The Trinidadian sense of humour is both a blessing and a curse. Regardless of the colour of the citizen in question, the humour is as black as a hearse and as funny as a stab in the back.
Yet, even when you’ve been embarrassed or humiliated by someone you respect or think of as a friend, through the miasma of ridicule and the insatiable desire for revenge, the ridiculous stands out like the big flag the last government put over the National Stadium or the loss suffered by the same government in the last election. While you cannot laugh out loud, you at least grin and shrug.
My father was a Trinidadian through and through. He truly cared for me, but the Trini in him came out like snapshots from a candid camera.
We had driven to the beach and as we hit the sands of Los Iros, I jumped out of the car and headed for the sea. My father called me back. He said drily, “When you dead they bathe you, but they don’t feed you. Eat your food first and then you could go into the water.” No arguing with that.
This is why, when I told one of my Trini friends that I was ill, I expected no sympathy. “What happen? Your sins catch up with you?” he asked.
“In a way,” I explained. “I went as a resource person to a dengue workshop and got a bad case of dengue.”
He laughed, “Is a good thing you didn’t go to a cancer workshop.” Before I could reply, he continued, “But hear this. What you should really do is go to an intelligence workshop and you could take all the politicians in Trinidad with you, even though I doubt that will help.”
It is the Trinidad way. The sympathy comes second to the opportunity to make a joke at your expense or somebody else’s.
“So how you feeling?” he asked. “Not good,” I answered.
“There are four serotypes of dengue and when I had the third one I was in hospital for two weeks on drips, and when I went home I had a relapse and ended up in hospital again for another two weeks. This one is associated with diarrhoea, joint pains, pain behind my eyes, ague fever – it is really bad.”
“Well, don’t take no aspirin for it or Ibuprofen,” he counselled. “Take some rum and mix it with a little lime and honey and you good to go – to the washroom at least if nowhere else.”
The Trini reaction (typically “Ah hear you sick”) was completely different from my friend and former colleague Mike (Dr. Michael Nathan) who was until his recent retirement, the dengue point man for the World Health Organisation (WHO).
He was solicitous: “Oh dear, this sounds rough. I am not a physician but this is pretty typical of dengue, I would say. Plenty of fluids should also include some Coke (or rehydration salts), as well as water if the diarrhoea continues. Your temperature should subside in five to seven days from onset – that is soon.
“Only thing is to look out for signs of severe disease, but this would be unusual so late after onset. These might include a sudden drop in temperature followed by cold and clammy extremities and/or rapid heart beat, weak pulse, lethargy or restlessness, any signs of bleeding, low blood pressure, etc.
“If any of these signs manifest, or temperature, diarrhoea continues for another day or so, get yourself to a doctor without delay just in case of severe dengue (formerly dengue haemorrhagic fever). Hope you are already feeling a bit better. Likely that you will feel tired and weak for quite some days after recovery.”
I had started my presentation to the regional dengue experts at the workshop with my usual attempt at a funny introduction. I referred to one man who was asked to speak on the topic of “Sex” and when called to the rostrum said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure” and then sat down.
He had not told his wife the truth but said he was giving a lecture on “sailing” so that when a friend told his wife how brilliant her husband’s speech was, she was dumbfounded, “That’s really strange,” she commented. “He’s only done it twice. The first time he fell overboard and the second time he almost drowned.”
I then said that the last time I spoke to a similar group I had started with, “I feel like a mosquito in a nudist camp. I know what I have to do but I don’t know where to start.”
Clearly the mosquito spies who came to gather intelligence at the workshop knew where and with whom to start. Maybe I should stop making jokes about them and stick to sex as a safe topic. Even at the risk of falling overboard or drowning, it might be better than how I’m feeling now.
Tony Deyal was last seen saying that someone had drilled a hole in the fence of the same nudist camp to which he was referring and the police are now looking into it.
