjudged the wave and climbed back to dry ground. It meant that I missed Claire’s walk to the rocks and I am using Allison’s words to described what happened.

"When she dived she drew a round of applause. One of the guys said she is so good the sun glasses never fell off her head"

The dive, best I could do from 100+ feet away

Lunch combined with a working session at Chaguaramas Farms UPick, affording us a clear view of the mountainside and making me very sleepy. We left Chaguaramas with its marinas and boat repair yards, its many coastal restaurants closed, its hospitality institute also shuttered, its Coast Guard and Regiment largely absent in the pandemic. 

Allison and Claire took the rain clouds with us, all the way to Chaguanas and for me all the way to San Fernando. As I walked in the rain along Circular Road, I was reminded of the march in the rain for Chaguaramas and the role that CLR James played in that fight.

CLR James Educational Centre, San Fernando Hill

Once upon a time...

Zorina Shah

Chaguanas, near Sasenarine gas station, is perhaps not the best place to be at 6.30 a.m. I stood under the eave of a house where a girl in my high school class once lived. The motorbike cop made a few turns but it seemed as if even he conceded defeat in the traffic chaos. Claire Watson couldn’t have rescued me soon enough and we headed through some back roads, avoiding the Uriah Butler Highway traffic to get to Sangre Grande. 

I had once moonlighted in ‘Grande’ for a few months, Allison had taught at a high school there and Claire, well let us not put anything past her. We changed cars at her sister Wendy’s house and we were in a hurry to leave the hub for the coast. I like to rattle off the names of the villages - Oropouche, Matura, Salybia, Rampanalgas, Balandra, Cumana, Toco, Mission, L’Anse Noire, Sans Souci, Monte Video, Grande Riviere, St. Helena and Matelot.

Yes Matelot! 

The village no longer held the magic as it did for me all those years ago. Approaching Easter, the mountains would be coloured yellow and red, purple, tangerine and a dozen shades of green. Today a dark foreboding colour posed no competition against the Caribbean sea, itself struggling to capture its poeticised beauty. The Catholic Church at the point where the Paria Main Road is broken, up to Blanchisseuse, is no longer there, the site cleared for construction. We didn’t have to walk along ‘below road’ and cross a rickety wooden bridge to go to the high school. I pictured infants diving from those planks into the river below, a common sight for decades. Now, no more! One can drive straight across the new bridge with its 1.5 ton limit. I called out to Monty's father, Mr. Alston Zoe as we passed, spoke to Hyacinth Cummings nephew and on the way out stopped by a house owned by Dennis Lau’s family where I met Reuben Garcia.

If it looks like I am telling the story backwards, I am not. I just wanted to get that Matelot blues off my chest.

Street named after Sr. Rosario in Matelot

Claire was not driving, so the road was not exactly straight, the wheels of the car and the potholes formed a strange but steady relationship and a left turn at a critical juncture was taking us back to Valencia instead of our destination. 

Between Matura and Toco, large sections of the coast are taken up by holiday homes and private resorts. With that and the Covid restrictions, there were few opportunities to walk on the beach, so we grabbed what we could. One was a semi-resort, fishing port in Salybia. The rain that follows Claire and Allison had not yet shown up. There was no one to talk to and we were the sole proprietors for that while, of all that we surveyed. When we passed back in the afternoon we saw that there were numerous new owners.

Proud owners of everything on Salybia Beach

Teachers with Antourage... 

We drove up the incline to another and were told that it was owned by a family and no longer accessible by the public. Claire and Allison thought the guy we spoke to was a guard but I am thinking he is a member of the family. What struck me is that he is of East Indian descent. On those parts of the road to Matelot, there is very little sign of ‘Indian people’. I had never seen a Hindu temple or a mosque in all the years I travelled those roads, but this day, there was a mosque just before Cumana, what looks like a relatively new building. It occurred to me that there was spread of the religion among young people of African descent in the community.

