The things I love about Trinidad and Tobago. (Part One)

Starch Mango. Just hanging in the shallows at Store Bay with just enough water to cover you up to your neck. Pommecythere between green and ripe with salt.  The sound of garlic and geera hitting the steaming split peas. Boogsie playing.  Kitch’s melodies.  The poui carpet in the savannah in poui season.  Curry goat with the meat leaving the bone.  Oil down and stew oxtail. Rudder.  Leroy Calliste.  Birdie.  A Jouvert chip (any chip with any steelband.) Mother -in-law (the pepper not my wife’s mother, who btw can be a pepper herself) Zaboca with olive oil. Panorama Night. Dougla women.  Indian Women.  African women. Caucasian women.  All women.  Ponche a creme.  Pastelles. PanJazz.  Ol’ time calypso. Babies.  Coconut water.  Clove in sorrel.  Clove in anything.  (ask my children) My mother’s pampering. Rum shop quick stops.  All Fours when I’m winning.  Small goal football.  Fatima College. Sancoche. Trinidad All Stars.  Ray Holman’s melodies.  Queen’s Park Savannah.  (I go out of my way to go around it)