My (Very) Sordid Confession

The lovely Carol-Anne from La Familia Aissa bestowed this award on me weeks ago. I am horrible with awards and I think at this point I should say, I am a nightmare with them. I have gotten this one twice before so I think I am all 7-thinged out. However, there is one random, albeit amusing fact I can blog about. Brace yourself, folks...this is a doozy.

I have been a contestant in a pageant.

Now, don't get too excited. It was not Miss Universe or anything like that. Not even Miss Trinidad and Tobago, though looking back, that surely would have been the best thing I could have done for my life, since clearly it makes one employable in Trinidad and Tobago. But I digress...

It was back in my undergrad life. Dorm life. It was one of those things you did cause you were desperate, not cause you thought you were hot. I was not hot during my undergrad years. I had not yet unleashed the hotness I carry with me today. I was still breaking out of self-consciousness. So how on earth did I enter a pageant? Well, to keep my space in the dorms. Hall (dorm) life in Jamaica (where I did my undergrad) is akin to being in a sorority or fraternity. There is no "free" room. You had to earn your place. Each hall was a power by itself of course, but also within each hall, there was sub-frats or sorors, and you had those bragging rights to win as well. So be it sports, or the arts, you had to be doing something.

Wendy Fitzwilliam
Miss T&T and Miss Universe 1998

I love sports but I cannot play a sport to save my life. I failed miserably during my short stint as a cricketer during high school. Our team was rubbish but we won "Best Dressed" - a sure sign of the future! lol. Track - I sucked. Field events - sucked. Volleyball, netball - sucked and sucked.

But, I can sing. It's a hidden talent but it's one I am proud of. So when I was scoping out ways to keep my room and avoid the hell of off-campus accomodation, this seemed to be the way to make a splash. A pageant which they marketed as more talent than beauty, but there were no ugly girls in the pageant and the guys were excited and placing bets, so yeah...it was a damn beauty pageant.

I mean, in the end it was fun and I can tick it off my bucket list but at the time, it was a nightmare. Nightly rehearsals of my song - "I Still Believe" by Mariah Carey, followed by the nightly dance rehearsal. Oh yes, we had an opening dance. And not some crappy "I'm too sexy in my heels" pageant dance either where you "skin teeth" and do a two-step and a twirl, but a proper, booty shaking dance. The nightmare! Oh you should have seen the outfits for said dance. Black leotard, black tights and a green grass skirt. I still watch the photos and laugh and sorry, I will NOT be sharing the shame with you. But we danced to this song and admittedly, the dance kinda looked like this:



Jamaica being a proud sporting nation, we did not have swimwear (thank you Jesus!!), but instead modelled sports wear, and this is where we did the obligatory...

Good night ladies and gentlemen. My name is Trininista and I am a 2nd year communications student from Trinidad and Tobago..blah blah blah.

...with the big smile and pushed out chest. lol


Our hall colours were the always awful and never flattering yellow and green, so all the sports options were in those colours, except the cricket option which ta-da, your girl sported on the night, complete with pads and cricket bat. LMAO. Typing this makes me laugh. I mean can you picture it? lol. I kinda looked something like this...only cuter.

T&T cricket legend and world record holder, Brian Lara

Then we had African wear and I opted for a less voluminous beige number with a headband, which again set me apart from the pack in bright, huge dresses. These again, like the sportswear, were donated. I think I looked pretty on like boiled corn in that dress as well. For real.


We then had the talent segment, where out of sheer terror, I sang 90% of the song with my eyes closed but hit every note and somehow managed not only raucous cheers and foot stomping from my hallmates who never knew I could bust a tune, but a standing ovation. The long nights croaking out those lyrics had paid off.


Then there was evening gown - and we did not have sponsored gowns this time. You had to dig up something yourself. I must admit, I looked pretty hot in my midnight blue strapless evening dress.

But the segment that killed my chances was the question and answer section. Now, I am not sure how they do it in other pageants, but in this one, they gave us the questions and we were to formulate our answers and memorise them, cause they assured us we would have to choose a question from a hat and answer it on stage and these were all the questions. Great, cause all the questions were about the university (crap like motto, history etc) or Jamaica, none of which I was a master. But guess who got the only rogue question for which I did not know the answer? lol. Total nightmare. I remember my answer being a complete disaster and walking off the stage, not feeling like an Honours student but a complete idiot and my chaperone trying to convince me, but I think more trying to convince herself, that we could still win. Yeah right. lol.

But in the end, it was good fun and I had a room for the next academic year and I can tell my daughter one day that her mother was an almost-beauty queen. Riiiiiiiiiiight. Thanks Carol for digging that one out of me. Hope it made up for the delay in posting the award.

