By Johnny Coomansingh
She shouted: “Wake up! Wake up!” while violently flagellating the two large soursops lying on her sidewalk table with a bundle of two or three fronds of sweet broom (Scoparia dulcis). To her, the fruits were lazy, just lying there sleeping. In her estimation and imagination, these fruits were indolent, in deep slumber because not one passerby seemed interested in buying any of the soursops.
She was the tall Afro-Trinidadian woman who always appeared extremely busy; constantly on the move, never at rest. She was a woman who probably woke up before the crack of dawn, and as we say in Trinidad, “before cock crow,” to get about her business. Her favourite word was ‘darling.’ She greeted me and everyone with the word “darling.” Her little makeshift stall exhibited island spices, tropical fruits, and roasted and boiled corn on the cob. Customers would oftentimes stop for the boiled corn that she retrieved with a long spoon from hot seasoned water in what Trinidadians call a ‘pitch oil pan’ seated on a smouldering coal pot.
Situated under the gallery of the former Marlay and Company Hardware and Supermarket, her stall occupied at least 50 percent of the sidewalk. Her place of ‘business’ was at the corner of the Eastern Main Road and Ojoe Road, adjacent to the Sangre Grande Roundabout. The smell of black disinfectant greeted your nostrils at the corner where she conducted her business.
This little scene, especially her voice at that “Wake up” moment, remained with me all my life. I wondered if there was some magic involved with beating something with a bundle of sweet broom. I have seen individuals getting a typical ‘bush bath’ at the seaside and being beaten with a cocoyea broom (a broom made with coconut fronds) but never sweet broom. It is said that some people in Trinidad need a good bush bath to rid them of so-called evil spirits, blight or ‘bad luck.’ The matter at hand is not so much about the sweet broom fronds she used, but it’s more about the phrase she uttered: “Wake up! Wake up!”
For many people, waking up is an extremely difficult activity. They toss, turn and roll over forever! A warm bed has a magnet for many. The gravity model is inherent with a bed. There seems to be something that pulls you back into the sack, especially if rain is making music on the roof. Not wanting to seize the day, some people prefer to sleep as though there is no tomorrow pulling their covers and blankets over their faces to block out the sunlight. In the book of Proverbs we read: “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.”
My two sons who were attending high school should remember the phrase: “He who is not ready will be left behind.” They realized that I was very serious after they were left back at home couple of times. At the petroleum company in which I was employed, I had to begin work at 7:00 am and sometimes I could not wait for them to get ready for school. It meant that they would have had to miss the company’s school bus, take a taxi and arrived late at the school gate. Arriving late at that school required a serious explanation. After a few times of making excuses, they changed their attitude.
While spending time with her on the cocoa plantation she owned, my godmother never allowed me to sleep beyond 6:00 am. Sleeping late was anathema. With the morning chill still in the air, sometimes we would go into the cocoa field while the dew was still on the grass.
My godmother was just as busy and restless as the vendor who shouted: “Wake up! Wake up!” I guess they were cut from the same cloth. She reasoned that anyone on whom the Sun rises is lazy. She also believed that yawning and stretching on mornings or any time of day for that matter is a sign of laziness. She was one to chide anyone who even looked lazy. I thought that she was mean, but this form of discipline paid handsome dividends in the end.
Although many commuters in Trinidad rise from their beds earlier than 6:00 am to beat the rush hour traffic on the country’s roads, it would seem that many citizens fail to wake up because of laziness. Many are still extremely dependent on others for their daily sustenance. There are young men and women in this country of Trinidad who will not ‘get up and get.’ A few lines from my poem titled ‘Wake Up!’ gives another twist to the trait:
“To wake up is so very hard for some;
They will sleep from dawn until the next dawn;
Never caring if Sunday falls on a Friday;
Once in their beds, they could forever stay;
Some prefer to sleep all day and not work at all;
But when hungry, on the working man they call;
Should they be given any drink, any food to eat?
When they have not done scratch for the whole darn week!”
There are people who are sleeping on the job, sleeping while they drive, sleeping in class, and certainly sleeping peacefully like babies in parliament; politicians! Yes, there are highly paid government ministers; yes, highly paid parliamentarians who were photographed sleeping in their chairs! Are they being paid to sleep? It seems that narcolepsy is a contagion in parliament.
When this is the behavior of ministers of government what can anyone expect from the citizenry? Is that the example that ministers of government want to promote? Is that the reason why customer service in both the private and public sector is so inept and sometimes non-existent? What a travesty!
On a more jocular note, some men fall asleep immediately when their wives begin to speak. Their whole life is one long wasteful sleep. The proverb ‘The early bird catches the worm’ is quite applicable here. This could be one of the reasons why so many of us meet with failures. We sleep our opportunities away.
No one is coming to flagellate anyone with a sweet broom to change their attitude. I came to understand at a very early age that ‘Laziness is so slow that poverty soon overtakes him.’ Some people just do not want to wake up. It does not matter what’s going on around them, if Sunday falls on Friday. Many prefer the concept of ‘How it hangs it swings,’ preferring to live today for today; as we say in Trinidad ‘vie-ki-vie.’
There are changes occurring in Trinidad and Tobago, two tiny rocks in the Caribbean Sea. Climate change, behavioural changes, extreme changes in the price of food and medicine, changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, terrible criminal activity, and global economic changes. We cannot continue the slumber. We cannot continue not knowing where we are going. If we don’t know where we are going, any road will take us there. It’s time for some of us to “wake up and smell the coffee.”
On a lighter note, we will be hearing Parang songs in the ‘Christmas in July’ activities that merchants promote here in Trinidad. The words, ‘Levanta! Levanta!’ will surely be heard in one of those songs. How will lazy people respond?
