So Your Character is … series is where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I’m hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven’t checked out last time’s So Your Character is from Iraq… be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!
Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally or politically shocking to some. Each of these posts is as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.
(None of the Images are Mine)
Lisa Allen-Agostini is a writer, editor, and feminist stand-up comedian from Trinidad and Tobago. She’s the author of The Bread the Devil Knead (domestic noir, forthcoming in May from Myriad Editions UK), Home Home (YA; Delacorte Press [North American edition] and Papillote Press [UK and Caribbean edition]), The Chalice Project (YA sci-fi, Macmillan Caribbean) and Swallowing the Sky (poetry, Cane Arrow Press), and she co-edited the crime fiction anthology Trinidad Noir (Akashic Books). She is half of the comedy duo FemComTT and co-hosts a FB Live, The Givin’ Trouble Show, twice a week. Lisa lives outside of Port of Spain, Trinidad, with her husband, two dogs, and a cat. She’s a vocal Jesus freak.
What do you feel is unique to your country? Landmarks? Celebrations?
If you’ve heard of Tobago, it’s probably as a Caribbean paradise holiday destination with white sands and lush forest reserves. If you’ve heard of Trinidad, it’s probably either as a major global supplier of oil and natural gas or as the home of Carnival. Carnival is a two-day annual spring festival that is crucial to our national identity. It’s canceled in 2021because of COVID-19. Carnival includes a lot of parties, and competitions in the national musical instrument, pan, and the musical artforms calypso and soca. Carnival culminates in a two-day costumed street parade.
We have a lot of festivals. For example, Divali, a Hindu religious festival, is celebrated here across the country with little clay lamps called deyas lit in homes and public spaces in often dazzling displays. We’re a multi-ethnic nation. Elements of our culture come from the indigenous Caribbean people who lived here before Columbus came (and whom he almost exterminated), as well as the Spanish, French and British colonizers (Tobago also had significant Dutch settlements). African chattel slavery was instituted here for hundreds of years and when it was abolished the colonists imported Chinese, Portuguese and Indian labour to replace it. Throw in some Middle Eastern immigrants and Venezuelan refugees and voila! You have Trinidad and Tobago. There’s no other peaceful country on earth with such ethnic and religious diversity.
Tell me about your country’s environment. What are some of your favorite places?
We call Trinidad and Tobago a “twin-island nation,” but Trinidad is bigger than Tobago by far. Trinidad’s economy is mainly industrial and business-based with a high reliance on oil and gas; Tobago’s economy is mainly dependent on tourism. Despite the nickname, there are about 21 other islands in the nation and some of them are great holiday spots. The natural environment is breathtaking, as you’d expect from a tropical location. White sand and black sand beaches, deep tropical rainforests, and small waterfalls characterize some of the tourist attractions of Tobago, along with a spectacular reef.
There’s a Pitch Lake in Trinidad, a huge semi-solid bed of asphalt that blooms with water hyacinths when the rains collect. Sir Walter Raleigh caulked his ships there hundreds of years ago. Trinidad is pretty built up and some of my favorite places are in the capital city Port of Spain, like the National Library, a stunning modern building, and the Queen’s Park Savannah, a massive green space surrounded by extravagant colonial-era mansions called The Magnificent Seven.
Tell me about your country’s food. What are some of your favorite dishes?
With so many different ethnicities adding to the pot the food in Trinidad and Tobago is very diverse—and spicy! Chinese, Arabic, Venezuelan, and US fast food are ubiquitous here. The most popular national dishes tend to either come from our African or Indian influences. Our roti is a Trinidadian take on the well-known Indian bread but it’s not like the roti you know from any other city. Doubles, an Indian-influenced fried-bread and garbanzo bean sandwich with a variety of condiments is my favorite street food.
I also love callaloo, a peppery soup made with dasheen (taro) greens and okra simmered in coconut milk. Jamaicans make a dish named callaloo but it’s not the same. At Christmas, Trinidadians make pastelles, which are like flattened tamales wrapped in banana leaves and steamed.
Tell me about any different speech patterns in your country. Slang? Idioms? Words for things such as “biscuits” instead of “cookies”?
Trinidad and Tobago Creole is spoken by most of the country’s people. It’s nominally English-based but many of the grammatical features and much of the vocabulary are taken from Romance, African and Indian languages. If someone is ungrateful, he’s “neemakharam” (a portmanteau of Bhojpuri and Hindi words). A fool is a “beh-beh” (a Hausa word) and an older woman is a “Tantie” (a French word for aunt). “How much years you have?” is an old-fashioned Trini way to ask someone’s age, just like in Spanish. Two expressions you should know are “ent” and “me’en know”. Ent is like the British slang word “innit”. Me’en know is “I don’t know.” (For more Trini words, check out my comedy video series Say it Like a Trini on YouTube.)
