1. ARIMA is the Amerindian word for “water”. It was so named as the village was built around a river. 2. AROUCA is based around the word “Arauca”, which is the true name for the so-called Arawak. 3. The adjacent beach, BALANDRA, is named after a type of boat that docked there. 4. BARATARIA is possibly named after a prank involving a fake island of the same name in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. “Barato” itself means cheap. 5. BICHE is named after the French word for “beast” because it was first started off as a settlement for hunters. 6. The settlement was first called Ladies River, but later on a French surveyor named it after the French term for “washer-woman” -BLANCHISSEUSE. 7. When boats were docked in Port-of-Spain, they were carried along the bay to be cleaned. This was called “careening” and so sprang the name CARENAGE. 8. CAURA was based off of an Amerindian word “Cuara” which meaning is lost now. The settlers of Caura were said to be so lazy and secluded that their village never thrived and was left mostly abandoned. A CORRECTION MADE BY A DESCENDANT FROM THE CAURA AREA: Caura ancestors were not lazy. They carried their church brick by brick to the Lopinot Valley. A dam scheduled there was never built and the Government never gave them back their land. 9. When the Spanish sailors arrived at this coast, they noticed many tall cedar trees. And they called it the Spanish word for cedars, CEDROS. 10. CHAGUANAS is named after the group of indigenous peoples that lived there, known as the Chaguanes. Smaller villages in Chaguanas were so named to positively motivate its early settlers - Felicity, Endeavour, Enterprise. 1. You break biche at least once in your lifetime, skipping school or extra lessons to lime in the mall with your friends.
2. If someone noticed a blue-black bruise on your skin, they would tell you that a soucouyant came into your room during the night and sucked your blood. 3. Even if there’s a zebra crossing a few meters away, you will still jaywalk and get angry when cars honk at you. 4. Your teacher asked if you ate ‘parrot bottom’ for breakfast because you couldn’t stop chatting with your friends during classes. 5. You know how to suck sugarcane, pelt mango, make a chickichong kite out of cocoyea broomsticks, flour paste and a copybook page, pitch marbles and play Scooch or Moral with a worn out tennis ball. 6. You used to go by Tantie to buy snacks like pholourie, tambran ball, chili bibi, red mango, suck-a-bag and penna cool. 7. You used to look forward to the July/August vacation because it meant spending hours digging for tiny clam-like chip chip on the beach. 8. You used to run outside whenever you heard the ice cream van’s song or the snowcone man’s bell. 9. You got ‘licks’ or a good ‘cut tail’ because you did something wrong or you talked back to your parents. 10. You would sing sexually explicit soca or dancehall songs but only under your breath whenever your mother or father was present. 11. You watched a Bollywood/Indian movie at least once in your lifetime. 12. You put ketchup, mustard and pepper sauce on pizza. 13. You used to collect a seed called ‘donkey eye’, rub it on the ground or against a concrete wall and sting your friends with it. 14. If you swallowed a seed, no matter how big or small, your parents would tell you that it would grow inside you. 15. A pothound/dustbin terrier was one of the first pets you ever had. 16. If your parents heard a hurricane was coming, they would buy out the grocery’s stock of tinned sardines, Vienna sausages and Crix. 17. You call all nail polish Cutex, all washing up liquid Squeezy and all laundry detergent Breeze. 18. You can make chow with any half-ripe fruit or vegetable. 19. You played cricket or football in the street and had to stop the game to let the traffic pass. 20. For Trinis, going to Tobago was like going to a totally different country; vice versa for Tobagonians. 21. You learned how to ‘wine’, played ‘mas’ at a school ‘jump up’, sang backup for a friend at the school’s calypso competition or decorated a costume even if your parents didn’t let you play Carnival. 22. Whenever you went on a family drive anywhere on the islands, your parents had to stop and say hello to every relative or friend they knew on the way there and back. And you had to eat something or drink a sweet drink at every house. 23. You learned to steups or suck your teeth in disgust even before you came out of your mother’s womb I grew up in Trinidad and Tobago during a time when everyone treated each other like Family. When you always had to speak properly when you were with your parents or adults but could "leh go" with your friends. If someone got you angry, you would tell them "how yuh mudda make yuh" with a variety of cuss words. If your mom found out, she made you wash your mouth with soap. Blue soap, sunlight or carbolic.
If you can't take "fatigue", don't start. Everyone had a nickname. The Chinese boy was "chin"; the African boy was "blacks"; the Indian boy was "lal", the fat kid was "fat boy", the skinny boy was "bones". We went outside to play; we got dirty. We used to bathe in the rain, sometimes by the standpipe. I am yet to find anything as satisfying as a cup of creole chocolate or hot porridge on a rainy day. We went to the river or springs on a hot day. Our fast food was corned beef and rice; sometimes, even hot rice and butter. We ate breadfruit, dasheen, yam, eddoes, cassava, boil corn, roast corn. From the bakery we ate belly full, currants roll, coconut drops, milk cake, pan bread, bun, butter bread and hops bread. We loved bread and condensed milk or hot bread and butter; sometimes red butter. We sucked paradise plum, brittle, kazer ball, dinner mint. We ate bene balls, tollum, chataigne, sugar cake, tamarind ball, tamarind stew, red mango, mango chow, plum chow. We got dirty and we didn't eat fast food....we ate cooked food. We got ice cream from the ice cream man or if mum was in a good mood and had the money, we had homemade ice cream on Sunday. The best was when barberdeen was in season. When mum made cake, we licked the bowl clean. Cassava pone or bread pudding was a treat. Redifusion had two channels. To this day I remember "Portia faces life." We listened to auntie Kay on a Sunday. In later years, if you had a tv, you saw auntie Hazel on twelve and under, you watched Mastana Bahar and an Indian movie on a Sunday afternoon and watched Scouting for Talent on Tuesdays. Panorama was time to be quiet. We loved snow cone on a hot day, preferably with guava syrup and condensed milk. We climbed trees, picked mangoes, Chennette, pommerac, plum, pommecythere; whatever was in season. We suck and ate cane with our bare teeth. We played Simon Says, Red Rover, Mother May I, 1,2,3 Red Light, Hide & Seek, Jacks, Marbles, Tag, Hopscotch, Cars, Checkers, cricket, moral, rounders, pan cup, football; we raced against each other in the street and even played jockey in the canal with a piece of stick. A tennis ball and a good piece of wood was enough to start a cricket game, and if somebody window break, game done. The only time we stayed indoors was when we were sick or as a punishment. If you were sick, it was not uncommon to get a "bush bath" with some "buccano leaf" and whatever bush mum thought would make you better. Castor oil or sena pods during vacation was the worse. The boys flew kites that we had made ourselves; sometimes we made a mad bull and hope it wasn't so big that it took you flying. We made zwill with flour and grounded glass; put razor blades in your kite tail and when you battle, who lost, saw their kites "hi-yo". The first one to reach the kite is the new owner. We drove carts we had made from wood with old bearings for wheels. An old bike wheel with the spokes removed was a toy. Who never tried to get "laglee" from the breadfruit tree to try to catch a semp? There was no bottled water, we drank from the pipe. We walked to the corner store and rode our bikes (if we had one) for hours without a cellphone. We weren't AFRAID OF ANYTHING. If someone had a fight, that's what it was...a fist fight. Kids didn't have guns when I grew up. The street lights were your curfew. School was mandatory. Police used to take you to your school when they find you on the road during school hours. We watched our mouths around our elders because we knew if you DISRESPECTED any grown up you were gonna get it with whatever was close and get a second one when your parents found out...!!! Source: life in TnT as I knew it |
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