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Trininista takes on the World - one issue at a time

I went to Tesco today, as opposed to Sainsbury's to get some rations for the week. There is a full "ethnic" section in my local Tesco, with stuff I don't always find in Sainsbury's. However, my grouse today, and this is not against Tesco at all, but a clear indictment of Trinidad and Tobago's manufacturing industry -

Why are all the Caribbean products from Jamaica?

I was really annoyed by this and this, again, is nothing against Tesco and nothing against Jamaica. In fact, kudos to Jamaica for making their presence felt. I could get their awful tasteless crackers as opposed to a bag of yummy Crix...

Whole wheat Crix trumps the competition in my opinion

...their seasoning which I don't like the taste of, as opposed to a bottle of Mabel's green seasoning; their hard dough bread, which I actually do like but I rarely eat white bread nowadays. I am really disappointed T&T. Really unimpressed. Is it any wonder why people think Trinidad is a town in Jamaica? REALLY?


However, with my care package coming direct from South Trinidad via British Airways and one lovely lady, I now have proper seasoning, my fave soy milk so I was loving the cereal aisle once more and proper cold meds after the Great Flu of 2010 depleted my supply. But had I remembered, I would have asked mums to send me a huge block of New Zealand cheddar cheese. I have tried. I have given it a good shot. I really experimented with it. But...

I hate British cheddar cheese. I really do. I love cheese and though I have my select cheeses I have when sipping on a glass of wine on the weekend, they aren't cheap enough for the every day student life sandwiches, nor yummy enough. But ugh...British cheddar is gross. Every 2 weeks, at my neighbourhood Hi-Lo, I would buy a block of Anchor light cheddar cheese. It's just the best cheese ever. A cheese sandwich here is just not the same. Macaroni pie is not the same. It's probably for the best - a few calories less. But I would kill for a block of NZ cheddar right about now. My first macaroni pie attempt here in London was not too shabby, considering it was a three-cheese pie because using British cheddar alone would have killed it. The Red Leicester topping gave it an awesome colour. The third cheese, if you want to count it, came from the fact that half of the pie was made from a box of Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese - so American sharp cheddar? lol. It's great!

Macaroni pie. Yummers.

Come to think of it, I had cheese issues in Jamaica as well. I always took my cheese with me from home because the idea of cheese in a tin was odd to me. What was odder was the fact that the cheese did not melt. I mean, you put that crap in the oven and unlike regular, normal cheese, this stuff did not really get gooey and stringy under heat. How could I eat that?

And as I am talking about national differences, from product placement to cheese, just a quick note on language as well. A man today told me I did not sound like a Trini. I am not sure which Trini he was comparing me to but I can assure you, my accent is very Trini. This is the thing - we all don't sound the same, buddy. Depending on where you live and your education, your accent is bound to be a bit different. This is not rocket science. All Brits don't sound the same either. My Greek professor pointed this out earlier this week when someone said the word "computer" as "compu-ah". He was a bit flabbergasted in that way he gets flabbergasted. I thought it was hilarious because though not sure how that accent would be classified by location, the omission of the "t" sound here in the land of English, is a great source of amusement for me.

Boh-uhl - bottle
Wha - what
Keh-uhl - kettle
Compu-ah - computer

Hilarious. Jamaicans have swapped the "h" sounds so that where there is an "h", there is no sound, and where there is no "h", there is the sound.

Onda - Honda
Hunder - under

Trinis often use the word "does" where it does not need to be, and they know better but it's part of the dialect.

I does tell him - I tell him
I does do it - I do it

But not all Brits say compu-ah, not all Jamaicans do weird things with the letter "h" and not all Trinis use double verbs. So when this bright and farse man tells me today I do not sound like a Trini, and mind you, he is not a Trini, I had to ask him when was the last time he went to Trinidad. This was in direct contrast to the Bajan lady in the poultry and meat aisle who asked me something about the price of a pack of wings and upon hearing my accent - "You from Trinidad? You would know that accent anywhere, girl".

Silly man.

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Black is Beautiful, Vybz Kartel. Orange is for sundresses.

I really loathe statistics. I am being forced to do stats over these 2 weeks - all day, every day, for 2 weeks. Whose squirrel did I run over in a past life? I will not even fake it. I hate statistics. I will not pretend to be a good sport about it. I just hate it.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, I really wanted to say something briefly about Vybz Kartel. For the non-Caribbean readers, Mr Kartel is a popular dancehall artiste from Jamaica who has recently been in the news, not for his music but for his appearance. Why? Well, he used to look like this - nice, unspoilt, sexy chocolate brown skin...

