soooo…i got up and watched “40 year old virgin” again (because it was just too funny the night before) while i finished taking down my hair, which took a lot longer than i thought it would. my mom is a BEAST for
braiding my hair.. because it was such a struggle for me to even take down. i ended up having to rush and shower and put on my clothes. when i was ready though, i went to the cultural center where we would be presenting so i could rehearse the poems.
i’m sitting outside.. and about 10 minutes later, everyone else arrives. jermaine, a student on the trip, sits next to me. the others go inside the open lobby and begin talking about how they don’t want to go to pitch lake the next day (which is what we're scheduled to do).. and that if we all agreed that we didn't want to go, they thought we wouldn’t have to go. jessica asks everyone if they want to go and they all say “no”… except for me. because, i want to go. i want to see everything i can see here in trinidad and tobago. i don’t know when i’ll be back here, so i want to see it all. i could see it if i came back to the islands some time in the future, but i already paid for the transportation when i paid for this trip… it’s set up for me to go already… so, why wouldn’t i go? and, i trust kenwyn and lavergne. if they put it on the schedule, it must be worth seeing because everything else on the trip so far has been so awesome to me. also, i’m into geology and took a course over it in undergrad. so, I WANT TO GO. “do you want to go to pitch lake?” my answer is "yes."
immediately after my answer, jermaine gets up and goes not 5 feet away from me and says something like “man.. fuck her.. she always trying to be different from the rest of the group” in a hushed tone. so, i thought about not saying nothing for like… a millisecond (lol)… then i was like .. "uh uh". you're not about to talk crap about me when i’m sitting right here. so, i confronted him. i was like “how am i trying to be different by doing what’s on my schedule?” and he goes from where he’s at in the lobby and steps ALL the way in my face… talking about “you’re fake! you’re as fake as your hair was…!”… and i’m “talking shit about everyone behind their back”… and all this jazz… and you know what it was all over…? my blog! my journal. this little travel blog that you're reading right now! lmao. that’s extra petty. a blog? really? he referred to the day that they left me... now re-read that.. the day that THEY left ME. you know what he didn't like? he didn’t like that i told exactly what happened on my blog. my trip. MY experience. how am i fake for telling EXACTLY what happened? ??? and that’s exactly what i said… i was like “NAME ONE LIE ON THERE… NAME ONE!!!”… could he name one? no. couldn’t name one. couldn’t say anything. couldn’t go from there… and i told everyone that .. i pointed to all of them.. “name one lie? name one lie? name one lie?”. could anyone name one lie i had told? not one. how is it "negative blogging" when i literally recorded what happened? it's bogus.
i’m recording my trip on here… i’m not about to skip anything. this is my personal journal. if you don’t like it, you don’t have to read it. and how is it behind anyone’s back when it’s RIGHT HERE ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB for everybody to read!?? i mean, the entire premise of his argument makes no sense. but we’re living in an illogical world and people get mad when you tell it like it is. the truth hurts. i guess i was supposed to say “i went downstairs and everyone was gone.. and i wasn’t pissed off at all that the people i thought had my back walked right passed my door and left me.” like.. why would i say that when i spent a large part of that day upset..?... why would i set myself up to remember a huge lie?
this blog is about MY experience.. not your ego.. or for anything else. it’s been plenty of things i coulda said… all kinds of things have played a part in other people’s trips (people getting sick.. people falling…).. but i haven’t even mentioned that on here.. cause it’s not really a part of my experience to be mentioning. but if you do something that influences my experience, it's going to find it's way on this blog. it's as simple as that. i'm not going to edit my memory for you. i need to remember exactly who you were.
and he’s yelling out “you have issues… you have issues!” nigga, what issues? you don’t even know me…? like, … not in a “you don’t know the real me” way… i’m talking LITERALLY … i have never been around him at all in my entire life. the things he knows about me can be found on facebook. and i didn’t have any issues when he was trying to dance all over me in tobago. and that's all i have to POST about that.
