I thought it would never happen.  But finally, this week, my husband's village has made the news! Nothing earth shattering, just an article about a narrow and unsafe bridge that seems to be a bit of an accident magnet.  But news nonetheless.  Better yet, my brother-in-law is quoted substantially in the article. So here's a little press for their little village.  Maybe some attention will get them a safer bridge.

My husband was born and raised in a small village in the south of Trinidad called Fifth Company Village.  As far as anyone knows, this tiny village in the tiny country of Trinidad and Tobago had never before made the news.  It's so rural and unknown, that basically everyone he has met since leaving the village for college has found it unbelievably remarkable that he could "make it out" and become a professional in the States, his humble origins unimaginable.  According to the National Library of Trinidad, the village was

"settled in 1816 by the fifth of six companies of Black American soldiers. These were ex-slaves who had helped the British fight during the American war of 1812, and therefore when the British lost the war they could not remain in that country.  Soon after the arrival of Sir Ralph Woodford as Governor of Trinidad in 1813 he petitioned the British for some of these ex-soldiers. For he was appalled to find Trinidad still a wild, forested place and he wanted the soldiers to help in the clearing up of the island."

After the forest was cleared, plantations were established for the production of cocoa, coffee and sugarcane.  While many of these plantations are gone, it is still a rural area.  Fifth Company Village is close enough to South America that from a short drive away to the coast, you can see the shores of Venezuela on a clear day.   

Since many people without Caribbean connections are unfamiliar with Trinidad (at one point, immigration officials in American Samoa asked him to point it out in an atlas, to prove its existence), I'd like to share the little bit that I know about my husband's homeland.  Trinidad and Tobago is one country with two main islands, as you might guess from its name.  Trinidad, which was a British colony until 1962, is perhaps best known for inventing the steel drum and calypso, as well as its bacchanalian Carnival, which I wrote about previously.  It also has an amazing yet underappreciated cuisine, which I have enjoyed learning to cook.  As a legacy from the British, Trinidad boasts one of the best educational systems in the Caribbean, which is a major factor that allowed my husband to escape his humble origins.  

It also is fortunate to have an awful lot of oil; people there are used to seeing pumping jacks among the sugarcane fields and banana groves.  Here's one in my husband's backyard.  Happily for Trinidad but unfortunately for us, their land ownership doesn't extend below ground.

Aside from oil, Trinidad's greatest exports are two Nobel Laureates in Literature: Derek Walcott, who was born in St. Lucia but moved as a young adult to Trinidad, where he still resides part of the time, and V.S. Naipaul.  

Naipaul, whose work is largely focused on diasporas, is well known for distancing himself from his origins in Trinidad, in Chaguanas. Equally eccentric as he is famous, he embodies the phrase, "more English than the English." My husband and I were excited to meet him several years ago when he came to San Francisco to promote his book, Half a Life.  He was wearing a subdued grey striped ascot (yes, so English) and spoke in a posh English accent. My husband brought with him his favorite of Naipaul's novels, A House for Mr. Biswas, which colorfully captures the local color of everyday life in Trinidad.  It was an old, dog-eared paperback edition that he had read while still in high school in Trinidad, and he couldn't wait to get it autographed.  

I came empty handed, and bought a copy of Half a Life.  I was ahead of my husband in line, and attempted to make conversation with Naipaul.  "We are so excited to meet you, Mr. Naipaul," I gushed, with the kind of eagerness that people usually reserve for the likes of Justin Timberlake. "I've read many of your books, and my husband is from Trinidad."

Naipaul looked up from inscribing my book to glance with visible disdain at my husband and his tattered, faded paperback.  He broke from his studied Englishness to chastise my husband in an unexpected Trinidadian accent,"What, you too cheap to buy my new book?"

My husband, who up to this point was silent in his awe, took the insult as encouragement.  "You know, I am so glad to meet you, I really love A House for Mr. Biswas."

To which Naipaul, who had after a second already reverted back to his British reserve, said dismissively, "Carry on."

© 2010 Linda Shiue