Now he looks like this -

I mean, the dude was not God's gift to women before, but now he is simply heinous. The phenomenon of bleaching in Jamaica, where black people feel some deep desire to apply bleaching products to their skin to lighten their appearance does not seem to be going away. With the transformation of Vybz Kartel from a healthy looking, not too bad looking chocolate coloured man, to this Frankenstein looking creature, I am really saddened that so many black people turn to such silly measures to try to keep up with European standards of beauty.

Vybz, in his interview on a radio station said he was not trying to distance himself from being a black man, but rather - and this really amused me - it's a "style". He said he put in orthodontic braces not because he needed them but because it was a style, and in the same way, he has been turning orange because it is a fashion statement. Vybz - a fashion statement is a pair of hot jeans, a new piece of bling, maybe some new shoes. Bleach is not a fashion statement. It's just being dotish. He went on to comment that he needed to highlight his numerous tattoos which were hard to see on the skin God blessed him with, so he just had to bleach so the world could see his artwork. Amazing.

The horrible thing about this is that he is a public figure in Jamaica and contrary to what he believes, people emulate him and people like him. So when he does this to himself, for whatever reason, he is simply propagating the belief that light skin, or in this case, nasty looking orange skin, is hip, happening and beautiful. I am even more disturbed that this gentleman is going to bring out his own line of "cake soap" - bleaching soap. So what are you telling young people about being black in this world?

It's the same issues I have with women who live by the frickin' weave. I call them the rebound weavers - women who cannot live without a weave; who jump from weave to weave; whose between-weave periods last less than 12 hours; who feel their beauty is somehow not enhanced when they are not wearing fake hair. Nutters. I have no problem with a black woman who wants to wear a weave or braids or what have you, for a new look, or as Vybz says, as a "fashion statement". Hell, I have two awesome wigs that I bust out when I feel the need to vamp it up. I love my wigs. I paid good money for my wigs.

But when noone can remember what you look like without fake hair sewn on to your head, or you get offended when someone else points out your weave to people who may not know, for example, white people, then I have a serious issue with this. What are you afraid of, or are you so consumed (and confused) by this image of beauty - of long, flowing hair around your shoulders, no matter whose head it came from, that you cannot fathom walking the street with your short natural hair. I remember how annoyed a friend - a male friend - was when I did a weave - seriously un-im-pressed.  Some men really find it unattractive, not to mention a form of false advertising. It can also be the butt of jokes, ridicule and disgust when you wear a weave. And though I have never been in one, let's not mention getting into fights with women - the first thing they go for in any scenario is the hair, so imagine wearing a weave in a catfight, and worse being in a catfight with dozens of onlookers. The shame. lol. These are among the many reasons, why I do not "ride or die" with the whole weave thing. Take me as I come, buddy. A dude told me this week, he does not date women who wear glasses. If that is the best he can come up with, then me and my $4000 glasses will be alright.

But I am really concerned that black people are questioning the beauty that they have. I see so many people running to the Caribbean to lie on a beach all day to darken their skin, while people like Vbyz "is a style" Kartel is destroying his beautiful brown skin with cake soap. And then you have the Naomi Campbells and Hollywood's black fashionistas who encourage little girls to want a weave for that straight haired look - the "good hair" look. This is a whole other argument which I know I had discussed on another forum, and this is all getting me rather pissed off, so I will stop.

And while I like to cast my eye on  a nice red man, this ain't it, Vybz. I would really like to know if there is any woman in her right mind who will now watch this orange, crusty looking Vybz Kartel and want to be seen with him. I am also curious - did he bleach everything????? I know the saying is once you go black, you never go back, but what do they say about once you go orange? I am really not willing to find out.

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Sleep Deprivation, Cultural Distance and Observational Analysis

I got 3 hours sleep last night, trying to do this now infamous essay, and there are two occasions when one should really not try to talk to me

1. When I am hungry
2. When I am sleep deprived

I was really not in the mood for crap today. Frickin' bus took zonks to get to the bus stop this morning and I wondered if the bus driver in his nice warm bus, with his coat and hat thought about me standing there in the biting 6am cold waiting for his late ass. Or whether he thought him being late and thus causing me to miss my train would be fun.

The day went downhill after that.

But after a crap day at school, which included going to a session that was absolutely pointless and which was the reason I was up in the dead of morning on one of the 2 days I have late classes, I was tired. I thus decided I had had enough of the train and watching frumpy, tight lipped white people, so I decided to take the bus with loud, often strangely unique black people.

What an error of judgement. You would think after the bus adventure this morning, I would have learnt my lesson but I was too tired to do all the walking for this train and the bus was the solution to laziness. I also was significantly grossed out by the dude this morning who sneezed a nasty, grimy, phlegm-coated sounding sneeze into his left hand and then grabbed the handlebar with the germy hand. I had had enough.

