I went away
I leave and I come back home
I come back to stay
I must see mih way
-Back Home, Andre Tanker
I have a tabanca. A Gayelle tabanca. It is the same tabanca I have for T&T. It's the kind of pain that is worse than the disappointment of a year's worth of political meggies. If there is a sense of what is wrong with Trinidad, it exists in a microcosm in Gayelle. Here you have dreams, you have talented people, you have endless stories to tell and a whole heap of love. What's missing is a conviction that we are worthy of the world and the space that we occupy in it. In the midst of the crime, the bored school children, the endless empty nothingness from politicians, we are desperate for some voice or voices that speak of the fullness of who we are. Surely this is not all that we have to offer?
But it is far easier to hop on a plane and buy a few Hollywood cast-off series to ensure that we keep up with the American Joneses. And then boast that everyone is looking at you. When the only local programming is the news that is filled with death, mayhem and bacchanal, much like the cheap soap operas we import. There is no shame in doing this all year. And then pretending to be interested in culture at Carnival time. As if this is the totality of who we are. We know who we are. Kind of. We know what we have to do. Sometimes. We have become so accustomed to dying that everyone I meet has read Gayelle's death certificate. Convincing me that there is nothing else to hold on to. This time no life can be breathed back into this body that gave us so much nourishment.
In the absence of a national mandate for media, in the absence of quota laws. In the absence of benevolent rich people with enough liberal guilt to set up grants for television producers, and film makers, and musicians and all the other creative people who walk this land with their shoulders slumped from the weight of their many many dreams, Gayelle limps along. Gayelle holds on for dear life. I've never been fond of offices and have spent most of my working life trying to avoid them as much as possible. But packing up to leave 161 Western Main Road was not something that I could bear. The empty studios. No endless cables, no cameras to turn on for any and every person who comes off the street to tell their story. No teams of young people talking and laughing and working. History is passing us by again and we have no sense of how this affects our future.
I mourn for the hours I spent working in this place. I mourn for my hours of creating something from nothing. Confident in only my desire to say something. Even if all I had to do was bawl or vomit. The pus must come out. And Gayelle was as much about getting the pus out as it was about seeing the beauty. Some are happy at failure. It is a national pastime to get excited by any kind of bacchanal. Everyone sees a bleak future for Gayelle, for T&T. We blunder through our days making it up as we go along. Looking for ourselves in the reflection of others. We get frustrated. Because the question that Gayelle asks everyday is how do you convince yourself to like yourself? How do you convince yourself that you are beautiful and that you are worthy of being inside your own tv? How do you believe in yourself enough to give this work your best effort? To produce your best work with faulty equipment?
To work with people who may or may not share your beliefs and your convictions? To keep creating even though the rest of the country says you do not matter. The possibility exists that one day Gayelle will be no more and that is a crisis. Even if we never were what we wanted to be. I am thankful that Uncle Errol and Uncle Christopher did what they could and gave a lot of people opportunities. But they are tired now and need to cool their brains. But again we are not ready for our inheritance. We are not ready to claim our place because that place is shaky at best, nonexistent at worst. And Akeisha and Yan and Roti and Pinky and Magella and Jason and Aunty Mairoon and Melissa and Karl and Bob and Aunty Verna and so many others made this the best place to work. Far from the egos of other newsrooms and media houses.
Gayelle forced me to learn. Out of necessity I learn to edit and operate a camera and be a producer and presenter and creator of a vision for a place and a thing that I was still trying to figure out. In the same way that you cannot live here without questioning who you are and what skills you have to develop to make sure that you do your part to make this a better place. This is a lament I am singing for a time that may have passed. This is a lament I am singing for a place that is easy to dismiss. The solution is not to hire young hotshots whose pants are so tight they don't have space to grow the testicles necessary to make a difference, if not a change. The solution is not to let it die.
To be truthful I am not sure what the solution is. But I know that for people like me, who feel no sense of belonging in most places, Gayelle is home. Flaws and all. No other media house has ever attempted to be that. Because it is, at best, impossible. Gayelle is not just a television station, it is chance for our salvation. To make us human again. T&T is not just a place that gives us a passport, it is home. Flaws and all. If only we had the confidence to be ourselves. What a wonderful place we would be.