calm confusion

Every lunchtime was like an outing. We would leave the office in search of food, either walking towards Park Street from Henry Street or up towards Living Waters on upper Frederick Street. Any route however, was bong to give us some excitement. The first lunchtime I went to Living Waters Community with a co-worker proved to be the precedent for everyday after. She was small, feisty and would only stop talking long enough to roll her eyes, purse her lips or swing steadily from one hip to the next to illustrate her point. "Let us go to Living Waters Nadine, we can get a good meal and also some spiritual guidance, I feel like you might need some today." "Arrite." We would walk out onto Oxford street and the heat would hit us instantly, melting the cold air from our bodies and causing streams of sweat to leak down our back. "Well yes papa, I could use ah Cokes," she says fanning herself with her open hand like an imaginary fan. I follow suit. We turn left and ...

Not many people know a place in Trinidad called Massahood Junction, but this is where I grew up. If you think Penal and Caroni behind God back then Massahood Junction is God backside. Nestled between the tiny towns of Fyzabad and Siparia, it is a quiet, eerily calm village that is home to a large population of Muslims. My Dad spent all his life there and my mom sister and I lived there until I was 11. It had everything you could possibly need to have a perfectly planned out childhood. A large, dry, crack infested, overgrown cricket ground that doubled as a cow field, a crazy Soucouyant living right next to the cricket ground so you had to close your eyes and run past every evening, a green wooden parlour where you could buy red mango and a dust covered bottle of Wella women's perfume, a few elderly couples that would pelt you with stale hops if you laugh in front their homes, a van to take all the children to school, a Mosque to spend every evening in prayer, a drunk called Office ...

My first vacation was with 3 old ladies, my mom and her youngest brother. I was 4 and we went to Curacao and Aruba and it is the only memory I have before my sister was born. I can remember small patches of scenes like a slide show with black slides every few minutes. The black slides were eventually replaced with the memories of my mom, grandmother, two great aunts and my uncle, all of whom have their own versions of the events. My uncle always called me Nawaw and I would never question why. Then at the age of ten i found out the reason. " We went to this restaurant in Aruba and she was sitting holding the menu over her face hiding from me. The waiter kept touching her curls and when she realised what he was doing she started to flirt with him , batting her eyes and making weird faces. Then the waiter asks her her name... 'Nadine!' 'Can you spell Nadine?' 'yes! N - a -w -a-w!" 'very good!' and since then she was always been Nawaw." My mom has...

From days before I would run around in my blue bikini with the little yellow coconut tree holding my crotch wanting to pee from excitement. Not having yet grown any boobies at the age of 5, my bikini top was always askew, with one triangle tucked neatly in my armpit and the bottom half hiding in my butt-crack. But when it came time to get into the car for the two hours journey to Mayaro, the screaming and stamping would start, not only from me, but from every family member I threw up on in the years passed. I was the tiny ball of vomit no one wanted to hold. Seven cars would head down one behind the other like a funeral procession. The journey was filled with traditions everyone adhered to. We would stop for breakfast that was stored in the trunk of the car my grandmother was in. Roti, curry chicken, bake and salmon and sardines, bake and cheese and any of the million things she loved to cook. After some loud belchin, yawnin and strechin, we would pile back into the cars, never in the ...