Some of the Caribbean islands bubbled up from volcanic spit and into rocky pieces of land.
The islands are known for their beautiful beaches, but have you seen the mountains?
You can see the way the mountain ranges of Trinidad and Tobago reach towards the Andes as one piece of the puzzle. But the islands, Trinidad and Tobago, became twins adopted together by colonialism and finally an independent republic.
“What is your hometown?”
I had no concept of town, city or village before Canada. Each area name flows into the next, like the river that runs parallel to the Diego Martin highway, running into another from the second traffic intersection.
I learned to answer in Canada with Diego Martin, quickly followed by Trinidad and Tobago. If I were talking home, I’d have to say Petit Valley, just to get that Diego Martin part right.
I’m sure the places are officially set. We were not taught this in geography; I just knew places by the way the mountains looked – they were my compass.
You can walk from a mountain ridge, across four lanes of highway, and come to a rush of another mountain. That’s how I know it’s a valley. I know it’s Pete’s Valley because I can walk the distance in less than five minutes.
Everything in the world is small when I’m at home.
I wonder if my body stayed short to never outgrow it. The company is small; the cousin of another Trinbagonian student was my high school friend. The market is small.
When I first arrived in Fredericton, I stood in a Walmart aisle for 10 minutes trying to figure out what shampoo to buy.
Mountains and music are exceptions to the rule that everything is small at home.
Calypso music, in its trendy days, was performed in tents, spreading like mushrooms. There’s nothing small about songs that hit the most powerful forces in the country with all their shame and flaws.
Soca music surpassed its predecessor, moving in 10-wheeled trucks whose sole job is to carry the loudspeakers that turn the streets into a dance floor on Carnival Monday and Tuesday.
The Trinidadian carnival season is extended by the grand competition. The winning Carnival King and Queen costumes tower over the stadium-style stands as they tell a story in their designs. Mas Mani Trinidadian Peter Minshal brought the Carnival three times in an opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
It’s a shame that everyone knows the Steel Pan, usually a Tenor Pan and usually called a “Steel Drum”, it’s just the beginning of the musical depth discovered all those decades ago in Trinidad and Tobago.
This symphony shakes the parrots, macaws, kiskadees, corbeaux and company to jump from their nests. This feathered parade is a year-round carnival in the seasonless tropics.
My 5 p.m. pass: sitting on the porch, watching the forest green grow darker and bluer as the mountain climbs outside, leaves the side of the road, and the western sun sets.
I miss people like I miss home.
People shape the country as much with their society as with their infrastructure. But one must understand the importance of calling Trinidad and Tobago home when a significant portion of the population continues to migrate in the face of our developing country’s challenges.
If I only call culture my home, then I might settle in a part of Toronto. But Toronto is not made of mountains.
