CityGirl

Something is definitely wrong.  Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve gone for more than a year without having a boyfriend.  Or maybe it’s that there are wedding happening around me left, right and centre.  Or it could it be that my best male friend recently confided that he’s flying to the States to propose to his lady love.

It could be that I’ve tentatively acknowledge that my dream man is not going to be standing at my door when I open it to go to work. 

So yes, recently I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships and wondering when the next lucky person will come along.

Certainly, this situation which is unfolding in my head will just exacerbate the situation. 

Why have I started thinking that my very married boss, the director whom I report to is quite a dish.   I’m not usually attracted to his type.   Why am I now thinking that on the rare ocassion that he smiles, it lights up the entire office.  Why do I feel the need to repair my lipstick before going to discuss boring corporate issues?

Why am I surreptitiously checking if he’s in his office when I innocently saunter pass.

This is crazy!  Am I developing a secret crush on my boss?

So I think I need to add my little bit to the Akon controversy.  I supposed it is known by all now that Akon (African-born hip hop star) went to Trinidad and during a performance in the hottest night club there called up a 14 year old to dance in a sexually suggestive manner i.e. he dry-humped her.

I’ve read several blog posts about it and I think people are being unreasonable to Akon.  The hypocricy of it all!  Normally, I’d be the first person to condemn such an action but I think Akon is getting a raw deal here.  The blame need to be placed squarely where it belongs.  On her parents’ oh so religious heads. 

Let me break it down.   I don’t know about anywhere else but I do know that it is par for the course for performers when performing at shows in the caribbean to call up one of their fans to display their dancing prowess and wining skills.  The men do it.  The women do it as well.  My favourite female soca performer Alison Hines always call up a few of her male fans to demonstrate how to ‘wuk it’.   Lady Saw has been known to do the same thing.  I don’t need to mention the myriad male soca stars who have ‘grinded’ their ways into the heart of their fans during a performance.     Some of these exhibitions are just as risque as the one that’s being condemned now.

 So Akon goes to Trinidad to perform.  The capital of wine and grind and ‘wuk it up’.  The fact that these shows are usually held at a time when children should be in bed, it is reasonable to assume that the patrons at these shows are adults and therefore if a performer calls up one of his screaming and oh-so-willing fans, he wouldn’t be at risk of offending anyone.  I have seen the pictures (one of which is posted below) and video of the performance and no one could guess from the way the girl was attired that she was only 14 years old.   Based on my recollection, no performer usually ask for an identification before inviting anyone on stage so how was he to know that the hot, young thing that he was simulating sex with was a mere child?  She certainly wasn’t dressed like a child!

My question is this.  Where were her parents?  Was her father - well known Trinidad Pastor - too busy saving the sinful souls of everyone else to be concerned about the whereabouts of his daughter at that hour?  Those are the questions that need to be asked.  All this talk about Akon molesting a child is simply ridiculous, nonsensical and unreasonable.  

What this incident has underscored though is the need for certain events to be rated or clubs  to require identification for admittance. 

I wish we would get off our high horses, assess the situation in an objective manner before heaping condemnation.    

I don’t think I like these tuna cakes that I’ve made.  They aren’t exactly horrible but they aren’t exactly the tastiest treat I’ve had either. 

I was hoping that this, my second attempt at it, would taste better.

Actually, it seems like I’m getting worse at it.  I feel ill.

I don’t think think I should make them anymore. 

This is the carnival weekend in Jamaica - culmination of all the revelry that started in January.   I was awakened at 4:00am by music blaring from the trucks as the jouvert posse took to the road.   Living where I am in the heart of Kingston, everything passes by my apartment complex.  I’m not complaining this morning.

I laid in bed trying to decide if I should go on the street to watch them gyrating pass (as I usually do each year).  As I listened to Destra exhort her massive to ‘wave yu hands and put dem in de air’, I smiled, remembering the days when I was a card-carrying costumed participant and would be on the road wining down to the ground and carrying on bad along with the best of them, clad in the skimpiest of outfits, instead of watching from the sidelines as I do now.  Good ole days. 

Not that I’ve totally abandoned the world of the socaphiles.  Two weeks ago I was bumping and grinding to The Alison Hines Show held at Mas Camp and just last year I was in Trinidad for carnival.  I didn’t play ‘pretty mas’ because the group that I went with wanted to ‘observe’ (what good is that?) so ended up only participating in ‘ole mas’.  It was great.  

 Then, as I gyrated, pranced, chipped merrily along to ‘roll it gyal’, ‘Max it up’ and ‘Scandalous’, I was convinced that Trinidad Carnival was indeed the greatest festival as people love to say.  There were times when after a night/morning of attending another fete that I felt like I’d drop from fatigue, like my feet would abandon me and just go on strike, felt as if my waist had no more ‘wok up’ left and I just wouldn’t be able to attend another event.  Somehow, after defying the aches and pains and dragging myself to yet another soca fete, the exhaustion seem to just melt away after hearing the music.

So at 4:15am after listening to the walls vibrate and shudder, I hurriedly drag on some clothes and dance my way outside to take up my usual position on the sidewalk outside my apartment building to watch them pass.

The difference between jouvert (old mas) in Trinidad and Jamaica is that apart from the size of the crowd, the revelry is more contained in Jamaica.  I remember prancing through the crowd in Trinidad last year, dousing the other revellers with paint and water, visiting the paint truck frequently for refills, remember being thoroughly soaked even though mindful of my hairstyle, I tried unsuccessful to avoid the water truck with it’s far-reaching hose. 

After a few minutes of watching and dancing to the music of the passing trucks, I knew it was time to return home when one of the police outriders passed me, then turned his bike around to stop in front of me, smiled lecherously then inquired, “Is because yu nipples so nice why yu don’t wear brassierre?”   

If I wasn’t so impressed with the courteous behaviour exhibited by our police officers during the cricket matches I attended recently, I’d say they need to be trained.  They are.  But there will always be the coarse elements that cause one to think otherwise.