The small section of the beach before Cumana looked inviting but smelled fishy, bad fishy. They thought it might be rotting sargassum. As lovely as the Atlantic was, we also had good reason for a quick departure.

Sargassum weed

The road to Cumana was quiet except for the Electricity truck. The driver clearly did not know the corners and made a good attempt at overturning. Cumana Junction itself provided the first busy area with its gas station and lots of shops. At Toco we turned into the lighthouse road hoping to find a good view of where the Atlantic meets the Caribbean Sea. The area was closed off for construction and the contractor's guy proudly told us that when it reopens there will be bathrooms for which we will have to pay. The little stretch to the lighthouse looked desolate, very little activity, an indication of how Covid-19 has changed life for many. 

Near the Lighthouse

Our next stop was Mission Village where I hoped Claire would get a chance to see her friend. Instead as we pulled up she spotted the son Kwesi Alleyne, the Catholic priest for the coast. I was thinking it is still one priest but my friend Gail Coutain has told me there is a cluster from Cumana to Matelot with an additional priest, Fr. Raymond Francis.

Looks like someone is having a chat with God about the pandemic!

The surf at Sans Souci is usually a sight to behold, but we caught it on the moderate side. Lower down at Grande Riviere, where the turtles come in to nest, it was also quiet. Albert Nixon, who owned the shops in Toco and Grande Riviere had delivered grocery orders to customers down the coast. He has converted one shop to apartments, a sign of the changing economic activity on the coast. No private property blocked out the Caribbean Sea. We were given a full view in the distance, some places bright shades of blue and green, slightly more subdued in others. 

We had lunch on the way back at Acajou resort, a place where Claire had stayed before. Their Christian instincts must have dictated that they eat fish, but I was not so hampered even on Jumaah Friday. I had grilled chicken with fries, or ‘chips’, a word which became the focus of a long discussion.

The drive back was relaxing. I ignored most of the potholes and their conversation and enjoyed the scenery. In the middle of Sangre Grande, Allison sent me out to collect an item for her. I first entered the wrong mall at Plaza Grande, then the right one and walked right past the store to the back of the building.

We changed cars again and Allison went her way while Claire and I used the traffic all through Cunupia and Enterprise to talk. On the last two trips, I had been first to be home, this time around I didn’t make it until 7.30 p.m.

The End of the Road

Zorina Shah

Allison Wong Wai photo - Pitch Lake

I have concluded that Allison Wong Wai and Claire Watson will never choose a dry, sunny day for a road trip. They collected me in pouring rain, directly in front of the shrine of St. Joseph, patron saint of workers. We set off for the South Western peninsula, down the San Fernando bypass, along Mosquito Creek, past a lot of construction work which confused us at St. Mary’s Junction, Oropouche, through Rousillac before we made our first stop at the Pitch Lake in La Brea.

The tour guide who was having a slow day, because of the weather, told us of the medical wonders of the sulphur springs and that the land drops approximately six inches every year because of the mining. We didn’t pay guide fees as we could only do so much in the steady drizzle… drive onto the access road, turn and drive out again. We talked a little about the wider area, that there had been a golf course at Brighton, the industrial estate hidden behind the trees and I told them that someone once wrote a Mills and Boon romance, set in Trinidad, in which the couple had gone sailing on the pitch lake.

I should have said earlier that Claire still considers every road a straight one and I have come to like that approach. 

Several stops at the fruit vendors followed. Claire has an eye for things that grow on trees. She can spot a douce-douce mango (dudus) from a distance, a special type of flower, a bird’s nest. Allison, on the other hand, you have to bully her to take the picture. She is on the look out for people, what are they doing on this Saturday morning, are they happy, what do they do for recreation, why are the playgrounds overgrown? 

