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Monday, February 17, 2025

Trini to the Bone

by

20120120

No one has ever been able to con­vince me that I should even be­gin to con­tem­plate pulling up stakes and flee­ing from this land of my birth. When Sniper sang Por­trait of Trinidad, fol­lowed many years lat­er by Denyse Plum­mer do­ing Nah Leav­in', Cro Cro's Still de Best and David Rud­der's Tri­ni to the Bone, I felt that they were in fact chron­i­cling my life on a very per­son­al ba­sis.

So what brought on all this gush­ing and pangs of pa­tri­o­tism you might ask. Ac­tu­al­ly, it's a num­ber of things.

On Tues­day I had to get to La Ro­maine much ear­li­er than I even get out of bed on morn­ings and the dri­ve down south was noth­ing short of awe­some. The scenery, the plains of Ca­roni, the rolling hills be­yond Cou­va in­to Pointe-a-Pierre at that hour of the morn­ing was sim­ply breath­tak­ing.

There are so many pos­i­tive things that keep me ground­ed in this place, in spite of all its ug­ly, re­pug­nant el­e­ments which I need not elab­o­rate on in this space.

I have this friend whose fam­i­ly prob­a­bly owns half the land in Aripo and the times I've spent in this green, rus­tic dis­trict served like an elixir and balm to any stress I may have tak­en with me on my jour­ney from the con­crete, hus­tle and bus­tle of the city.

I have an­oth­er friend whose home is built on the banks of the Lopinot Riv­er, an­oth­er site that caus­es stress and woes to evap­o­rate.

Just pic­ture it-be­ing in the mid­dle of Lopinot Riv­er on a moon­light night, hav­ing din­ner on three huge boul­ders strate­gi­cal­ly lodged by Moth­er Na­ture in the cen­tre of the riv­er's flow.

My T&T re­mains an un­ri­valled par­adise, which is why I am be­fud­dled by an­oth­er friend who seizes any hol­i­day or op­por­tu­ni­ty to "flee" to Mi­a­mi or Lon­don, on what she fash­ion­ably prefers to call "a shop­ping trip."

I ask, what can one pur­chase in Mi­a­mi or Lon­don that isn't avail­able right here.

My US visa ex­pired many moons ago and I have re­fused, much to my Or­lan­do-based sis­ter's cha­grin, to re­new it, more so in the wake of harsh and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry so called se­cu­ri­ty reg­u­la­tions in­sti­tut­ed since 9/11.

T&T, by its flo­ra and fau­na, sites and topog­ra­phy, has every en­tice­ment and in­duce­ment

an ex­plor­er de­sires, nat­u­ral­ly honed to whet

all ap­petites.

But there's more to T&T, such as its most im­por­tant nat­ur­al re­source-it's peo­ple. Go­ing to the sis­ter isle and spend­ing time with the vil­lagers of Glam­or­gan, Par­latu­vi­er, Bethel, Mo­ri­ah or Char­lot­teville al­ways proves to be a mem­o­rable and pleas­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. It's the same when one vis­its any rur­al town or vil­lage in Trinidad. Coun­try folk have re­tained so much of the old val­ues and eti­quette, not to men­tion hos­pi­tal­i­ty, that per­haps our Tourism Min­istry might con­sid­er of­fer­ing them more work to nur­ture and de­vel­op do­mes­tic tourism.

Last but not least, is the fet­ing and lim­ing. Even I was tak­en un­awares when I was in­vit­ed to more than one mas band launch on a Mon­day evening last month. Nowhere in the world do peo­ple par­ty as hard as we do. On this note, I must salute the com­posers and per­form­ers of our mu­sic, in­clu­sive of ca­lyp­so, so­ca, chut­ney and parang. The strains of Machel Mon­tano's win­ning Jumbie are yet to dis­si­pate and al­ready new mu­sic has been launched on the air­waves.

I am a Tri­ni to the bone and ah nah leav­in' be­cause we is still de best.

BLood notes

Zig­gy Rankin' is greet­ed at Sweet Lime Restau­rant by Parang So­ca Queen Mar­cia Mi­ran­da last Fri­day evening.

Pho­to by Dilip Singh

A sweet Fri­day evening lime

KU­DOS are in or­der for the man­age­ment of Sweet Lime Restau­rant on Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Wood­brook, for spoil­ing lo­cal artistes as part of its Fri­day evening, af­ter-work menu. Some of the artistes and per­son­al­i­ties al­ready host­ed by man­ag­er Col­in Mar­shall and host Ravi Per­sad are De­stra, Iw­er George (The Boss), Denise "Saucy Wow" Bel­fon, H2O Ph­lo, Surge, Cro Cro, West In­dies crick­et all­rounder Dwayne Bra­vo, fe­male box­ing cham­pi­on Jezelle Sa­landy, and last Fri­day Zig­gy Rankin'. This evening's artistes in the spot­light are ex­pect­ed to be Kes and Na­dia Bat­son.

Mar­shall ex­plained that one of the ben­e­fits of this Fri­day event is a "Wall of Fame, on­to which Sweet Lime will af­fix por­traits of our star per­son­al­i­ties."

Mas­quer­ade for 2008

De­spite ru­mous to the con­tr­ry, Car­ni­val 2007 medi­um Band of the Year Mas­quer­ade will be on the streets come C2K8 with a por­tray­al en­ti­tled Caribbean Splen­dour. Though re­luc­tant to dis­close too much, vet­er­an band­leader Earl Pat­ter­son re­vealed that the band's camp re­mains at 19 de Ver­teuil Street, Wood­brook. A hy­brid of Wayne Berke­ley's epic pro­duc­tions of the '80s and '90s, Mas­quer­ade is con­sis­tent­ly in win­ner's row in car­ni­val.


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