Another Perspective on the Latrine Ordeal


"Yes, That Was Gross!" No need to be cruel, that is just the way it was in the good ole days back in Trinidad and Tobago. No shame here...

Recently I met a friend who I had not seen in a while. We started talking and I asked him if he received an email regarding Trinizagada (now renamed Sokah2Soca). He said yes and that he had taken a look at the blog. He said that he liked the concept and read a few of the stories. I asked him if he read the story entitled "When Gazette paper was King of the Throne" and/or "Potty Trouble, A Latrine Tale"  and he immediately responded with, "yes, that was gross". That reply was in response to the King of the Throne article.

Now my friend did not know that I was the author of the article and also the owner of the blog. We continued talking and I eventually told him that I owned the blog and wrote most of the articles posted. Well, I only responded with the article that dealt with the truth and a time when people had latrines in their backyard. Now of course he used latrines when he resided in Trinidad so I was a little puzzled with his response. Well after we concluded our discussion and we went our separate ways his response to the article got me thinking. I did not want to think too deeply for fear of hurting my brain; gosh I could try to be a little funny eh. Well, I made some calls to the homeland and came up with the following.

I spoke to several persons who grew up in Trinidad during the mid-1930s to early 1950s and one conversation stood out. This person started with, "It eh good to be poor nah!" Well, of course, it is not good to be poor and no one wants to be poor for sure especially in the societies that we now live in. However, let's continue with the conversation the person said that they were so poor that they did not even have a latrine. They lived in the 'country' and most of the Island was considered to be "country". To live in the country district meant living in Biche and Manzanilla and those areas where the forests still claimed most of the land. I listened attentively as this person stated that when they needed to relieve themselves they had to go into a wooded area and find a tree root (trees were huge then with raised roots) where they would do their business. Well you guessed it, the ideal wiping agent was yes you guessed it, leaves from nearby trees. If you were unfortunate and used leaves with the very small red ants then, "crapo smoke yuh pipe oui"!

That was then but coming back to the latrine story I can safely state that many persons in Trinidad are still using latrines, but they have graduated from gazette (original newspaper was called the gazette) paper to regular toilet paper. I have not told him about this 'Root and Leaf' story yet but I am curious to find out if my friend considers using a latrine gross after hearing about the way some people had to live in 'good ole Trinidad and Tobago'.

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