The cutlass mango at left. Who else would see mangoes on a tree in rainy weather, but Claire?                                                                                                                                   

We passed through the borough of Point Fortin and made a hasty exit, because of traffic, via Cap de Ville. Claire had worked at Auto Rentals for three months when she had finished high schooI. The sign was still there next to the market. I showed them the gas station once owned by Subrat Ali, also known as Chinee Boy, a friend of my father. Ali’s son Rasheed had been responsible for bringing a number of footballers from Point Fortin to play at St. Benedict's College, among them Warren Archibald.  

We entered the peninsula at the point where Cap-de-Ville forms a sort of T-junction with the road to Erin and the one which goes all the way to Icacos Point. Our first stop was my brother in Chatham and of course he produced the bottle with the black and white label, from which I am still not partaking. We had a good look at his yard, what was bearing, what was flowering and as Claire said, what will show up on the plants in six months time. 

What kind of orange is this?  
I don't think I was expected to answer that question.

We took a short walk near the immigration jetty in Bonasse where the Venezuelans had entered legally before the borders were closed. I was a bit cautious in the event that members of the uniformed services mistook my companions for visiting neighbours.

The jetty where Venezuelans are processed.

One of my favourite drives is along the stretch to Icacos from the village of Fullerton, where I was born, through the coconut estates of Constance and St. Andrew, past the lagoons, mangroves and down to the tip of the peninsula about seven miles from the Venezuelan coast, as the crow flies. We saw the primary school my brother lobbied for before his retirement, a wonderful sight near the end of the road. My own primary school, Lochmaben R.C. sits on a hill. It was an old wooden building which still features in my nightmares, along with the huge concrete cistern. I remember Ralph Maraj attended our school for a while when he came to stay with his family in the village of Los Gallos at Columbus Beach.

Barracks at St. Andrews Estate

On the way back my nephew Anil was at his new “office” near the junction by Low’s shop, some of the bars further up the road being closed. There was no lunch available anywhere between Icacos and Low’s but we found something left over at the roadside cafe opposite the Catholic Church. I had chicken with fries, but I swear that the wing I got belonged to a Pterodactyl. They were playing soca music and it did not take long for Allison and Claire to show their "Tiny Winey" moves. I ran, as opposed to sprinted, up the slope to the steps of the Church to find that it was also dedicated to St. Joseph. 

Waiting for their supper

We stopped off at Anil’s home to dine. My brother, who I have not seen in more than a year looked like one of the protesting Indian farmers, just home from tending his cattle, just the two he now has remaining. 

We talked villages on the way to  the T-Junction, driving straight on at the Puerto Grande junction where we should have turned left. Our straight road tactic got the better of us and thinking we were on the way to Erin, we encountered some bad roads, got stuck a little in the mud and turned back. If your wheel keeps spinning in mud, the person you need to give you a push is definitely Allison. There was an upside. We met a friendly family of two adult women and four children who had been to the coastline. I also swear that the younger adult spoke with a foreign accent.

Bad roads... no place to go

We drove through the village of Buenos Ayres and surfaced at the Erin fishing port where the tide was high and we got a clearer view of the Venezuelan coastline. It is enough to say that Claire spotted custard apple.

The Los Iros beach facility was closed, a police car in attendance, but no officers in sight. We made a stop at the mud oven shop in Rancho Quemado. The baker told me she is the niece for the former Councillor Sheila Lamorelle and she has a young baker in training. 

From there on it was mainly the drive back through the built-up and busy towns of Siparia and Penal with the obligatory stop at the doubles stall in Debe. I promise that the mention of doubles is not linked to the Minister of Agriculture.

Of course we had to venture into a no entry near the highway at Debe but we escaped unscathed.

It was already night when Claire pulled up again in front of the shrine of St. Joseph. I had refused the doubles at the stall in Debe, but when the girls decided to eat theirs while they were still hot… well Clarence Rambharat won’t get away with that the next time... finery or no finery.

