Plain Talk from Skratchy

from sevral emails..

Ah yes the universal truth, LOVE. Everybody falls in love sometime, everybody needs somebody sometime (I know someone famous sang that, I just can't remember who). All of us have been in LOVE at one point. Love, Amor, Amour, Liebe, Amore, call it what you want, it happens. But nobody could fall in Love like a Trini. We have stages of love and yuh boy goin to elaborate the schematics of this ting call love:

STAGE 1 - BAZODEE - Pronounced (Bah-Zoh-Deeeeeeeeee)

The boy meets the girl and buterflies fill his stomach. Every touch is electric, every glance is dramatic, he lingers on her every word. The sun reflecting off the morning dew reminds him of the way her eyes twinkle when the moonlight catches them. The time away seems like an eternity and when he sees her nothing else matters. He calls everyday and brings flowers on every date, he even writes her name on the back of his work pass so she will always be close to his heart.

STAGE 2 - Tutoulbay - Pronounced (Tut-ool-bay)

The girl's boss complains that she takes to many personal calls on the company phone, so the boy buys her a cell phone and pays the bill too. He doesnt want her tainted and ogled by the miscreants on the Maxi-Taxi so he decides to drop her to work and pick her up every day. This poses a dilema beacause she works further than him. No Problem. He picks her up at home and gives her the car, so she drops him to work and keeps the car for the day. His friends dont exist anymore because she said that they are too crass and he drinks too much during the week. He takes her shopping and holds the bags, he even sits on the benches in the middle of the mall while she has her Mani/ Pedi/ Hair day. Oh yes AMORE!!

STAGE 3 - Tabanca - Pronounced (Tah-Bank-Ahhhhhhhh)

So one day while she's shopping in Pennywise and he is sitting outside in the car waiting, he notices that she left her phone (which he bought and still pays bills for) by the hand brakes. Curiousity wins, he picks it up, 'New Message'.... yuh boy cyah help it, he read the message. 'Yesterday was great. Same time tommorow. Your body is HOTT'.....But what de Muddah #@$%??? Who de fokk texting my woman so? Cigarette light up one time. The vein on the forehead start to bulge. Leg shaking like dat. She returns from Pennyise and tries to hand him his Credit Card. 'Who de fokk is Andre, where he see you yesterday and how de fokk he know yuh body hot??' she reels for a second...'Oh Andre.....am he is my trainer...at the gym and he was commenting on my progress, you know i go to the gym to look good for you baby'.....yuh hear lie!!!....

So yuh boy calm dong, or so she thinks. Ah fellah called Cudjoe (for you Trinis that don't know, Cudjoe is a Private Detective Agency, yes we have dat in Trinidad). Cudjoe follow she for a week and reports to Mr. Loverman. 'Sir she has been going to the gym, TO PICK UP ANDRE, and then they proceded to Econo Guest House (before Jo Sing Pasta in Kelly.... I Think LOL) they spent 2 hours and then she came to pick you up.'

WHAT DE MUDDAH #@$%!!!!! As she reach is cuss...'Yuh fokkin hoe, gimme meh damn phone!', PASHAW (Trinidadian Onomatapia for the sound of something breaking) the phone hit the ground. 'Ah goh kill yuh Muddah #@%$, after all i do for you, dat is how u go repay me???.' 'But honey..' she attempts to speak. 'Doh fokkin honey me, i know bout you and Andre and fokkin Econo Guest house'.........she breaks down in tears 'You were smothering me, i found comfort in Andre's arms, I need space'....'Space??' he fires back 'Is Muddah #@$% space yuh want?? Yuh is a fokkin astronaut??'....she begins to cry uncontollably.

Meanwhile the Rapid Response 999 vehicle noticed the comotion, one time they done assume he ress a cut ass on she. Of course she cyah stop cryin so she can't confirm or deny the allegation( conveniently). Is jail in he ass!!!


STAGE 4 - Foofooloomps - Pronounced (Fou-Fou-Loumps)

After a good cut ass from the police followed the next morning by sincere apologies for the 'misunderstanding'. He sits at home, calls in sick for work for two weeks. Radio is stuck on 97 (Love Hurts by Nazereth is playing). The man doh answer no calls. He stop shaving and bathing, only on a have to must to basis. He tried calling her 4,345,876 times everyday to say he sorry and he want to make back up. She mother change the home number. Das it!!!

He pick up the SHARP CD player and he gone. There he stands baring his soul playing 'Baby Come Back - Vanessa Hudgens'. The window cracks, his heart leaps, a shadow appears....it's Andre and he is informed that a restraining order was taken out and the police are on the way. Not wanting the same royal treatment from the cops, he exits stage left. He was last seen on Curepe Junction drinking a bottle of Bay Rum singing 'Baby Come Back.......

By Chirag Badlani


During a religious holiday of mine, my mother and I went to the store, Staples, to make color copies of a few Gods to give to our temple. On one of the pictures, there was a very religious Hindu symbol, resembling a Nazi swastika, yet the arms faced the opposite direction.


