#thingsaren’talwayswhatheyseemPt1

Siwa is getting a facelift. All the hickledy-pickledy building fronts around the central souq are being demolished. A uniform frontage of pinkish tan mud plaster from ground to up to three storeys off the ground. Some of the shopkeepers were pleased the building works were underway and they welcomed the modernisation. Others didn’t want their shop fronts altered but it’s part of town planning so they have no choice. A friend of mine showed one shopkeeper the 3-D video of the planned designs. He didn’t look that keen but brushed it off. Perhaps, he thought, that’s the price of modernity. One of the safari drivers drinking at the coffee shop rolled his eyes on hearing the government’s plans. Whether, or to what degree, the planning process was participatory I’m not sure. It reminded me of the clash between the Academy for Performing Arts (NAPA) and the Trinidad and Tobago government which included the artists’ anger around not being included in the government’s plans for promoting the arts (more here).

2 shops down from my favourite coffee shop a lovely old painted sign for a long expired photography shop has been pulled down with the shop front, not to mention sprayed by a graffiti artist the day before. Red spray paint warns of the destruction to come, no doubt, “11/3/2022 March Friday” over a simple painted image of a photographer taking a photograph of a seated client with an old-fashioned camera with words in black 'Receive your photo instantly'. “Maybe from the sixties”, the coffee shop founder said. I make noises about someone keeping it as a relict of a certain time. The next day the coffee shop maker told me the owner had asked me how much I wanted to pay for the now-graffitied sign. I flippantly made the comment, “The price of a cup of coffee” then followed it with a lesson on history appreciation. Where was I going to put the sign? I had no storage space. Siwa had no interest.

6 months in, the importance Siwans place on image is beginning to grate. Frankly, it is the same in Trinidad and London. People’s ideas around whatever is the latest fashion. The television series with the character Mrs. Bucket (who pronounces her name ‘Bouquet’) comes to mind. The complexity of negotiating the societal and organisational rules must be exhausting. Let’s see… Here’s an example, 2 safari drivers undercut a colleague’s prices so the Safari Drivers Association bans them from the desert for 3 days, I think. I learn of this as I am sitting in the back seat of a jeep being driven by one of the banned drivers while the other sits in the passenger seat.

“So… banned from working in the desert?” I ask.

We’re just going for sunset with friends – it’s not a gig. That means we’re ok.

“Well, you two live here so you’re not tourists”.

“So, banned from taking foreigners into the desert?”

Much banter, no answers.

“Or banned from driving?”

“Because if it’s from driving then if you drive there is no problem,” I say to the safari driver sitting next to me.

More banter, no answers.

“Or banned from simply being in the desert?” I piped in.

Nobody is really taking me on and I loose interest.

I am reminded of the fact that outside Trinidadian we are known as Trickidadians.

Thanks to Hussam El-Sherif for the Arabic translation.