Straight to Guayaguayare

Zorina Shah

I was meeting Claire Watson for the first time, unlike all those Naps girls who had read Shakespeare and er, I really do not know what else is on the booklist, with her. Claire has a simple alternative to a printed road map of Trinidad and Tobago and Google Maps.

“It’s a straight road.” 

It was indeed. We headed towards Princes Town on the Naparima Mayaro Road which gives a clear view of the Central Range, rainy day or not. The other route from San Fernando to Princes Town is along the Manahambre Road which passes by St. Clement's Anglican Church, the Ste. Madeleine pond and the old sugar factory.

I glimpsed a Nagee Trace just after Iere Village Branch Road and wondered if it was named after the in-laws of Yvonne Stulec. The flaming poinciana flowers of one of our national songs were plentiful and other trees were laden with birds’ nests. We by passed the Presbyterian Church and an Anglican Church on the corner of Lothians Road on our way to the town centre, then left behind villages of St Julien, Hindustan, New Grant, Tableland on the way to Rio Claro, a busy built-up town.

Our interests in this trip were varied. Claire was looking for signs along the roadside, the kind that when you see them, you know they are from Trinidad. Allison stepped out in the rain and through some puddles in Poole, of all places, to capture a classic. 

Allison wanted to observe what was taking place in villages leading to coastal areas, away from the centres of activity. How did people earn an income? What social activities did they engage in? Were they affected by changes in the energy sector and the pandemic? 

As per usual, I have no agenda. Have chauffeur, will travel. Not quite what they call gas-brains, but pretty close. We stopped by a church that Allison had visited before. The corbeaux, perched atop the cross, served as the weather vane, not a foreboding of the role of the Church in society. When we reached Mayaro, I wanted to tell Claire to go straight ahead to the beach, but she made a right turn on the “straight road” and we were on the way to Guayaguayare with dreams of stepping on the point at Galeota. Allison had taught at Mayaro Composite School for one year, Claire had campaigned in every village in Trinidad where there is a school, for an elected post on the executive of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA). Me, I had been to most villages for the simple pleasure of sitting in a rum shop and chatting with men already slurring from the effects of Forres Park puncheon rum.

Allison Wong Wai photo

The 25 kilometres of coastline between Mayaro and Galeota was mainly stormy, but we met some patches of sunlight and a fair amount of rain. The fishing port looked untidy with its numerous shacks, but showed that the industry was alive. During the Lenten period there is greater demand for fresh fish.

The Petrotrin oilfield road was closed because of “work going on”, the guard told us although she did not know what kind of work. BHP Billiton and British Petroleum announced themselves in huge letters, as did some local contractors like Damus. Just to dreevay a bit, Damus was formed by the Sumadh family. They dropped the ‘h’ and reversed the spelling. In the 1970s, I interviewed Lynne Sumadh at the company’s head office which was at Circular Road, the building which is now occupied by Great Wall Restaurant.

We had lunch in Mayaro on the way back. I ate curried duck, dhal, two scoops of rice and fresh salad. I passed on the Johnny Walker as it was Jumaah Friday, like it has been Jumaah Friday every day for a long time.

Claire was not tired, so guess what! We went through Petit Cafe on the road to Moruga, through the six companies named after slave villages. There was a lot of work going on here, major work that may have started before the elections last year.  I asked for directions from a work crew and the guy answered in Spanish. Down at the point where the fisherman’s fete is held and where they once celebrated Discovery Day, the statue of St. Peter leant away from the road. I took a pic of the Church and although it stood straight, that too was leaning in my pic. 

Allison - done visiting St. Peter

Not a leaning church

Claire knew this village well, having spent many holidays here. She took us into La Lune Road and showed us a house she knew. My friend Helena Allum’s family is from La Lune and one of her brothers still lives there. In 1986 during the elections campaign I had gone to Marac, the end of the road where Selwyn Richardson was holding a public meeting. 

On the way out we stopped at Chan Wah shop where Claire also knew the family. The guys were sitting outside drinking beers and rum. Now that is my style, how I spent many days in villages around the country.

