Gulf of Paria January 2
The closing ceremony fireworks display for the Winter Games happened over my old house in 2002, and it damn-near killed our dog. That was the most intense light show I had ever experienced—up until midnight over this port city. The star-spangled bursts were not huge, but they were everywhere. From the Savannah and Saint James, from atop Fort George’s cannonade and along the metal-roof slopes of Cumberland Hill, from the shabby jungle neighborhoods of Petit Valley and the grimy coastal strip of Carenage—bottle rockets flew, bangers crackled, the air went whoosh—a thousand points of light from a thousand anonymous sources, and undoubtedly a thousand fires, either barely avoided or maybe not. Black powder and bamboo is a dangerous combination. The aftermath is smoky. I think I hear sirens in the distance.
I am not alone on the seawall. An extended family of Indians have gathered for the spectacle. The matriarch befriends me and my binoculars, and she wants me to know that her family is “really“ Indian—from the subcontinent, you know, dignified expatriates, rather than the “coolie“ Trini kind. The oldest daughter is home from university in Michigan, which she doesn’t much like. “There is such a sameness in the Midwest,“ she says, and she is alienated by her otherness. While attending high school in this equally foreign country, on the other hand, she was not only accepted but actually mistaken for a common native, one of the 35.5% demographic. Her mother shakes her head to hear this sleight, pointing to the sky where mysterious lights are ascending. I offer my binoculars, but her stern dark eyes strike me like a magnifying lens unto themselves.
“They call themselves East Indian here, which is wrong. They are West Indian.“ The lady does not need to convince me which Indian she is. She projects continental superiority. If I had confused her with an Amer-Indian to her face—say, an Arawak or Carib—she may have strangled me right there with my Monarch straps.
Soon we are all puzzling at the sky. There are maybe fifty of the strange yellow orbs, rising slowly, in formation. Some kids joke that it is an alien invasion, but the quiet father looks more concerned—maybe they are military helicopters, maybe the Islamists are at it again, maybe this is finally it. Fortunately, this mystery is benignly solved—they are home-made wishing balloons, launched somewhere near the botanical garden, leaving port for the cosmos. “From India,“ remarks the proud mother, but I think only if India includes China.
The Chinese sky lantern has illuminated night skies for two millennia over Asia. South America has its own history with flaming holiday balloons, although the widespread practice has been outlawed in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, as presenting too much liability. Mexico, on the other hand, loves everything fiery and explosive, so it has adopted the incendiary custom in a big way, piecing together colored paper cutouts on bamboo struts, and sending Las Bombas aloft over dry thatched roofs. Burning homes are considered acceptable risk in an unregulated environment that tolerates dozens killed yearly at the national fireworks market.
After Africa and India, China is the largest ethnic group in Trinidad, but who is to say exactly where this island’s sky lantern tradition originates? Is it intended to make a wish or to set the heavens ablaze? Is it a commemoration or a prelude to anarchy? Wherever bamboo grows native, you will find it used for light-weight construction and its certain percussive quality. As any Trinbagonian can attest, filling one end of a bamboo pole with volatile kerosene can produce quite a rattling explosion, perfect for life’s celebrations and other exigencies. My oldest memory of these islands is a couple of kids igniting bamboo cannons on their front porch facing Man o’ War Bay. Damn-near killed the dogs.