By Johnny Coomansingh
As a constituency, the Toco/Sangre Grande Constituency in Trinidad is the poorest. I was born in the said constituency and grew up from the ‘mud’ of Sangre Grande. Without a father and eight siblings, I would admit that my mother (Ma) struggled daily to put a roof over our heads and put food on the table. Many-a-time Ma could not pay the rent. There were difficult economic times during my early childhood but I took it in stride and always leaned on hope for a better life.
Although it happened often, there was this particular morning when we had nothing to eat for breakfast. Nevertheless, Ma would call us, the four little ones, to sing hymns, read the Bible and pray. We were on our knees praying when there was a knock on the door. My mother rose from her knees and opened the door. The person who stood before her greeted: “Good morning Sister Carmino. I came to give to you this five dollars that I had there for you so long ago. I thought that I should bring this money for you today.” It seemed that our prayers were answered on that morning.
Our situation was so trying that sometimes we ate hops bread and a little cooking oil flavoured with salt and black pepper. It was only when I came to the United States of America I saw the oil, salt and black pepper mixture as a dip. All I could do was reminisce and laugh. Growing up in extreme poverty develops the strength a child can draw from untold hardships. Such taxing experiences help to mitigate against oncoming disappointments. As gold tried in the fire, my fatherless childhood in Trinidad served as a test to survive the onslaught of distress, ridicule, embarrassment, insult, destitution and discouragement.
Self-pity was not part of my arsenal for survival. As a young boy, I gradually developed a growing sense that things happen for some unknowable reason. So I latched on to the biblical belief that ‘all things work together for good;’ I stayed the course no matter what. I recall one crucial responsibility I had when I lived on Adventist Street. Along with my two younger sisters, I was assigned the task to buy groceries for a family that had no money to pay for them; only a promise to pay later.
My food-sourcing activity went as follows:
“Dignity and pride were thrown to the wind. Extreme humility took residence in my soul. Hope engaged my demeanor and my utter belief in a power greater than I, put despair to flight. Courage to face the shopkeepers grew exponentially as I contemplated my approach and fashioned my speech to speak on behalf of my family for a little food. I learnt to accept rebuff and the ‘cut eye’ (glaring eyes). I became numb to rejection and insult, and yes, maybe obsequious at times…Sometimes, I felt as though that I was just walking through a tunnel without walls, just a mountain of air on all sides. Somehow, somewhere, I guess I was being prepared for something in the future.”
Because I was poor, I was one of the children selected to receive milk and biscuits every day from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) program at our school. Older girls from the Standard Six class were the ones who mixed the milk. With a large wire whisk they dissolved the powdered skim milk in a large metal container somewhat like a garbage can. My ration at mid-morning, like all the other children, was one cup of skimmed milk and two enriched wheat biscuits. This simple meal helped a little with my nutrition. I disliked the taste of the milk but I was more or less forced to drink the whole cup. The girls were always watching.
Supplementing my diet was the large ripe mataburro fig (donkey killer banana) that I bought for the price of one cent at the grocery next door to the school. Sometimes I would switch my taste and purchase instead one cent worth of peanut butter served to me on a piece of brown wrapping paper. Getting cheap food was my goal every day but I was not poor enough!
If you think that I was poor in this world’s goods then think again. There were students who existed in deeper poverty than that of our family; way, way down below the poverty line. The really poor students at our school had the opportunity to get lunch and dessert for one British penny at the Sangre Grande Breakfast Shed located on Brierley Street, adjacent to the Fire Station. If I ever got the chance to go for lunch at the breakfast shed it was when a student was absent from school; I became a substitute. However, there were times when I did not have a penny. Poverty is not a crime but it’s pretty close. My mother did not have that British penny to give to me for a lunch. I know what it is to be ‘penniless.’
There were many times when Mr Elias A. Toussaint, the principal, gave to me a penny to pay for my lunch. Almost every time I had to go for lunch I accepted the task of taking blind Mr Warner with me to the breakfast shed. Mr Warner was a retired school principal who lived close to the school. Although blind, his job at the breakfast shed was to count all the pennies that came in for the day.
