For Caribbean Girls Who Have Lost Their Accents: Part II

Life's been strange lately.

My trip to Trinidad really shifted something within. My friend Stine said before I left, "This trip is going to be really important. I can feel it in my bones."

In Trinidad I came face to face with just how scathing life could sometimes be--even with something as gentle as a familial kiss.

But I realized that where I might recognize others unwillingness to change, that I could always demand it of myself: Improve upon those areas of my life that can be improved: be a better mother, more attentive friend, conscientious human being. In other words, whenever I found myself criticizing someone outside myself, I wondered what of that trait resided in me? And most importantly what could I do with this information? I'm still in the process of all of this--but it is a path I'm undoubtedly on.

I know I'm being vague but that's what you have to settle with for now. I'll tell you this though: I came really close to losing my faith.

Before I left for Trinidad, I attempted to not read any online Trinidadian newspapers. "Things in Trinidad bad girl", is a mantra which escapes everyone's lips. I tried not let it fuel any fears I have about going to Trinidad with my young son. Read any newspaper from Trinidad and kidnappings and murders abound. Instead, I tried to stay in the now and not worry about things that I am afraid will happen in the future.

I tell my son, before our stop-over in London, "Stay close and here, take this", I give him a cell phone. I run through the dos and don'ts in case he gets lost. "Do stop someone in a uniform", I instruct, "Or a woman with children." "Don't", I warn, "approach a man." I feel inadequate as I give him my awkward instructions, hearing my voice hollow with ignorance as I try to equip him with useful tools in case, heaven forbid, he finds himself separated from me in London. Suddenly what was to be a delightful stop-over in a city he has never been, threatens to turn into a nightmare for me--before we even get there.

We met Jennifer at the London Eye, as planned. Kai and I hold hands tightly all the way from the airport, and packing light, I have nothing much to distract me from my son. I met Jennifer the first time I went to London, in December, and she too hails from Trinidad. I recognize her blond hair against brown skin and we hug, happy to see each other.
Jennifer has not been home, back to Trinidad for some years now and as we view London from above, I expertly avoid all talk about Trinidad, not wanting to tread on this mantra I have so unskillfully managed to avoid up til then.
As we are about to part, and as Jennifer walks us to the underground, my luck runs out. "Things in Trinidad is bad", she verifies. "My cousin got kidnapped three months ago and they have yet to find him."
She rides with us to Victoria Station where Kai and I have to catch the Gatwick Express to our hotel. We arrive in 30 minutes and I immediately proceed to take a bath, where I attempt to figure out how much financial damage was done in the few hours in London.
The flight from London to Barbados is 8 1\2 hours and then a mere 45 minutes to Trinidad. The layover in Barbados shakes all the passengers to life. People become chatty as the aspect of arriving home takes a hold. An old lady stands and crochets. I get excited and without thinking, I ask, "Can I get that in Trinidad?" Meaning, where in Port-of-Spain can I find crochet needles and yarn? An avid crocheter, I imagine myself crocheting something while on vacation.
I admit it was not the most formulated of questions. But I was, in this woman's eyes, already in the role of the freshwater yankee: The arrogant American who assumes superiority in the presence of islanders. It's a role that I have always, due to my American accent, had thrown upon me.
The old woman, brown as tamarind, declared, "How you mean? You don't know is Trinidad it start?"
Now, although the lovely twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago can boast many successes and achievements, you and I both know that crocheting is not one of them. Again, all I wanted to know was where in Trinidad I could purchase some damn yarn. My neighbor chuckled at me, "Well, you certainly didn't come away none the wiser." And winked at me, offering me a bit of solace.
It is suiting though, that this happens en route to Trinidad, a place, like so many others I have found myself in, that is all at once home yet foreign to me.
The irony is that my trip to Trinidad did end up being a dangerous one. Except in terms of stick-up jobs and kidnappings the perpretrators and victims ended being closer than I would have ever imagined.

***

I went to Eugene Lang College, the undergraduate division of The New School for Social Research. At that time, it was a radical college, with ex-Weathermen and courses entitled Marx & Engels, we wasted away our Parents' or Government Aid money in smokey East Village cafes, despising everything around us except good books and cigarettes. The joke was, every student had an FBI file, so when our telephone line sounded iffy at Flux Factory the Williamsburgh commune I lived in before moving to Denmark, we'd joke we were being tapped. Back then, Flux was an eclectic mix of artists, writers, loafers, potheads and alcoholics.
Back in High School when my activism was more pubic, all my mail from The War Resister's League would arrive in a plastic bag with an apology from the U.S. Postal Office. Basically, the letter would have been opened, tampered with or all out destroyed. Now, I'm not telling you this because I really believe that all Lang Students have a FBI file--I'll be the first one to say that I know my government has much better things to do than open a High Schooler's mail, but anyway, keep up with me here, there is a point to all this:

My son and I finally land in Trinidad after over 24 hours of being on the road and on the air. Trinidad! I hadn't been there for four years! Trinidad--I would lie to you if I didn't say that the hot air didn't hit me like the warm embrace of a long-lost friend, and I didn't tear up at the sight of palm trees that bejeweled the airport runway. Trinidad! Here I was, with my son, in Piarco International Airport, an airport that I have visited and revisited throughout many stages in my life: Orphaned baby, banished child, emotional runaway, partying (and lazy) intellectual, published writer--you get the picture. The feeling to finally land was exhilerating to say the least. A part of me had arrived home.

The Immigration Officer, in an ode to British bureacracy, stamped Kai's passport and after running mine through the computer, paused. She took a look at me then a look at Kai. She returned her gaze onto the passport. Sighed. "What is it?" I ask. I wanted to run out the airport and see my family. Just then a thunderous noise. Rainy season. The rain drops pelted against the roof of the airport. So dramatic. So tropical. So Trinidad.
"Just now." She left us there and walked to an office. I stood there with my son and wondered what the matter was. I just wanted to go home, to Emerald Drive in Diamond Vale: To that gray house that bore witness to me in a way that no other human ever has. She returned and stamped my passport.
"There," she said, "sorry about that." But I wasn't going to let her off that easy.
"What happened?" She took a look at Kai and then at me. 'There must have been a mistake. It says on our computer that you are on our watchlist." She looked at Kai again. "It must be a mistake."
"There must be another Lesley-Ann Brown," she reassured me, "Enjoy your trip."

And that, dear readers, is how my trip to Trinidad had begun.

More to come...