When we went on line to pay for the copies, the people behind us, not noticing the differentiation between the two signs, starting talking to each other, saying that my mother and I were Nazis. Quite appalled, my mother turned around and calmly explained to them that it was not a Nazi symbol, that the symbol first belonged to many different cultures before the Nazis adopted it. She explained the religious meaning and the people behind us said they were sorry and stated, "Oh, I never knew that."

I have realized that many people, not only in this country, but in the entire world, do not know about the meaning of the swastika and that it was not only the symbol of Nazi Germany.

The swastika is an equilateral cross with arms bent at right angles, all in the same direction, usually the right, or clockwise. The swastika is a symbol of prosperity and good fortune and is widely dispersed in both the ancient and modern world. It originally represented the revolving sun, fire, or life. The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit swastika which means, "conducive to well- being". The swastika was widely utilized in ancient Mesopotamian coinage as well as appearing in early Christian and Byzantium art, where it was known as the gammadion cross. The swastika also appeared in South and Central America, widely used in Mayan art during that time period.

In North America, the swastika was a symbol used by the Navajos. The swastika still continues today to be an extensively used sign in Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism. In Buddhism, a swastika represents resignation. In Jainism, it delineates their seventh saint, and the four arms are also used to remind the worshiper of the four possible places of rebirth; the animal or plant world, in Hell, on Earth, or in the spirit world. To Hindus, the swastika with the arms bent to the left is called the sathio or sauvastika, which symbolizes night, magic, purity, and the destructive goddess Kali. In both Hinduism and Jainism, the swastika or sathio is used to mark the opening pages or their account books, thresholds, doors, and offerings.

The swastika was a symbol for the Aryan people, a name which, in Sanskrit means "noble". The Aryans were a group of people who settled in Iran and Northern India. They believed themselves to be a pure race, superior to the other surrounding cultures. When the Germans looked for a symbol, they looked for a symbol which represented the purity which they believed they contained. The Nazis regarded themselves as "Aryans" and tried to steal the accomplishments of these pre-historic people.

In Nazi Germany, the swastika with its arms turned clockwise became the national symbol. In 1910, a poet and nationalist Guido von List suggested that the swastika as a symbol for all anti-Semitic organizations. When the National Socialist Party was formed in 1919, it adopted the ancient symbol, the swastika, giving it the worst meaning possible, destroying the good symbolism which the swastika had held for thousands of years prior.

In 1935, the black swastika on a white circle with a crimson background became the national symbol of Germany. The major difference between the Nazi swastika and the ancient symbol of many different cultures, is that the Nazi swastika is at a slant, while the ancient swastika is rested flat.

Today, whenever the ancient symbol is used, it is automatically assumed by most people that it is a Nazi symbol and that the people who use it are Nazis. When the Nazis took the ancient symbol, they erased the good meaning of the swastika, the symbol of purity and of life. The racist people of today further degrade the meaning of the ancient symbol by spray painting the swastika on people houses, cars, and even schools.

In my eighth grade World of Difference class, we watched a video about a high school art student who painted the swastika and displayed it in his school's art gallery. We then had a debate on whether the painting should come down or not. Because most people are ignorant to the fact that the swastika was not only a Nazi symbol, symbolizing death and destruction, the class decided to take the painting down and in actuality, the boy was forced to take it down. This is a prime example of how the world delineates the swastika as a bad symbol, and how the Nazis destroyed the meaning of the symbol by adopting it as their own.

The swastika symbolizes so much more than what the Nazis planned. The swastika existed as a symbol of good fortune thousands of years before the Nazis even existed. The symbol is to many cultures an important one, representing their history and beliefs. The Nazis, by taking the swastika, annihilated the significance of the ancient symbol. Today, the swastika is to most people a symbol of evil, a symbol of demise, and a symbol of ruination. It is extremely depressing to find that although the swastika is a symbol of life, and symbol of joy, it has been made a symbol of evil, something the people of the ancient world never intended it to be.

Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic republic in the southern Caribbean which consists of 23 distinct islands. The following is a list of these islands.

Major islands
Trinidad
Tobago

Bocas Islands
The Bocas Islands lie between Trinidad and Venezuela, in the Bocas del Dragón (Dragons' Mouth). Locally they are referred to as "Down the Islands".

Chacachacare
Monos
Huevos
Gaspar Grande (Gasparee)
Gasparillo (Little Gasparee or Centipede Island)

Five Islands
The Five Islands are a group of actually six small islands lying west of Port of Spain in the Gulf of Paria. Also known as Las Cotorras.

Caledonia Island
Craig Island (Craig and Caledonia are joined by a narrow reef)
Lenagan Island
Nelson Island
Pelican Island
Rock Island

San Diego Islands
Sometimes referred to simply as the Diego Islands, these two islets lie between the Bocas Islands and the Five Islands.

Cronstadt (Kronstadt)
Carrera (a prison island)

Others in the Gulf of Paria
Farallon (Flat Rock), in San Fernando Harbour
Soldado Rock

North Coast of Trinidad
Saut d'Eau

Off Tobago
Little Tobago (Bird of Paradise Island)
St. Giles Island
Goat Island
Sisters' Rock