Despite the fact that the food was almost free, eating lunch at the breakfast shed was not at all peaceful and pleasant for a little boy like me. There was a certain moment of fear just being there. I felt as though this part of my life was likened to a character from the classic Great Expectations authored by Charles Dickens. Apparently, fear, intimidation, insult and embarrassment comprised the core of the culture in those days. I remember that there were three senior women, ‘the Lunch Ladies’ running the show at the breakfast shed, Ms. Mongo, Ms. Bolt, and Ms. Quilly. Ms. Quilly was not as bad. She was the kindest of the three. Maybe she had a heart. Her voice was flavored with kindness.
In a not-so-well-lit kitchen they cooked up some meals, which at times provided extra proteins in the form of maggots. I am certain that there were little worms and weevils in the food, especially the soup. Moreover, you were not allowed to complain. Just say your grace, eat the food, drink the ‘Cool-Aid’ and shut up! We were glad for dessert though; two Crix crackers with guava jelly in between.
How can I ever forget the questioning eyes and the insidious shuffle of Ms. Mongo? As she annoyingly perused every corner of the building, her eyes struck the fear of God in you. As if that was not enough, she actually flagellated some ‘disobedient’ children with a leather strap before they ate lunch. She resented any kind of oppositional behaviour or complaint. By choice or by force, we had to understand the maxim: “Speak when you are spoken to.”
Apart from Ms. Mongo, there was this other woman; a most obnoxious, demanding, haughty and overbearing woman. In the presence of this woman, Ms. Mongo was abundantly reverential. I guess it was an example right before my eyes how enslaved Africans had to relate to their white masters. She was known as Ms. Mc Cartney, the owner of the Red Store located on the Eastern Main Road, in Cunapo, the central business district (CBD) of Sangre Grande. If you thought that Ms. Mongo was horrible, just wait until Ms. Mc Cartney arrived. Some say that she came from Guyana (formerly British Guiana). She was a tall white-skinned woman with black hair and glaring eyes whose voice bellowed above the din of children’s chatter and the sounds emitted from the contact between a hundred or more spoons and plates.
It is quite possible that Ms. McCartney was the overseer or ‘governess’ of the breakfast shed program for less fortunate elementary school children in Sangre Grande. Strange as it may sound, I never saw her smile. In my brain I could still hear her loud shrill voice of authority as she strutted back and forth in the Sangre Grande Breakfast Shed.
I still ask myself, why was it necessary to intimidate little hungry children? Internally, I knew that I mentally rebelled at this type of treatment. No child should have been subjected to any kind of discomfort and authoritarianism for a little food in any breakfast shed in Trinidad and Tobago. This kind of treatment should not happen anywhere else in the world! There were times when I could not eat the food, maybe because of the taste, what I saw in the food or possibly because of fear. What I left of the food was promptly eaten up by the students who sat next to me. They just passed their empty plate over to me and took mine.
In light of my tenor concerning poverty, I recall a section of Winston Bailey’s (sobriquet: Mighty Shadow) calypso titled: Poverty is Hell:
Ten little children, four dumplings
Mummy got to slice them thin, thin, thin
A piece for a boy and a piece for a girl
A piece for the neighbor daughter Merle
The cat in the corner looking to beg
Little Jack Horner kick him in the leg
Go in the room and look for a rat
The rat in the roof, he know about cat…
Then cockroach gone in the condensed milk
Mama get vex for she condensed milk
Who leave the condensed milk open?
“Come here you picky head, good for nothing!”
Mama get vex and she blood get hot
She buss some lash in they you-know-what.
Poverty is hell! Poverty is hell!
Yes, I was glad for whatever the lunch at that breakfast shed comprised, but I was also angry because I was treated as nothing more than a wretched beggar. I am not ungrateful, but people could say whatever they want now. The Sangre Grande Breakfast Shed was part of my childhood. It was my experience and this is my take-home message from that episode in my life.
Both the Sangre Grande Breakfast Shed and the adjacent Fire Station have been erased from the landscape. Nevertheless, every time I drive on this road I remember the spot, and memories of the breakfast shed flood my mind. Sometimes I would pull up and park at the side of the road where the fire station used to be. Thoughts about my status back then and about what I endured for a little food would rise to the surface. Despite the country’s ‘oil riches,’ there are little children in Trinidad and Tobago who cannot get enough to eat as well as those who go to bed hungry; not to mention the millions in this world who still cannot get a morsel to eat.
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