DREAMS OF CONGO SQUARE AND THE TACO THAT ATE TRINIDAD

So I went on to Barbados from Jamaica by Air Jamaica, spent the night, and then continued on to Trinidad by Liat Airlines. I’ll spend a week here total, getting a Suriname visa in the process, then continue on to Guyana for Christmas. I’ll case out Guyana, and then continue on to Suriname, which is a major variable for the trip. It sounds interesting. If I like it, I’ll stay a while. If not, and I get a multiple entry visa, I’ll head on to French Guyana, or back to (British) Guyana if only single-entry the Suriname visa. There are no air connections amongst the Guyanas. From there it’s back to Barbados for a few days, then back to Jamaica mid-January. After three more days there, I go on to Havana. I finally got the $250RT killer deal to Cuba. That’s about half the normal price. That’s what it should cost. That’s why I went to Jamaica. For $6-700 you can fly round trip straight to Cuba from TJ, no need to hip-hop the Caribbean. But that’s a slow way to reach 200 countries. It’s not easy connecting the Caribbean dots without a boat, but with my other killer $250RT from Jamaica-Barbados, I’m doing okay, and that’s a three-hour flight! Havana’s little more than an hour from Jamaica. Guyana’s the expensive leg. Are the hardest places to reach ultimately the most rewarding? We’ll soon find out. I’ve schemed on Suriname for years, even if their language IS called ‘Taki Taki’. I’m battle-hardened linguistically now, and more flexible to boot. Everything’s different now. At least I’m finally vindicated after losing my killer deal from Punta Arenas to Puerto Montt last month in Chile.

You can’t tell much about a country from a single night, but I can tell that Barbados is a pricey mother. If the Caribbean as a whole is on US/Europe price schemes with ‘budget’ hotels typically topping $50 and $100 on the horizon, then Barbados is setting the pace. Good luck finding a cheapie there. You don’t see many backpackers in the Caribbean and that’s why. Jumping puddles ain’t cheap and the pipe dream of hopping a boat just doesn’t happen unless you hang in those circles, and regularly… yachts and backpackers are generally mutually exclusive concepts… though not necessarily. More likely, though, you’ll be flying in circles, which wouldn’t be so bad, especially time-wise, if the lodging were more affordable. This is not an unreasonable expectation, given the wage differentials between the Third World and the Western World. Real estate prices are another story. If there’s a phenomenon of ‘island dwarfism’ in relation to body size of islanders, there seems to be an economic ‘island inflation’ operating in inverse proportion. The smaller the island, the more expensive it is, perfect for the Caribbean bedroom community. Welcome to Barbados. The bottom line is: the US is a pretty good deal, really. Costs in many, but not all, Third World countries, are similar. Wages aren’t.

Welcome to Trinidad. Super Burritos Gigantes, look out! You have competition brewing down in the southern Caribbean, down around where the islands meet South America meet India meet Africa. It’s called roti dhal puree. Imagine a Mexican burrito that has everything- no wait- that’s too easy. Imagine ordering Ethiopian food and taking that entire meal laid out on injera bread and fold the whole thing up into a giant four-cornered pie capable of being considered ‘takeout’ with at least enough structural integrity to stay together until you start nibbling away at it. There’s dhal, spinach, chickpeas, mango chutney, two kinds of chicken complete with bone, and of course ‘pepper’ (salsa); just tell them what to put in. Show me a burrito that can compete with that. This is what comes out of ‘roti’ shops in Trinidad, very similar to what goes on in curry kitchens, except ladled over bread instead of rice. ‘Roti’, of course, means ‘bread’ in Indo/Malay, but I’ve never heard the term used with Indian cuisine. The same word got carried to Thailand by the country’s Muslims to describe a sweet crepe-like street food concoction, so I’m guessing maybe some Commonwealth Malays introduced the concept here, too, though the components are unmistakably Indian. You can’t rule out the Chinese, though, considering they make Jamaican food in Jamaica and ‘Creole’ food here. Such are the mutations in the DNA of cuisine as handed down mouth to mouth over generations.

Following in the great tradition of Britain’s colonial island/city/states Singapore, Hong Kong, Penang, Zanzibar, Mumbai, and… oh yeah… New York, Trinidad has an ethnic mix that must be seen to be believed. Almost equal parts African and Indian, Trinidad also has significant proportions of Chinese, Arabs, and Hispanic Latinos. The Indians dominate the economy for sure, but Chinese run supermarkets and restaurants as they do everywhere, and the ‘Arabs’ are probably in fact Lebanese who have been trading (fabrics especially) world-wide even longer than the other two, even since they were Phoenicians and Carthaginians long before they were Arabs. Hanno the Navigator explored the west coast of Africa almost two thousand years before Prince Henry, Marco Polo, Ibn Battutah, Leo Africanus, Zheng He or any of the rest. This is the way the British liked it, ruling from the balance sheet by mercantile principles of economic control and hub-and-spoke monopolies. It worked far better than the French system of direct governmental control, which has spawned an overly dependent and costly colonial system which to this day doesn’t even WANT independence. It also allowed good food to flourish and supplant an otherwise dubious British cuisine, only pies making the transition. Pot of pie anyone?