I offered to find an obeah woman so we could come back and interview her, but the response was not so helpful.

Allison Wong Wai photo

My favourite spot

I am telling this story mainly about the journey as both Allison and Claire will be using some other information in different ways.

I am yet to know where the next destination is, but that should be this coming weekend.

NUN SO BRAVE

by Zorina Shah

The following pieces were strung together for the 80th birthday of Sr. Rosario Hackshaw on August 9, 2017

Sister Rosario and Sister Juliet Rajah
of the Holy Faith Congregation earlier this year

NUN SO BRAVE: Memories of Matelot 1

Many years ago, more than two decades I believe, I journeyed to Matelot one Sunday evening for the commissioning of the alternative energy “something”. Not a plant, but something nonetheless, so let us say system. Ah yes, how could I forget, it was indeed more than two decades because Senator Barry Barnes, an uncle of the footballer John Barnes, was Minister of Energy, meaning Minister of Oil and Gas and Amoco and Trintoc and TTEC.

The village had its own primary school which didn’t need electricity. The nights without moonlight were black, the village perched as it is between the Caribbean Sea and the Northern Range. But the people sitting on the kerbs didn’t need light. If you heard some shocking statement, you never knew whose mouth it had come from.

The only real need for electricity came around election time. The trucks would brave the north coast roads, forgive me for making the road seem like something more than patches of asphalt and stone scattered here and there. They would come up on the Sunday and make sure there was light enough to last until the votes were counted on Monday night.

The high school went up across the river. However the material got past the rickety wooden bridge is anyone’s guess. I only know because I asked. The brown wooden building, one could easily say sprawling, sat on a hill, its place natural against the vegetation, plants hanging from the ceiling.

Now that building needed some lights. Children needed to do some home economics, yes that was a subject too, and the boys would have to saw wood for the boat building. Power tools would help. The labs required a flame now and then. The supervisors for examinations wanted some light.

Rosario could have had the money to take electricity across the river. That would be plenty money for some electricity maybe four days a year. When she opted for solar and wind, the money became scarce.

Not short of skills in selling her ideas, she approached Catholic funding agencies and her own congregation of the Holy Faith. I mean she had already talked Fatima College and her sisters into finding money to help fund the construction of the school.

The guys came from the Isle of Man and Professor Oliver Headley came from the Cave Hill Campus in Barbados. The windmills stood tall on the beach below St. Ann’s Bay and the solar panels lined the roof of the school. In a little shed along the trail to the school, the wind and sun was converted into energy and stored in marine batteries, six of them… and there was light!

(Caribbean Beat photo)

NUN SO BRAVE - Memories of Matelot II

The white van hurtling along the North Coast Road became a familiar sight over the years. Pedestrians knew to get out of the way when they saw the van, mainly because of the condition of the roads though it was easier for them to say it was because of the lady driver. The van represented different things to different people, but to the children of Matelot, it stood between them and having a teacher in a classroom.

Rosario scouted the Catholic high schools in and around Port of Spain and along the East West corridor for teachers for the new Matelot Community College. She was able to capture some of the best who had themselves recently completed their A’Level exams. Among them were scholarship winners, those who would go on to be outstanding professionals and members of the clergy, even those who continued and became good teachers.

Catholic parents volunteered their children, never mind that those children would have been comfortable working down the road from their homes or even starting university right away.

The challenge was getting to Matelot. There was no commuting, very little transport, two hours away from the nearest town of Sangre Grande and worst of all, the roads: falling away all through the villages of Oropouche, Matura, Rampanalgas, Cumana, Toco, Sans Souci, Monte Video, Grande Riviere and St. Helena. Falling away yes, sometimes into the sea, like where the healthy surf came past the shore and merged with the village of Sans Souci.

