Triniglish|Trinididioms Spoken and Explained #2 (lot's of Creole English in this post)
Children at Play | Things we did as kids growing up in Trinidad
Oh my God riding a box cart was so much fun. We eventually progressed to a long version that we called the “the trolley”. Well-boi, this trolley always flipped over because the guys pushing from behind with the long rods always did their best to go as fast as they could which always resulted in the driver losing control and the trolley flipping over – the end result was ‘white man’. "Yuh must know what I am talking about when yuh skin started to burn and the area looked white".
I used to also enjoy spitting on meh carbide and capping the can then firing it off; those were the good ole days with plenty to remember and laugh about. I used to enjoy, no love, 'bussing bamboo' (firing off boom boom boom); so many times I singed my eyebrows when the bamboo backfired. Now I understand you can be charged for creating a nuisance (by firing off the bamboos) if you go ahead with this activity - noise pollution my friends! Welcome to the brave new world.
Every kid could remember going in the bush with yuh slingshot to sling up some doves – most of the time it was only feathers for me. Do you remember Stinking Toe with donkey eye seeds, Chinese tamarind, Kite flying with chicky-chungs and mad bulls/playing zwill, stick en up, liming on de corner, making and eating black ting (Milo with powdered Klim and sugar), black poop (condense milk with Milo and sugar)?
Every Saturday morning was a good excuse to lime on the block and play draughts (checkers), raising (soccer), ole talk resulting in fatigue (fatigue in this context meant roasting someone'/in other words a good tease. However, the result of a good Saturday lime resulted in a very delicious bowl of mango chow with loads of pepper and some Chandon-beni and salt for taste.
Every evening it was either wind ball cricket or ‘raisin’ (football) on the street. I remember back in the day when we did not have any balls to play with Mr. Albino’s grapefruits used to be the balls that we played football with – yuh sure to get ah buss toe playing on the pitched road. You surely guessed right most of us did not have any sneakers. I enjoyed going to the forest to get cocorite (the pink one was my favorite), balata and to bathe in the river.
Every Saturday morning was a good excuse to lime on the block and play draughts (checkers), raising (soccer), ole talk resulting in fatigue (fatigue in this context meant roasting someone'/in other words a good tease. However, the result of a good Saturday lime resulted in a very delicious bowl of mango chow with loads of pepper and some Chandon-beni and salt for taste.
Every evening it was either wind ball cricket or ‘raisin’ (football) on the street. I remember back in the day when we did not have any balls to play with Mr. Albino’s grapefruits used to be the balls that we played football with – yuh sure to get ah buss toe playing on the pitched road. You surely guessed right most of us did not have any sneakers. I enjoyed going to the forest to get cocorite (the pink one was my favorite), balata and to bathe in the river.
Do you remember learning to ride a bicycle and more importantly learning to ride (this is so funny) what we wrongly called 'stationary bikes' (lol)? I think that was so funny because the gear was fixed and you could only peddle forward, we totally used the wrong word to describe the act. I remember slamming my precious jewels on the bar a few times because that bike only had front brakes.
One of my favorite activities was controlling my roller, it was noisy on the pitched road, now that I recall the days of wine and roses pardna (good friend). The roller was the rim of a normal-sized bicycle wheel that was stripped of the spokes. The spokes were not thrown away but used as arrows for our makeshift fish guns.
For homemade knives (this was precious) we used the long nails (6") and place them on the train line for the train to flatten it then all we needed to do was sharpen an edge and put a handle on it usually guava wood or my favorite 'monkey bone'. Ah know what yuh thinking but eh eh ah cyar recall eating monkey it was one of the hardest wood and we got it at what is now called the Clever Woods now a park.
Every boy in Trinidad made kites and had loads of fun with friends as long as the winds were good enough for a good session of 'zwill' competition. Starting with the 'chicky chung' one graduated to making kites with ducking compasses with razor blades affixed to the tail to 'ayeyo' the competition's kite. The 'big bois' would make the big kites aka might bulls... Those were the 'good ole days oui'.
Indeed, we all have memories of the 'good ole days and having said that it would be very interesting indeed to read some of your childhood memories. Send your stories for posting here. Your posts will be listed under guests' posts.
