By Tony Deyal
They called it “PLAYBILL,” but it turned out to be me, the TONY Awards. Unfortunately, they presented the 78th Annual Tony Awards this Monday night even though I’m already on the 79th. Worse, on August 10th, I will be 80 years old. Yet they had the guts to call the Best Musical, “Maybe Happy Ending” Then I realised how much they hated me. I’m not sure why, of what they had against me, but the winning best musical was “Purpose.” This was the last straw. I said to myself that I am, a Caribbean man and would “do” for them. I decided to do my own TONY Awards!
Thinking about it, I realised that there were already big-time awards throughout the region. You just ask and they “ANSA.” These include Caribbean Media Awards, Tourism and, despite “OneCaribbean” there are also many more ready to jump in. Even if you are not into sports, you can’t knock “CANOC” unless you’re a sport of class. Outside of the region, there are Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes. The one thing I learnt is that One Caribbean is a name but not a fact, especially when there is money, power or, like now, Gas and Oil. In this case, Venezuela was one of the world’s chief oil exporters. It was “Petrocaribe” and the countries of the Caribbean, from Antigua and Barbuda to Suriname, had political ties to Venezuela. Now, the scope and sustainability of these agreements, especially Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), have been going through serious discussions and political tension.
In those early days when we Trinis had “oil in our coil” many of us went to “lime” in Venezuela. We bought things that were cheaper than what we paid for in the rest of the Caribbean including restaurant food for less than Chinese shops. Among our going to Venezuela was the low cost of doctors and hospitals. It was cheaper and, we thought, better than the Trinidad clinics. Many Trinidadians learnt to understand and use the Venezuelan language so we could speak with them or understand what they were saying. What I found useful or just funny was the English version of Venezuelan speech.
For example, “Venezuelans aren’t broke or short of cash…they “eating a cable” ((están comiéndose un cable). Here are some more, “They don’t have friends…They have “panas”; Venezuelans don’t get annoyed… they “get crab-liced” (se ladillan)”: For a Venezuelan, things don’t go wrong… “the turkey gets dropped” (le cae la pava); A Venezuelan doesn’t run out of patience with you… you pulled their stone out (le sacas la piedra); don’t “go Dutch” with a bill… They “make a cow” (hacen una vaca); and a Venezuelan doesn’t get scared… His or her ass gets itchy (le da culillo).
I loved the talk but increasingly the place was changing quickly, especially when you were from a different country. I never went back to Venezuela after what happened to me one day in the city. I was in a train and two men tried to take my money- one in front of me trying to get me to look at him while his colleague stuck his hand in my pocket to grab my money. I gripped the man’s hand, started shouting very loudly and hoping that the people around would help. The others never looked at me. When the train stopped to let out people and allow others in, the two men kept one foot in, and the other out. of the train. In other words, if I tried to get out, they would stay in. If I remained, they would go out to another part of the train to find someone else with money. This, I still think, was the beginning and end of the country I knew.
From then, and much more now, Venezuela is a different and very dangerous place. There are many stories that help us to understand what is happening now and what caused it. An old man walked into a grocery store in Caracas. After waiting patiently in line, he asked the shopkeeper for a container of cooking oil, a jug of milk and a quarter kilo of coffee. The clerk apologized, saying that all three items were out of stock. The disappointed patron walked off. Overhearing this exchange, the next person in line remarked to the proprietor: “Cooking oil? Milk? That stupid old man must be crazy.”
The storekeeper considered this a moment and replied, “Yes, but what a remarkable memory!” Here’s another story I got from a Venezuelan friend. “An Englishman and a Frenchman were at a museum admiring a Renaissance work depicting Adam, Eve, and the apple in Eden. The Briton observed that the nude Adam, sharing the apple with his nude wife, showed a particularly British propriety. The Frenchman, unconvinced, countered that the pair’s obvious comfort with their nudity clearly marked them as French. A passing Venezuelan, overhearing, remarked candidly, “Sorry to intrude, caballeros, but these are obviously Venezuelans: they have nothing to wear, practically nothing to eat, and they are allegedly in Paradise.”
Unfortunately, even Paradise seems to have left Venezuela. In 2013, Nicolás Maduro came to power and immediately showed that he was paranoid. A new law was passed that authorised the use of deadly force, including live ammunition to maintain order. Political detentions became common. Maduro has increased censorship of the cartoonists, editorialists, and TV satirists. Now, having tried to go after or take over Guyana, Maduro seems to be “interested” in T&T. Whether it was set up, or based on a fact, the Venezuelan Justice Minister, Diosdado Cabello, on his TV program, said that a Trinidad national named “Cuis Kendell Jerome” has been captured while travelling to Venezuela with a group labelled “terrorists,” who they believed wanted to destabilise his country’s government.
The prime minister of T&T made it clear that the Venezuelan Government “can do whatever they want on Venezuelan territory, but they cannot come here. T&T territory is off limits to them.” She added: “No amount of rhetoric from the Maduro government will drive any wedge between this UNC-led government and the US government. We stand solidly with the American government on the issues concerning Venezuela. That will not change,” she added. The only thing that might change is that the new US Embassy in Trinidad, instead of completing in 2029, might be ready very soon.
*Tony Deyal will never forget the Venezuelan who told him flatly, “If I had a dollar for every time people ask me about the political situation in my country, I would have enough money to get the hell out of here.”
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