COMMESS UNIVERSITY©

An Open letter to:

MY PARDNER WHO COMING UP TO LIVE

IN CANADA.

copyright to the webmistress (yuh ole teef)

 

1ST LETTER

Dear Pardner,

You have everyting? Visa? Money? Place to live? Warm clothes/shoes? Household item? Good. Now I have only one question.

You MAD or what??

Let me take this opportunity to educate you on a few realities of leaving the Caribbean and coming up here to live – a comparative study if you will.

I grew up in Trinidad but I ALWAYS wanted to go away. People from away looked so different and nice and new. I remember when a friend of mines in Form 4 went away to Vancouver for two weeks during August holiday. She came back with a yankie accent and I knew then and there that THIS was how it should be! This was what I wanted too! I remember when various family members from ‘away’ would come home for Christmas or Carnival. They looked so beautiful and always had juicy fruit gum for me. And they ALWAYS had money. I got clothes and shoes that were often too big or too small but I wore them anyway because they came from that mysterious place… "Away". I remember being convinced there were only 3 places away – the continents of England, New York and Canada. Moving to another Caribbean island didn’t count and Venezuela only sent people, nobody actually left here to go there. So when the opportunity came to leave Trinidad, I took it (having no choice helped) – bag and baggage aboard an Air Canada flight.

Reality swiftly set in.

It was October.

Now I know you not totally stupid. You know this place cold, you’ve seen pictures, you even came up for Caribana one year and know how chilly it is in August at night on the lake during the boat ride, even with a few drinks in your head.

The chill of an August night compared to the chill of a January night is like the thrill of Trinidad Carnival and the thrill of Caribana. (Author’s Note: yes I know many of you want to stone me for that but is TRUE! Admit it and stop steupsing nuh?) Another comparison would be a curry Q lime at Maracas and a polish sausage vendor at the corner of Dundas and Yonge. In other words –

IT COLD!!

Now add to this, another indignity. You know how home when it rain hard you could just stay home because chances are it raining by your boss too and he sure as hell isn’t coming into work so why should you? Well up here, even if the heavens open up and dump every kiss mih a…I mean every blinking snow drop on the place you STILL have to get up and go out there, and wait for the bus. When it comes after about 2 hours of stamping your feet and not feeling them, you find everybody pack up in the front and you can’t get on even though it have room in the back. So you wait another hour by which time you can’t feel your whole body. You only standing there wishing you had a hot cup of Ovaltine.

Speaking of drinks.

Hear this nuh. You know you can’t drink here the way you drink there right? Balancing the bottle of Carib lager between your leg while you drive would be frowned on here even if you found out where they sell Carib. (helpful hint: the rum shop here is called LCBO or the Beer Store or the Spirits and Wine store) Running off the road because it spill and nearly bouncing down somebody can bring down the entire justice system on your head. Drinking and driving is a crime as opposed to a right. You may find this hard to believe but liming on the corner with a beer is also against the rules. Even after a hard day’s work – imagine that!

Speaking of bouncing down somebody.

Don’t do it. Don’t even LOOK as if you want to do it. People up here sue for reasons real and imagined and really imagined. Home now if you nudge somebody with your motorcar all you do is lean out the window give he two cuss, he give you back two cuss and all you done. Half the time you probably know the fella or his brother or his cousin friend neighbour but here, the chances are you will bounce down a total stranger. Trouble in the Congo.

First to begin they will fall down and bawl irregardless of how close you actually came to them, then a crowd will gather none of whom will actually SEE anything when the police arrive. If you are charged and chances are you will be because even if the pedestrian was in the middle of Highway 401 at night wearing black you will be wrong. You will now be working for that person for the rest of your life, thanks to the Auto Insurance rules of Away.

Speaking of Insurance.

Buy some. All kinds. Life, Death, Vision, Disability, Auto, Stupidity. You will need it. Home now if Basil come for you, your family chips in and finds the money to turn you out at Clark and Battoo and then bury you in the family plot in Laparouse. There is even money for the wake to buy enough Vat and Guiness for everybody and somebody bound to make pone. Here crappo smoke your pipe. You get funeral bills even before you actually breathe your last. And bills will keep coming even after your great-grandchild have her grandchildren.

Speaking of children.

Don’t have any. Or if you get ketch, only have one. Why? It seems ‘away’ children cost more to have, to raise and to get rid of. You can’t lock the children in the house while you run in the grocery. You can’t make them wait in the yard until you come home from work to let them in the house. You can’t tell them to come by your work to wait so you can all drive home together. You have to get a babysitter. Babysitters are expensive.

You also can’t beat you child up here. (note: home we say it beat but here you have to say corporeal punishment) Remember how your father use to wail your behind if you talk back and then if you don’t talk back he used to ask you if you playing man/woman? Then if you answer he wail your behind some more? Well, you can’t do that here. That same child that you bawl over for 42 hours in labour in hospital and who you feed and clothe can put you in jail for corporeally punishing them. Yes it’s true! They have something here call Children’s Aid who send people in front your door to ask you all your business and if any of the answers don’t suit them BAM! Your child is taken away and people start talking about you and watching you bad eye. Even your family get tongue-tied when they are questioned and all in a sudden you’re by yourself in a mess.

Speaking of family.

You have a lot up here right - and friends too right? Every time they came home you went to pick them up in Piarco and take them around, miss work and even lend them your car when you couldn’t get time off, right? Well, you will find these same family and friends get scarce once you move here. They will wait for you outside the airport terminal because parking dear, drop you off or probably only come inside long enough to see what you bring from home. And for gawd’s sake DON’T ever move!

Speaking of moving.

When I was home we moved a few times. From Port of Spain to Diego Martin to Petit Valley and then back to Port of Spain. I don’t ever remember actually moving - actually packing and loading and unloading and unpacking. It seemed as though we moved intact to the new home and that was that - easy. A set of people came to help and it always turned into a lime. Here now is a different story. The onlyest person to turn up is the fella who lend you the couch and fan when you first moved there and he want it back. And don’t forget, you living on the 2 thousandth floor and have to make ninety nine trips up and down and make sure you leave someone to watch your furnitures downstairs because by the time you turn your back somebody gone with your kitchen table and a box with wares.

No pardner, living up here is not just nice warm powdery snow and endless paycheques. Speaking of paycheques…well…let me leave that for another letter.

I gone for now,

Your macoomeh

cric' crac' monkey break he back