and i don’t regret putting up that post at all. cause, like i said, i know i’m in this on my own. i’m glad i found out then rather than later. oh.. and did anyone come to my defense? did social rights activists step up when a dude came up in my face.. yelling in my face.. and pushing me with his body? not a soul. really, if i had some true friends and i thought something in my experience would hurt them, i would consider not posting it. but when i got left that day, that let me know i don’t have that here… so i told it like it was. and i will continue to do so without apprehension.
so, after all this… jermaine decides that he was done (maybe he heard himself not making sense). so, i got back to trying to read over my poems. after a while, a woman told us that our presentation will take place in a room in the back of the center. we get there and there are two people there getting music ready. i start chatting with the guy that’s there.. and music is playing.. and he asks me if i had learned the “heel-toe.” i wasn’t sure if we had learned it or not… but i ran across the dance in my research at the library. so, he gets up and he teaches me the “merengue" … and the “heel-toe”. i got the first dance.. however that heel-toe was hard to do. lol. but it was just what i needed to chill out. it was perfect. i can’t thank that man enough. i’m pretty sure he was a blessing (when i checked my phone later, my friend liz had sent me a message out of the blue saying that she was praying that my day was blessed. i love you mama bear!).
so.. our audience of professors and social coordinators arrived… and we put on our little fruity presentation. it was okay. then, they asked us all these random questions.. you know.. “what was your favorite experience..?” blah blah blah… and we gave our answers. blah blah blah. it was interesting to see people’s “i want to go back home and tell everybody i got wasted!” statements turn into “well.. i’m going to take back with me that we are all more similar than we are different..” and all that jazz (and I’M supposed to be the fake one? lol). then, we got to eat some delicious food. like, why is everything here so delicious?! it was curry chicken.. rice… macaroni and cheese… and some green stuff that i’ve eaten so much here but i can never remember the name.. i think it’s called “callaloo”.
after eating, i went back to the room… chilled a bit and then left to go to the opening day of the emancipation day celebration. here in trinidad, they celebrate the ending of slavery in the west indies on the british islands. at the festival, there were lots of booths of food and handmade crafts, clothes and shoes. we made our way to the stage and sat down. while we waited for the show to start, kenwyn introduced us to khurma, these crunchy lightly sweetened sticks. they were like everything else here… DELICIOUS. i had to buy my own bag (3TT$).
the show began with a few words from some of the people on the committee and there were drums and people dancing on stilts. there was lots of color and everyone, even most of the people in the crowd, were dressed in african-inspired clothing. it was something to see. i’ve never been around that many people from the diaspora who are consciously invoking africa. guess who was the first band to play? dayo bejide trio, the band from the memorial service the day before! they were even better than the day before.
next was len “boogsie” sharpe. he played the steel pan and he was amazing! lavergne said he is renowned all over trinidad and tobago for being so good on the steel pan. after having tried to play the steel pan, i had such a deep respect for him because playing the steel pan is extremely difficult. it's so much more difficult than it looks. and, he was going so fast and tapping the notes just right. he was also moving at the same time too. i was really impressed.
last, but not least was "the dynamic something positive african caribbean performance arts company." they were from brooklyn, new york, but their performance was african inspired. it was dynamic.. funny.. sad... just all around incredible. it was so entertaining. i could have watched them for hours.
after their show, there was an intermission so we decided that we’d walk around and wait for the bus to come pick us up. i went to the bathroom (no toilet paper -_-) and when i got back out, apparently they had found or ran into the lead singer from dayo bejide trio. he was really nice. he decided to just “lime” with us for a while. he couldn’t believe that there were more kfcs in trinidad/tobago than in kentucky.. lol. everyone kind of insisted that we were in this groupie-type of situation or something with him. he was cute, but i have an even cuter sweetheart at home already who has completely stolen my heart. i’d be an idiot to go down any path that doesn’t have david at the end of it. what i really wish was that one of my friends was there… (kristen… you know you love accents! and, he played the guitar!). i’ll try to hook him up with kristen before dr.turley steals him. lol.
after strolling around a bit, we left and headed home. the other students pleaded their “not going to pitch lake” case to lavergne and kenwyn who were easily able to persuade them into going. after all that drama earlier... it took lavergne and kenwyn like two minutes to persuade them. after ALLLLLLL that.......[shake my head].
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