Peter O'Connor
Last Monday I was driving over the Arima Blanchisseuse Road, heading for a week in the forest on the “far side” of the Northern Range. And this piece is being written and sent from the forest! But while driving here, I noted that, notwithstanding the coming dry season, the hills are still verdant, with huge blazing-orange splashes across the many shades of green. Our Immortelles are in full bloom!
The tumbling waterfalls along the road are gentler now, and the edges of the road are dry, while for most of the year they are wet. You cannot really see it yet, but you can feel that a harsh dry season is coming. So, I thought I might write about the still-lovely streams of our Northern Range, and the flowers and the forests that grow along their banks. After all, I am staying in a little house close enough to the headwaters of the Paria River that I hear it “all day, all night”. The natural serenity of the place might be a good piece to write?
But then I decided to go online and see if the rest of the world was still out there, and why? And really, what I see, possibly from a distance and through cleaner air, is the coming collapse of the now remnants of a once-proud society. I cannot sing for my soul here in the wilderness while my heart hurts for the wrongs, mismanagement, and violence we endure back in Babylon. And here in the forest, the words of Black Stalin came back to me...“An' is then I going sing about Dorothy!” People had been calling on Stalin to sing some wine and jam, and Dorothy was his response—listing in witty verse the ills which needed fixing before he would “sing about Dorothy”.
How can we sing about anything right now? Our country is visibly failing, economically, socially and in the basic upkeep of our infrastructure. Governance generally is adrift, and most of our business, social and sports institutions are wracked in disputes. “Neighbourliness”, the custom of communities sitting and liming outdoors in the evenings while children played in the road, is a thing of the past. People now have to crawl into their barred homes and lock up tight (sic) before dark.
How can we sing about the streams in the forests when so many people have no water in their homes? After all these years of oil booms and heavy unto flooding rainfall, we still do not have water in too many of our homes.
So recently I decided to make the time to listen to the first part of what actually was an ongoing political rally. I thought that our Prime Minister had now seen—as he eventually saw the reality of Petrotrin—the true state of the country, and he would try to rally us to save our nation! And I was ready! I sat with a pen and notepaper, but when the night was over, the paper was blank. And I continue to leave that sheet blank.
What about the pictures on Facebook of all the abandoned and wrecked police vehicles? And this scene would be repeated through every ministry and institutions like the armed forces, all who pile up worthwhile vehicles for the lack of a commitment to maintenance. It is said you will find a similar graveyard for abandoned coast guard vessels down in Chaguaramas. Mark your calendars when the new vessels come from Australia. Within two years they will be idle, tied up alongside the rest of the rusting hulks, for the want of some small part that no one has “gotten round to ordering as yet”.
Our political see-saw goes up and down, and the jokers change seats but change nothing else. Each side will abandon a couple of almost-complete projects as a matter of course, for the other side to “reopen” when they swing upwards. Save of course for the “Steel Pan Headquarters” which stands permanently abandoned in a canefield, covered with vines and moss. What an insult, to leave that there? What an insult it was to place that facility in an abandoned canefield anyway. What do we tell our Carnival and Panorama visitors about that stillborn feotus as we drive them into the city which is the womb of steel band? And we feel no shame about that abandoned atrocity?
And it is not just our buildings, equipment and infrastructure which have collapsed into rubble. Our institutions are also in collapse, from governance generally, through the Judiciary, and the mute and silent business and professional associations will soon follow, as there will be no basis for their existence. But say what? Carnival is here again, so let us take a wine on Dorothy! Wait, country, wait!