Pearls before swine

When I wake up early in the morning, I get up sleepily from my very comfortable bed in a room cooled by a struggling fan, open my curtains to let in the morning sun, look at all the beauty outside, and think to myself how happy and grateful I am that I live in Trinidad. Everything is so beautiful and green (well... once it’s not burning in the dry season), tall mountains tower over the valley, hot sun, cool breezes, birds singing, lizards scurrying around, coconut trees... I look around and think to myself, “What a perfect place to live!” But once I get dressed and leave my house to go to work, reality sinks in once again, as it always does. On the ride to work I see a man on the side of the road light a cigarette and toss the empty cigarette box in the drain, which is also full of Chubby bottles, plastic wrappers, and a variety of litter. I see garbage piled up high, with dogs ripping open the bags and dragging dirty diapers into the road.

I see people ignorantly park their cars on the road in front the parlour — even though there is a car park right in front of them — but no, Trinis don’t like to use car parks, they like to park in the road, not even caring that they are holding up traffic for over a dozen drivers trying to go to work. The car I drive behind throws more garbage out the window, and then immediately stops to pick up a passenger, causing me to almost ram into their bumper, and my blood pressure rises violently as I growl profanities under my breath. That’s when I remember the lyrics of Bob Marley... “Think you’re in heaven, but you’re living in hell.”  This might sound very unpatriotic of me, as this is my homeland, and I love my homeland, but these days, more and more I have been thinking to myself that Trinidad truly would be heaven... if it wasn’t for all the damn Trinis.

Think about what a utopia Trinidad would be if Trinis had a different attitude towards life. People may laugh at the “Fix Me First” campaign, but I think the concept is a good one. If the average citizen doesn’t even have a kind of consciousness about personal responsibility, and if we can’t even do something simple like choose not to throw garbage out the window, it is no wonder that Trinis can’t even recognise the difference between right and wrong — or if they do, they are simply too lazy, or perhaps too ignorant, or too indifferent to try and be good citizens. You may say that a person parking on the road obstructing traffic is “no big deal,” that it is just a “Trini thing,” but the tolerance and acceptance of the wrong thing has become a way of life in Trinidad. It opens the flood gates for the tolerance and acceptance of a variety of other “little” things that over the generations have been making Trinidad a country of chaos.

Littering, for example, is something that drives me positively batty. I get so boiling mad when someone tosses garbage out of a car, or drops it on the ground where they are standing, it makes me want to stop the car, pick up the garbage and toss it back in their face. But things to me that are blatantly unacceptable, to others don’t even warrant a single second’s consideration. Don’t get me wrong — I can definitely appreciate a certain level of “freeness” that we have here. For example, did you know that in most “First World” countries, such as Canada, by law you cannot sit on your own front lawn and drink a beer or have open alcohol in public? Or that a party has to close down by 2 am? Those are the kinds of rules that make countries like Canada very orderly... but also a little boring.

I can’t imagine not being able to enjoy a Stag on Maracas beach. I can’t imagine having to show ID every time I buy alcohol. And I can’t imagine leaving a fete at 2 am — heck, de party now start! But where do you draw the line? We as a people have problems — nobody can deny that. Trinis everywhere seem to have lost all sense of moral duty, of national consciousness, of a responsibility for their actions. “I could do what I like” is every Trini’s mentality, so do what you want regardless of how it affects others, because really all we care about is ourselves. So go ahead, make fun of the “Fix Me First” campaign, but I think they are damn right. Consciousness begins small — the decision to stop littering, to obey the rules of the road, to have some consideration for your fellow citizens and for your environment, and to teach these things to the next generation. It’s really not that hard! Are we that lazy? Apparently. Do we like freeness of Trini culture? Of course. But guess what people — all this freeness is killing we!

Take alcohol for example. We love to drink and drive, but in the last few years I’ve been to far too many funerals for people under the age of 30 who have died on the roads. Why are we proud of the fact that Trinis don’t even know what the legal drinking age is in this country? We all depend on the police to turn a blind eye when we break laws, so how will we ever respect bigger ones? I don’t mean to bash all Trinis. Of course there are bad ones and good ones, as there will be anywhere in the world. All I know is that whoever or whatever created this earth threw pearls before swine, because one day when all our forests are burnt down from slash and burn, and our beaches are full of sewage, and our rivers full of styrofoam, maybe one day Trinis will wake up and realise that they have thrown paradise away.