There is “Courage the cowardly
dog” and then there is “sand”
which also means “courage”,
“stamina” or “perseverance”.
One example, which comes from Mark
Twain, is, “She had more sand in her than
any girl I ever see; in my opinion she was
just full of sand.”
Many of us who grew up in the rural
villages of Trinidad which are mainly
populated by people of East Indian descent
and then went to city schools or moved
to towns in the oil industry where the racial
balance is different, had an especially
hard time.
The impact of indentured Indian immigration
on the employment prospects
of the freed African slaves, and the British
policy of divide and conquer, stirred up racial
animosity that still survives and, some
would say, thrives today in the politics of
Trinidad and Tobago.
What is called the “N” word was more
common even among people of African
descent and to be called an “Old N…” by
people of African descent was the ultimate
stigma assigned to those who were “ignorant”
or forever guilty of uncouth behaviour.
The term was not applied only to people
of African descent and since I was neither
couth nor cute, being a badly behaved and
foul-mouthed brat when out of the view
and earshot of my parents, it was not long
before I was permanently labelled an “Old
N…” by the people in the town of Siparia.
We had left the sugar-cane and ricefields
of the village of Carapichaima for
the oil-town of Siparia where my father
tried to combine truck-driving with selling
and consuming alcohol. They were not a
particularly auspicious combination.
In my case, the honour of being an “Old
N…” was bestowed on me by my newly
found friends in the community of Cassava
Alley, later known as Peyton Place after
the Grace Metalious book and movie which
dealt, as Wikipedia says, with incest, abortion,
adultery, lust and murder.
To that list we added stealing, assault,
battery, gambling and various other petty
crimes and misdemeanours, including
harbouring people who were wanted by
the police.
Our reputation in the village was therefore
not unwarranted. In fact, the captain
of our cricket and football team boasted,
“All my convictions are for wounding.”
In the US, our community of Peyton
Place consisting of a huge tract of small
buildings in various states of disrepair
marked by tracks in the sand, would be
considered to be “on the wrong side of the
tracks”.
In Siparia, we were on the wrong side
of the Savannah or, as we called it,
the “sand-vannah.” Some geological
quirk had made Siparia a zone of
sand surrounded by the sticky, black clay
we called “sappatay” dirt with some areas
of red clay interspersed.
There is the story of Miss Popelee, a
shrewd old Indian woman, who suggested
to us that a piece of unused land that she
had could make a good cricket ground if
cleared.
When the boys had got rid of the bush
and went to fetch the red clay which was
used throughout Trinidad for cricket
pitches, Miss Popelee declared angrily,
“Corn can’t grow on red dirt!” And so, “amaize-
ingly” ended our field of dreams.
On the other side of the Savannah from
us was the town. I had come to Siparia or
“Sand City” from the ironically named
“Picadilly” EC School in East Dry River or
the wrong side of the Port of Spain tracks
(“behind the bridge” as the area is known).
Going to the school there was an education
that helped me survive my early days
in Siparia. Later, I was the only person
from Peyton Place to have got a Higher
School Certificate (Advanced Levels) and
ended up teaching English, History and
Geography in the neighbourhood high
school.
I was almost the same age as some of
my students. Because I lived nearby I became,
by default, the school’s sports “master”
and my duties included coaching and
managing football, cricket, athletics and,
because none of the female teachers were
sportspeople, netball. One of the girls on
the team is now Prime Minister of Trinidad
and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar,
who later married another student, Gregory
Bissessar.
In thinking about those days I realise
how much Siparia did for both of us. It was
a place where eventually people accepted
you for yourself. You had to have sand in
the Sand City.
It was a constant fight for recognition
and respect and had to be earned.
Acceptability was the only reward and
it was always hard-fought.
The young people in the school, even
though it was a Presbyterian or denominational
school, were of many different
races, religions and hues. While the rest of
Trinidad is still a tossed salad, the school
was a true melting pot. I no longer involve
myself in politics but I continue to see in
the personality of the Prime Minister the
ethos of the town I still think of as home.
Kamla’s mother ran a bar which
my father and then my friends
and I frequented. This common
touch, pragmatism and the ability
to translate as well as transcend the environment
is something that we could only
have got from Siparia.
Netball is a rough sport and recently
when my younger daughter, Jasmine, who
runs, swims and plays basketball, had to
take part in an inter-house netball match
in her Antiguan school, she found that out.
She came home with scratches complaining
of being cuffed, shoved and bounced as
well.
We had some tough girls on our Siparia
team and even tougher ones on the opposing
teams and I thought the slimly built
child would have given up.
She had come from Penal, a predominantly
East Indian community, but in Siparia
she had got sand in her shoes, craw
and veins.
She never gave up and actually delighted
in the rough-and-tumble. Clearly, had I
been astute enough, I would have realised
that she was destined for a successful career
in politics.
• Tony Deyal was last seen repeating a
Margaret Thatcher one-liner: “If my critics saw
me walking over the Thames they would say it
was because I couldn’t swim.”