Thing to Cry we Laughing... (Life in T&T)

Once again I have had to forego writing a real nice tongue in cheek comic piece to deal with real life in T&T. I had a nice one too you know, something called 'Real Life TV,' a humorous look at what could be if our public figures had their own television shows, starting off with Manohar Ramsaran in ' The Biggest loser,' a one man show about a guy who lost his cushy state job and his membership in another party over an election he will never get to fight, and ending with the exploration hi-jinx of a verbose Parliamentarian skilled at locating lost doors and other missing items of furniture.

And trust me, while that would have been a laugh out loud 'hoot and a half,' when the laughter eventually subsided you and I would have had to return to the reality that there's really nothing that funny about life in Trinidad anymore, not if we're paying attention anyway. A quick snapshot of the news headlines makes the point.

Two young men leave their parent's home to go about young men business and end up dead on a playing field for nothing more than a throw away phone. Another of the poorly planned, ill advised multi-birth pregnancy has died, and still nothing like a policy, a guideline or a law to guard against another such dangerous procedure being attempted in the future 'to get a house.' The Cabinet has approved increasing the budget of an already begun hospital project from almost a billion dollars to a ballooned estimated billion and a half dollars without so much as a real explanation as to what was done with the initial funds allocated so far, or a line by line itemized justification for the additional five hundred million which, by my calculation and knowledge of construction costs could have built almost two separate hospitals all on its own. The Energy Minister is pounding the life out of a story about a billion dollar diesel reselling racket story allegedly being transacted in exchange for untold guns and drugs which, according to him and others is the result of two years of multi-agency investigations at the highest levels, yet for all that all they have been able to accomplish so far is to dig up some repurposed gas station fuel tanks but have not been able to trace their ownership, and have arrested (for all this effort, cost and inter-agency manpower) two 'pour me one' fishermen from Sea Lots.

According to the statistics over the last twenty four hours your life has been in grave, mortal danger on at least three occasions and you knew nothing about it. A crime of opportunity may have had you as its focus and something just as unplanned may have occurred to interfere with your attacker's plans, again, unbeknownst to you. If that crime of opportunity was really a planned enterprise interrupted then you should not breathe easier yet. Your car, your phone, your bag or your wallet may yet cost you your life unless destiny intervenes and your attacker is brought down in a hail of bullets in what we have come to refer to as 'gang activity.' You may even hear about him and his demise on the evening news with no clue as to your connection with the now deceased.

Life is like that in Trinidad now.

A speeding truck being driven by someone's whose driving ability is questionable, yet not by the licensing Officer who 'passed' him for a twenty five hundred 'under the table.' His important text to his child mother while straddling a thousand tons of death hurtling toward you like a freight train or a bullet may have been interrupted by a thousand things, giving him pause to pay attention to his primary responsibility and allowing you to slip past with your life still intact. The numbers for this sort of death are not encouraging, and if you are a creature of habit and drive that same road at that same time everyday, chances are you will eventually encounter our texting truck driver at some point down the road (pun graciously allowed), but today you drove past him without having a clue.

You might have been in line at a supermarket or restaurant to purchase food, and the salmonella tainted produce which was going into your bag or box that was going to squeeze the life out of you at both ends or more was 'questioned' as suspect at the last minute by a low level employee with just enough sense to distinguish between what could 'still sell' and what should be in the garbage. Lucky for you. That we have never had a mass killing due to the systemic failure at providing meaningful oversight and measurable intervention for this sort of thing is plain, dumb luck of the draw, but one day soon we are going to come up craps and this may well be the new sensational subject of the news.

Sometime last night someone in your house woke up to use the bathroom and flicked on a light switch and that was enough to deter the wolves outside your door, sending them in search of less conscious or aware victims. Had you or they awoken fifteen minutes later to find him or them already in your house the outcome could have been much, much different, and your neighbors would have been forced to recall what a gentle soul you used to be.

I really wanted to write something funny because I could and because people really seem to like it when I do, but it would really have been a case of thing to cry we laughing. The failures of administrative governance that allows the factual and imagined realities outlined above to co-exist are as a result of our own doing (or lack of doing I should say), and unless we get involved, unless we work together to accomplish deep and meaningful change at some point, we may yet end up victims of our own lazy lack of concern, and there really isn't anything funny about that.