Didn't have lice.
Anyways, got a letter from mom this morning. Apparantly, my father's been asked to clip our neighbours' holy tree. The neighbours are getting ready to have a prayer meeting, and the head of the family is a bit too old, I suppose to do it himself, so he asks me 60 something year old father to do it instead.
Kinda cool. Our neighbours are Hindu, we aren't. But that's just how life looks on the island. I'd like to remember that the festival of Lights was a special time, when we got bags of kurma channa and other such sweets whose names slip my mind, and that I was allowed to light a deya or two if I hadn't eaten meat that day.
memories of seeing a million lit deyas - (saucer like and made of clay) - trying to make them myself out of clay and water, and watching them fall apart in the midday sun - buying rosaries for their beauty and classmates' envy rather than their intended purpose - the catholic church up on harris promenade and dipping fingers in the holy water - wanting to be like everyone else and solemnly stride up to the alter to receive communion - wanting to be like none of them and siding with the hindu girl who thought school mass at Harris Promenade would damn her forever - watching Phagwa where brown skinned children would laugh and spray purple and pink paint on each other - falling alseep to the lullabyes of the Baptists at the YMCA down the street- eating pelau under the coconut trees up by Maracas Bay - seeing the Northern Range and Port of Spain emerge slowly as we flew down the seemingly endless expanse of highways on our way up north - all of these religious experiences.
And most religious of them all - watching television.
huh.
You should read Miguel Street by Naipaul if you haven't.
Kinda cool. Our neighbours are Hindu, we aren't. But that's just how life looks on the island. I'd like to remember that the festival of Lights was a special time, when we got bags of kurma channa and other such sweets whose names slip my mind, and that I was allowed to light a deya or two if I hadn't eaten meat that day.
memories of seeing a million lit deyas - (saucer like and made of clay) - trying to make them myself out of clay and water, and watching them fall apart in the midday sun - buying rosaries for their beauty and classmates' envy rather than their intended purpose - the catholic church up on harris promenade and dipping fingers in the holy water - wanting to be like everyone else and solemnly stride up to the alter to receive communion - wanting to be like none of them and siding with the hindu girl who thought school mass at Harris Promenade would damn her forever - watching Phagwa where brown skinned children would laugh and spray purple and pink paint on each other - falling alseep to the lullabyes of the Baptists at the YMCA down the street- eating pelau under the coconut trees up by Maracas Bay - seeing the Northern Range and Port of Spain emerge slowly as we flew down the seemingly endless expanse of highways on our way up north - all of these religious experiences.
And most religious of them all - watching television.
huh.
You should read Miguel Street by Naipaul if you haven't.
