A Taste Of Trini Christmas

The complex held their annual Christmas party tonight and our neighbor invited me to go with her.  I was excited to be a bit (a bit, mind you) social, and maybe even a bit excited at the prospect of being around members of the opposite sex.

When the Resident Evil Elevator doors opened on the first floor, however, I was in for a shock.  My first thought upon seeing the party-goers was, "Oh my god, I had no idea I was living in a nursing home".

Now, I say this without any judgment.  I knew I was living in an over-40 complex, I just didn't know how over 40 some of my neighbors were.  (One particularly spry man was 92, and there was an impressively-103-year-old woman there, too)  Not only that, but the vast majority of the party-goers were women.  And the vast majority of them were wearing sequins.  And the fact that their sequin-y outfits and short, permed, swept-back coifs made me feel like I was at a party with all my Italian-American aunts, made me realize that people are the same the world over.  I swear.

These sequin-clad ladies taught me something else, too:  You can't pin down the native Trini dialect in one neat little package.  There's the very thick, difficult to understand, slang-laden dialect that's spoken, in my limited experience, by African Trinis.  And then there's the more British-sounding dialect spoken, again in my limited experience, by the Indian Trinis.  I mean, it makes sense that an entire country couldn't be so easily homogenized, especially a country that, over the course of its long history, fell under the purview of so many other countries before gaining independence (Spain, France, Britain and the Netherlands, to name a few).  But it was still a good lesson for me.

Today's Impressions of Christmas in Trinidad:

Parang music:  nativity songs usually sung in Spanish (tonight they were sung in English), performed by a singer, an upright bassist, a mandolin player, a cuatro player, and a percussionist.  The percussionist first played the maracas, then switched to an older version of the steel drum - a set of 3 rows of steel cans, all tuned differently, and played with the same mallets used to play the steel drum.

Poncha Crema:  a dangerously delicious rum-soaked eggnog, with a touch of bitters added to it. 

Pastelle:  a Spanish-influenced cornflour patty filled with ground meat, olives and raisins, and cooked in a banana leaf.  I wasn't too crazy about this.  It didn't taste bad, it just didn't do it for me.

And that might have been the first time I'd tried a native food and not been nuts about it.