When I was between the age of 12 and 13, my father got transferred to ANTIGUA and the whole family left TRINIDAD. We lived in COOLIDGE FIELD and there were a lot of chennette trees all around. As I made friends with the boys on the street and the season came around, they started to call THE CHENNETTE ... GUINEP and I became highly offended trying to explain to them that the name of the fruit was CHENNETTE -- not GUINEP.
But they would not budge ... they kept calling it GUINEP and I kept swearing to myself that I will never call a CHENNETTE a GUINEP.
Some years later around 1966, the family moved again from Trinidad and we were headed to GUYANA. As I sat on the plane watching the ORINOCO RIVER pouring all its muddy water into the ocean, a thought came to mind. The thought was that when I got to Georgetown and I met Guyanese people I was sure that they would call a CHENNETTE by the right name unlike the ANTIGUANS who called it a GUINEP.
Well, I was brought to a new shocking reality when the GUYANESE called the CHENNETTE a GUINEP. That is when I first started to learn that TRINIDAD WAS NOT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE.
But it seems that a lot of TRINIDADIANS are yet to learn that. Insularity is a bit of a curse.
People should wake up and concentrate on MARKETING THE MUSIC and THE INSTRUMENTS and bringing money back into TRINIDAD for the benefit of PAN PLAYERS. An whatever the outside world wants to call it -- let them call it.
When I went to HOLLAND I knew that I was among the DUTCH ...but when I went to GERMANY and everything was DEUTSCH LAND ... DEUTSCH LAND ... well that one had meh head tie up for the entire trip. I had to come back to CALIFORNIA and figure that one out.
I LOVE STEELDRUM MUSIC!!!
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