Musing

There is a Trinidadian folk tale immortalised by writer Sam Selvon that suggests that any visitor to our islands who eats a piece of the Cascadura (a local fish) will find themselves tied to the country forever. As one who was not born here, I can attest that this twin-island state slowly draws you in, into a bottomless vortex swimming with excess, landscape and people. Pulling on the multiple strands of cultures from all over the world, a Trini language and phrases that sounds lyrical, an unexpected beauty amidst brutality, like the image of a child on a garbage heap backlit by a glorious sky, and providing a base for a talent pouring out of people that is often innate, and not ordered. It's a small place, but it could be a continent given its complexity and its pull. Without fail, every foreigner I have met are loathe to leave, as if they have ingested the magic ascribed to the Cascadura, that impels one to stay here. These columns of musing reflect all this, the brutality, the beauty and the elusive state of this still nascent small island nation in the Caribbean.