Describe briefly a regular day in your country.
Because we’re close to the Equator, days and nights are about the same length. Sunrise is around six am and the day quickly becomes bright and hot. Average temperatures are between 85—90 degrees F. On workdays in the Before Time the roads and highways would be jammed with traffic from six to eight with kids going to school or university and adults going to work. The government is the biggest employer but there are also many entrepreneurs.
In South Trinidad, where most of the oil and gas are found, the economy revolves around multinational corporations and offshore drilling rigs. In rural areas, there are still fruit, vegetable, cow, and goat farms. (And a lot of illegal marijuana farms.) Many men still go to sea on small boats called pirogues to fish (called “fishning”). We have a significant Muslim population, so Friday afternoons you’ll see people in kurtas and hijabs going to Juma. Sundays you’ll see a lot of people dressed up for church. Everybody limes. To “lime” is to relax with friends, talking, eating and drinking together.
How does your country compare to others, especially the States since my audience is primarily American? Environmentally? Politically? Culturally?
Trinidad and Tobago is a fairly conservative democracy, with a strong religious base. However, there are many contradictions. It’s a notable transshipment point for drugs coming from Latin America and there’s a consequential crime problem. Carnival is all about “wining” (a sexually-provocative hip rotation—I wrote an essay about it in Caribbean Beat magazine if you want to find out more). LGBTQI+ folks live here mostly in peace, but the culture overall does not support openly queer or trans people and it’s only been three years since a landmark court case, Jones v Trinidad & Tobago, opened the possibility that queer sex should be decriminalized. Marijuana was decriminalized two years ago but it’s not legal to smoke in public. Expect delays in almost everything. “Trinidad time” is a gentle way of expressing that we are a laid-back people and not great at keeping schedules.
Briefly describe three of your country’s historical events that you feel are important.
The most important event in our history is our inclusion in the triangular trade—in which European slavers exported kidnapped enslaved people from Africa to the Americas, carried natural resources back to Europe to be processed into manufactured goods, and exported the processed goods to Africa and the New World. It laid the bedrock for a society that was highly stratified by color and class and soaked in brutality. But it also opened the door to the first really globalized modern society. The institution of Indian Indentureship after the end of chattel slavery was also significant. Colonists pitted the Indians against the freed Africans and that rift is still evident today in our political landscape. Independence from Britain came in 1962 and was another very key moment for our country. The founding Prime Minister Dr. Eric Williams famously said that now there’s no “Mother India” or “Mother Africa”, only “Mother Trinidad and Tobago”.
What are some stereotypes about your country that irk you? What media portrays your country badly be it a movie, a book, or a TV show?
Trinidad and Tobago are not in Jamaica. We don’t talk or behave like Jamaicans. It irritates me every time I hear an actor play a Trini with a fake Jamaican accent.
What media portrays your country well be it a movie, a book, or a TV show?
There’s a great soap opera called Westwood Park, which is a lot of fun. Of course, it’s a soap so it’s not exactly reality, but it’s very entertaining and very Trini, made by TT filmmaker Danielle Dieffenthaller. If you want a clear-eyed look at some of our political and social realities, I’d recommend the Vice News documentary Corruption, Cocaine and Murder in Trinidad. But Trinidad and Tobago is not all guns, drugs, and bribes. Calypso Rose: Lioness of the Jungle is a profile of one of our cultural icons and it speaks volumes about our creativity, passion, and resilience.
Who are your top three favorite fictional characters native to your country in books, movies, or shows?
Some of my favourite Trini characters include Aldrick, the anti-hero of Earl Lovelace’s powerful novel The Dragon Can’t Dance. He’s an artist and a cultural hero faltering as the world changes around him. In Samuel Selvon’s novel The Lonely Londoners, the main character Moses is a tricksy Trini trying to make it in the big, cold city, half holding on to his Trini roots and half embracing the metropole. In the film, director Michael Mooledhar’s recent adaptation of Michael Anthony’s classic novel Green Days by the River features a menacing antagonist called Mr. Girdharee, who’s all smiles on the surface but really coldly protective of his daughter, whom the protagonist is eventually forced into marrying.
Are you interested in participating in this project? Check out the tips archive to see which countries have been filled and if you’re from a different country, shoot me an email at howellvictoriagrace(a)gmail(dot)com. I’m especially looking for Cuba, Croatia, Belarus, Zimbabwe, and Laos.
[…] a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven’t checked out last time’s So Your Character is from Trinidad and Tobago… be sure to hop on over there and give it a […]
This sounds like such a gorgeous place! Thank you so much for sharing about your home, Lisa! I loved reading about it. <3
Thanks so much for commenting!