But the bus comes with its own issues. It takes eons to get to your destination for one and then it's always a crap shoot for a seat. Then the buses in this area get the weirdest people. The Jamaican lady next to me was having a highly animated phone call about her dislike for England. As she wrapped up her call she turns to me...lucky me.

Woman: You ah like Hinglan'? (translation: do you like England?"
Me: (to self: whyyyyyyyy is this woman talking to me??) It's okay.
Woman: Me nah like it. People inna dis country too nasty. Dem too nasty, man. And dem cyah dress.

This elicited a snicker from the rotund woman next to me and a smile from the Jamaican herself as she believed she had found a sisterhood. I agree - some of the people here are beyond frickin' nasty. I cringe every time I have to sit on the train or the bus for fear that I am sitting on dried piss or vomit. As for the fashion, it's often entertaining, let's just put it like that. But I was not prepared to have a bonding session with this mad woman either.

Then after almost an hour on this rahtid bus, it burned my socks when this driver announced that we would have to get off the bus and wait for the bus behind us. In the cold. WTF! I watched as the poor pregnant lady with her pull along with the wheel that constantly fell off, shivered in the 4.55 pm breeze as this wicked man put us off his bus.

And another thing - I am Trini and love my Trini-ness and by way of a good education and self-esteem, my accent is one of those that can easily be recognised and understood. I think if you're coming into another country where your thick accent may not be the most understood, oh gosh....learn to say a couple phrases in an intelligible fashion. So for example, if you are...oh let's say...a bus driver and you have to pelt people off your bus, learn to say it in the Queen's English nah man. I heard the man speaking and at first I did not know what the hell he was saying as he said it in the thickest, duttiest Jamaican accent I had ever heard in my life. This is saying a lot as I have lived in Jamaica myself. I had to ask the lady next to me what the man said. The same goes to you Mr Indian storeman and Mr Pakistani fruit man. Please...practise some phrases. Help a sista. lol.

I have 2 last observations today

1. I passed a place called Zeki's Chicken, and the sign on the window said ALL DAY BREAKFAST. How is this even possible??

2. Is there some kinda law in London that says children must be in a stroller until they marry? I cannot understand why these gigantic children, i.e. children who can run, let alone walk, are still being pushed by tired mothers and fathers in a stroller. The children are ginormous! Can't they walk? What's the deal here?

Woo...needed to get this all off my chest. England play some little foolish nation tonight so that means the house will be filled with loud men, distracting me from my essay. The library started its 24 hour service on Sunday so I guess it will be an even earlier morning for me tomorrow to make up for the noise and revelry or sorrow as the case may be, tonight.

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Dudus and Gas in 1999

During the drinks interval (yes, I am a sucker for punishment, cause I am still listening to WI cricket on my way home), the news update reported that the students at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies were safe but scared. Boy, did that bring back memories.

I was in my first year in this place when they decided to shoot up the place after then PM, PJ Patterson raised gas prices. The sounds of helicopters over campus and the distant sound of gunshots were our bedtime music. I was not scared as I was a tad bit worried - there was grave uncertainty about what would happen to us on campus - smack dab in the middle of the uprising it seemed. The privileged middle class students, some from islands that had never experienced protests and upheaval quite like this. I had lived through a coup in 1990, with the real fear of losing close family members in the security forces. But still, enduring something like that, with all your aunties and cousins at your side, and facing a foreign battle in a foreign country with noone but other foreign students at your side was different. I remember someone calling TV6 and telling them we wanted to come home, and my poor frantic mother trying her best to get through to the dorms to make sure her girl chile was alive - and then of course the inevitable I dunno why you could not stay St Augustine to study (local campus). But we survived.

What stands out was when the Guild decided to show their solidarity with the people and march with them, and called on us students to rally behind them. To me, this was not my battle to wage. I had been in the country less than a year and I did not think I should have taken my good self into the streets of Kingston to be tear gassed - something I would not have necessarily done had I stayed at St Augustine. The other non-Jamaican students felt the same way and this created loads of tension on the block and for a while, battle lines were drawn - us vs them. I could hear my mother in my mind "I did not send you there to march" and I honestly did not feel that was the place for me. Looking back, would I make the same choice? Yes. I did not feel a sense of ownership  - I empathised but I did not want to lend my support in that way. But I respected their valiant, albeit violent, stand against what they saw as oppression and total lack of consultation, and PJ had no choice but to bow to the pressure.

That was then, this is now. I highly doubt that the students of the UWI are showing solidarity this time, for Dudus - an international drug superstar. But the uncertainty surely must be the same, or worse.

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