I’ve often wondered what it was like in Congo Square in New Orleans back in the early 1800’s. At the point in time when Louisiana joined the USA, African practices had long been suppressed by the English and then American settlers with their families and religions and five-year plans, something the French and Spanish in Louisiana Territory had never bothered to do. So when the US headed ‘West’ in the early 1800’s and riverboats began docking in New Orleans, they were treated to an unparalleled spectacle at Congo Square on Sunday afternoons. Eye-witness reports tell of hundreds of slaves and free men of color (a large percentage of the population even then) taking the day off to perform age-old celebrations of music and dance in front of equally large numbers of spectators. This inspired more than a few Homies in the process. Thus almost all forms of American music had their origins right then and there. This golden age of cultural intercourse was as short-lived as the golden age of riverboat travel unfortunately, as trains soon passed them by and southern apartheid tightened its grip on all forms of African expression as a threat to its economic and political stranglehold. It would all be re-born and abstracted and sanitized post-War as minstrel shows, minus the animal skins and voodoo.

Trying to imagine something and actually seeing it are two different things. What goes down when the sun goes down in the pedestrian park of Port-of-Spain is the closest I’ve seen to what I imagine Congo Square to have been like. Mostly its just rival boom-boxes selling pirate CD’s and ensuring that no one will suffer in silence, but somehow it lives and moves and breathes like an organism of which the individuals are only body parts. Liquor lines tables and the brain cells of people dancing with their own ghosts, both aging retirees on the way out feeling it for the last time, and young bucks on the way in feeling it all for the first time. The music is primarily calypso-derived soca, with a thousand hyphens attached reflecting each new generation’s novel input. There’s a heavy admixture of modern American hip-hop of course, but with one important difference- I’m liking it. I think the problem with so much rap is that the music is lost in the background and the ‘poetry’ is so bad. Keep the music up front and good, and the stuff goes down easy, just a few lumps in the gravy. The live bands are even better of course. Even now, long before Carnaval, steel ‘pan’ bands are honing and licking their chops, hoping to win the Carnaval competitions. I wish I were here. I think I like Trinidad more than Brazil. Too bad they speak English.

Trinidad seems to overtly prize its African connection more than any place I’ve yet seen in the Caribbean. That may seem surprising, considering its less-than-absolute majority. Maybe that explains it. I’ve seen people wear true African dress here, but nowhere else in the Caribbean; rasta colors yes, but not real African. I’ve seen shops selling African goods here that would rival those of the US, not just cheap tourist schlock. I can watch the ‘Africa Channel’ on TV here. I’ve never seen it elsewhere, except maybe LinkTV in LA. The ‘Cowheel Soup’ may not be my favorite item on the menu, but there’s plenty else to choose from- oxtail, etc. Yes, there’s a real cowheel in there. Yes, it’s disgusting. Yes, the soup is tasty. But there’s plenty of Indian and Chinese food, and the bakeries aren’t half bad. Street food is second to none. If roti is the Trinidad burrito, then ‘doubles’ are the Trinidad taco. This is fast food par excellence, the same kind of curry thing but smaller and rolled over, ‘doubled’; get it? They come off the line about 5-6 per minute by a guy who resembles nothing more than a DJ wowing the crowd with his mixes. The trick is to eat them before the goop drips all over you and starts to get embarrassing- true fast food; eat it fast. It’s also fart food. Mexican food can’t hold a candle to this stuff. Don’t try that at home.

The music is good and the bars stay open all night on weekends. The food is good and there’s even a local home-grown Starbuck’s-style coffee chain called ‘Rituals’ (yes!) with little Aunt Jemimas cranking out as good of a macchiato as I’ve ever had, for prices at least no higher than US standards. Anything’s better than Nescafe (a menu in Guatemala once translated this as ‘Nescoffee’). It sounds like paradise. So what’s my problem? I’m afraid my trip my climax prematurely. I just started and there’s no return to Trinidad planned. Maybe it’ll just get better. Maybe this is nothing compared to Guyana, and Suriname will put them all to shame. Maybe the dollar will re-gain ground against the euro and I’ll go on to French Guiana also. Maybe ‘Good Morning America’ will invite me on the show to tell all about it. Maybe Trinidad is a revelation. Maybe it’ll be a Merry Christmas just five days from now. Maybe it’ll rain all day and I can just keep on dreaming…