There’s a village up in the mountains above Port of Spain, Trinidad called Paramin.
The people there farm scallions, tomatoes and herbs on steep hillsides and
speak a French/Spanish/English creole. Some of them are supposedly
descendants of the Spanish settlers from the 1500s, and you can see a little
of that in their lighter brown complexions and green eyes. Parang music - a
fusion of mariachi (box bass, cuatro, mandolin, maracas), salsa from
Venezuela, African and Calypso music - is played there. We’re hearing
Parang Christmas music (in Spanish)on the radio lately.
I have a map of Port of Spain on the wall of my office and two of my
co-workers came in on Friday to look at it and plan where to meet to take a
jeep taxi up to Paramin for the yearly harvest festival on Sunday - it takes
a 4WD to get up there. So while Byron and Olivia went to the beach, Nigel
and I set out to find a jeep to take us up to Paramin too.
We got there around 10am, and were roped into the church for the second half
of Mass. Music in the church was played on an organ, a cuatro, guitar and
steeldrum which made the service bearable. After church, we all headed
outside down long, steep steps to a flat clearing with farmland rising
steeply around us and the hillside dropping down to the jungled valley
below. There were tents selling fresh scallions and herbs and others with
games like throw the balls at the tin cans to win prizes and lots of food
stalls with things like saltfish buljol, barbequed wild game like agouti and
armadillo (called “tattoo”), and plenty of rum and Carib beer flowing. I
listened to unintelligible patois spoken by groups of elderly people while
young people danced to loud music. Nigel and I tried throwing the balls at
the cans - he knocked all but one down on the first try - I hit the woman
running the game in the stomach with a ball on my first try.
Next I decided to try the “grab bag” which would at least guarantee me a
prize. One guy before me reached through the shredded newspaper in the
barrel to pull up a box of Frosted Flakes. The next person won a can of
“channa” - curried chickpeas. Somebody else pulled up a hand wiskbroom.
Not the greatest prizes but better than nothing. So I dig around until I
find a small box and pull it up. It wasn’t what I expected to win in
Paramin, Trinidad. Everybody else there got a kick out of it, though.
A thong bikini from Victoria’s Secret, size large.
Please tell me that the names “Nigel”, “Byron” and “Olivia” are fictional. Not that they’re bad names, but that combined, it sounds like all of you escaped from a 18th Century romance novel.
Byron (middle name “Royal”!) is my husband. Olivia Rose is my 10 year old daughter and Nigel, age 12 - born in Jamaica and given a typical Jamaican (albeit via Britain) name. There are lots of names in the Caribbean like Desmond, Errol, Ian, Wellington, Glenroy… they all sound like British fighter pilots to me. And then here in Trinidad we also have names like Aimran, Ahmad, Geeta, Dabysaran, Kumar, Seriram, Ganase, Anjani, etc.
Hey! I have an idea! Autograph them with a Sharpie, then mail it to whomever the nearest Doper is (I know, I know, you’re way far from everyone), kinda like Cecil the Bear.
Cmon, that’d be neat, a pair of large VS thongs covered in autographs…
Ah, West Indian names. It used to be said here in Aus that no WI cricketer had the same first name. Not true, but not far off. Culinary posts from Ms Half-MoonGat would be most welcome.
Oh, me and my completely undiagnosed and possibly imagined ADD!
*Okay, maybe a lot. But less than, say, shipping a grand piano. But more than, say, one’s thoughts, the going rate for which is only a penny.
(Hoom, hoom is kind of the sound that Treebeard makes in the second Lord of the Rings Book - The Two Towers.)