The next step was to source accommodation in the village. Few parents knew where their children were going to teach, but they trusted Sister to look after them. Teachers met at Holy Trinity R.C. Church in Arouca to leave for Matelot at 7 p.m. on Sunday nights. They worked an hour extra Monday to Thursday so they could leave at midday on Friday. That way Rosario could get to the Ministry of Education before the office closed for the week.

I cannot tell every story of the bus which broke down so often in the night, of teachers reaching Matelot close to midnight or of how one night they drove back looking for bags that had fallen out. Rosario drove the bus herself along those makeshift roads, doing so anytime and every time the needs of the school and the community and the parishioners demanded it. Later on she got some help from Marcelline Peters who came from Point Fortin to teach in the primary school. 
(Trinidad Guardian photo 2005)

NUN SO BRAVE: Memories of Matelot III 

The road came to life at the hub, right there by the primary school, the church, the little shop and the bar. Then, one could have travelled westward from Toco, along the Paria Main Road on the coast for miles to see only the odd vehicle, a few pedestrians and animals. At the place where it came to life, so did it paradoxically come to an end. On the map, the road extended all the way along the North Coast to Blanchisseuse and La Fillette, past the points of Tacarib and the Madamas River. That is the old map. That is the map the Ministry of Education officials looked at to turn down the request for a high school for children from Matelot. Instead of trying to go east to Toco, they said, the students could continue west to Blanchisseuse or even Arima.

Rosario must have heard a fair share of nonsense those days, yes. When she arrived in Matelot in the early 1980s, there was an old wooden school building, but no teachers and therefore no students. The students came back, they wrote 11+ but dared not leave the village for the Toco Composite School 25 kilometres away. If they ventured out, how or when they got home would be a different matter.

The high school came, not as easily as that sounds, so did children from other villages, from Toco and Cumana. There was the boy who asked for a place after the class was filled. He offered to bring his own desk and chair. How could Rosario turn him down?

There at the place where the Paria Main Road fell away, students from other villages joined their colleagues from Matelot and their teachers and gladly made their way along the track on the coastline, across the bridge over the Matelot River and up to the classrooms on the hill.

Slowly things changed, a new primary school, small improvements in the road, entrepreneurs emerged, a few jobs were created and then students began getting full CXC certificates. In the village the fishermen were encouraged by the signs, a truck visited the gas pump and there was cold storage that worked as the electricity permitted. The children sang, they played pan and they had their own Carnival at the hub and an annual sports day on the field below the high school.

A lot of the older people I knew, they have gone, God rest their souls. Many of the younger ones are parents. Those younger ones, some of them teach in the schools, they work in urban areas and they come back home. The church is being rebuilt, but when Tropical Storm Bret brought its wind and dropped some rain a few weeks ago, the story of the road…. it was the same.

Note: Tropical Storm Bret passed around June 19, 2017

NUN SO BRAVE: Memories of Matelot IV

We were taking a rest today, but return by special request from Elana Nathaniel. Here it is, as far as I had reached.

I can tell you the story of how Rosario found the farmer lying on the roadside, bleeding. His leg, along the shin, was gashed by his own cutlass. She took him to the health centre in Toco and was co-opted into working by instructions in an emergency. 

Or I can tell you of how, at the home of the Glauds in the village of St. Helena, we arrived to find the goat dying while trying to give birth. The old people were just sitting there, sad that they would lose the animal. She stooped beside the mother, used her bare hands to move around the kid, got him out, washed her bloody hands and drove away. But not before she had chastised them. “So long you minding goat and you don’t know about breech?”

I will tell you of one of her favourite villagers (and mine too) about to deliver her seventh or eighth baby. She was brought to Sister when her water bag burst to get a ride down to the hospital in Sangre Grande, 73 kilometres away. There was no electricity that late evening but there were two young men from Puerto Rico who had come to Trinidad to study at the Seminary of St. John Vianney and the Uganda Martyrs up on Mt. St. Benedict. They were in Matelot helping as teachers at the high school. This day Rosario found a new role for them.

