Teaching Spaniards how to ‘steups’

“What’s wrong!?” my Spanish friend called out from the room next door. “Is the computer not working?” “No, no pasa nada, (Nothing’s wrong),” I replied hastily. “No te preocupes. (Don’t worry.) The computer is fine.” I was already sorry that I had steupsed so loudly in my friend’s dental workshop. Though a steups was a noise as unfamiliar to her as any Spanish utterance of disgust might be to a Trini or Tobagonian, somehow — perhaps because of its depth and breadth — this steups had not only ruptured the relative quiet of her office place, it had also broken inter-continental language barriers.

Now, I appeared to her, I thought, a loud ingrate, which I was not, for I was more than thankful that I could use a computer without having to pay any Euros to check my e-mail or surf the web. One Euro was nearly eight of my TT dollars, so strong was this continent of colonisers’ currency these days. Three things had changed in Spain with the Euro: I could no longer tell if something was cheap or expensive unless I converted its price into Spain’s former money — the peseta; Spaniards complained continuously that the Euro had brought a steep cost of living; and this, brought the third effect of the introduction of a common coin: Spaniards had become less open-handed. But this one, my friend, was as generous as she had always been and so I thought I might have to explain the steups, particularly since I might need to use the computer again and indeed, because I might be inclined to steups more if I lingered on Newsday’s article read on the website on the PNM Government’s refusal to permit a man as immortal, as large as Nelson Mandela to address its country’s legislature because he was not a sitting head of State.

However, how did one explain such a silly decision by one’s leaders without employing terms such as “Third World” stupidity? I didn’t want to sell myself or my fellow citizens short. Not here in the “developed world.” No way I was going to stab my people in their “developing” backs because of a handful of hapless, undeveloped politicians. But neither was I of any inclination to mimic my leaders’ preposterous posture by repeating the vacuous reasons they had proffered for yet another indefensible  political position. To do this, I would first have to explain that TT Governments thrived on being more Westminster than Westminster; that they were better guided by the letter than by the spirit of any law or convention; that indeed the law was arbitrarily enforced or touted depending on one’s party connections, money, clout; that our leaders became intellectually — not monetarily — bankrupt once they swore on their respective holy books and passed through their ministerial office doors.

How did one confess that such lack of mental currency left the country continuously poorer in mind and spirit or that perhaps the ridiculous decision was made because one’s Prime Minister might be uneasy about being upstaged in the Red House, a place he considered his domain? What words did you use to tell someone from a nation that would accept Mandela in its legislature tomorrow that one’s leaders might have reached their absurd, untenable resolution because the Mandela proposal came from the enemy camp without converting Nelson Mandela into a weapon of mass destruction? My surname was neither Bush, Blair, Rice, Powell nor Rumsfeld. I decided that I would shift the blame for my steups onto Spanish political shoulders, onto Spain’s former government, the now unpopular “Partido Popular” or “Popular Party.” Given the overwhelming disapproval the country’s populace felt towards this group for taking Spain into Iraq, a sound of PP annoyance would not only be well understood, it would be welcome. “It’s just something Rajoy said that has annoyed me,” I told my friend.

Mariano Rajoy was the new leader of the PP and had the day before given a speech in the reconfigured Spanish congress. The topic of the debate was the new socialist Government’s decision to withdraw all Spanish troops from Iraq, forthwith. The truth was that Rajoy had not done such a bad job of trying to defend the indefensible, but this I would never admit, not less than two months after the Madrid bombings, “11M.” Spaniards, even “partidarios” or supporters of the PP felt too betrayed by their former government. Candles were lit and wreaths were laid daily at the main scene of the carnage, Atocha station in southern Madrid. Spain was still a country in mourning. To say anything good of the PP seemed a sin worse than arguing that the more than million of millions spent on the new Piarco airport were justified. “Ah,” she exclaimed. “Rajoy is an idiot.” And thus, was the verbal tide turned away from Caribbean shores. Each of her angry, bitter declarations pounded the backs of present and former PP leaders, her phrases booming like the waves do at Maracas.  All that was missing was the bake and shark.

As I listened to her torrent of rage, I felt my own irritation over the Mandela decision drain away. From TT’s turbulent political waters I was tugged away into what were for me calmer seas, which could neither overwhelm or drown me because in these I chose to wade, not swim. I let myself be carried as far as possible from the TT political horizon, from a Government so careless that it had thrown away an opportunity to let the country hear a real address by a real Statesman, a speech by a man for all seasons and of no price. Soon enough I would return to TT shores and there, I would daily have many reasons for steupsing. In the meantime though, I would smile and I would show my Spanish friend a new, better way to vent her anger toward the PP: I would teach her how to steups.