She decided that they would not make it to the hospital. Ramon’s role was to find light, enough light, because the candles were inadequate. He made a flambeau. Jonas stripped cloth, heated water and served as the helper while Ramon held up the light and Rosario and the village midwife delivered the baby, a girl.

I wasn’t there for that delivery but when I heard the story I said, “Poor Ramon”. 

“Poor Ramon?” she asked. “You mean poor N…, with Ramon hovering over her with a light."

AFTER MATELOT

I sat with Ismay on the porch at Ana Street, Woodbrook that day in 1998 while Mary and Elsa took Rosario to the airport. Rosario was leaving for Perth, a sort of sabbatical after those years in Matelot, but really preparation for another round of hard work. I conjured up extreme images of her drawing water from a well and hewing wood.

Hina Shah with widows at a meeting in Gujarat. ICECD photo

Holy Faith Sisters arrive in Riwoto, January 2013. St. Patrick's Missionary photo

“I won’t see my daughter again,” Ismay said as her three girls drove towards Wrightson Road. What does one say to that? 

There was a phone in Perth. We didn’t have WhatsApp and Skype in those days and TSTT’s overseas rates were damaging, six dollars a minute plus VAT. When I called that first time, I waited 10 or more minutes for her to come to the phone. I called once more. Mary had already called. Rosario was coming home. Ismay hadn’t seen her daughter again.

From Australia, her next stops were Bangladesh and Ahmedabad in the Indian state of Gujarat. She had talked Grameen banking, micro finance and empowering women through entrepreneurship for years with Fr. Michel de Verteuil. Chittagong was the place to learn the methods through which the most vulnerable were dragged from poverty. Although I knew of Muhammad Yunus and his work among Bangladesh’s poorest, Rosario’s enthusiasm gave it new meaning.

I don’t remember calling Ahmedabad, but there was better email. From there, Rosario was going to Shimla in the Himalayas. When I needed to contact her I got her number from Hina Shah.

I called the convent in the Himalayas and heard my voice echo four times when I asked for her. I had to tell her that Archbishop Anthony Pantin had died. They had grown up in Woodbrook, he a little older. Their families were friends. His brother Clive had been a great help to Matelot when he was Minister of Education. Rosario was already sitting on the bus to New Delhi and came back to take the call. “Yes, yes, this call is from China, you have to talk,” I could hear the voice coaxing her.

Back home she launched into HOPE, Helping Ourselves Prosper Economically. She trained her crew for the field and toured the coast from Mayaro to Matelot, going inland to Plum Mitan, Sangre Grande, Valencia, La Horquetta, Couva and other villages. HOPE created a new class of small entrepreneur, changing many lives and bringing dignity to many women. 

South Sudan must have been difficult. I went to Valencia to help her prepare for that trip. How best to communicate, that was the big question. She and two other Holy Faith sisters from Ireland would be teaching the children of the Toposa in Riwoto, a project arranged through the Kiltegan Fathers. If she got an internet connection, we could use email. That worked a few times. She wrote when she picked up wifi from an NGO. No call ever went to the phone number we were given. I called USAID once and they knew the sisters, they promised to deliver a message.

Rosario is back home again. Hers has been a long journey since the day she first left Ismay in 1958 for Irish shores, to become a member of the Holy Faith Congregation, to make lifelong friends among the Irish, among the people of St. Brigid’s, Siparia, Matelot and wherever else she has been.

For being brave, putting the needs of children first and standing up for the poor she has been recognised twice in national awards at Trinidad and Tobago's Independence and in several other places.

Maybe someday if I take the advice of her friends Trudy and Cheron Herrera and Anise Maybodi, we will write her story. I know it won’t come from her. That is because I am familiar with the story of her aunt Sr. Dominic Marie Turner, a Mary Knoll sister who lived in Hong Kong in the early days of the Cultural Revolution. They do what they have to do.