Our Urban

Many lust after the shopping experiences of the chic Europeans and the exotic Middle Easterners, just to name a few. I was overwhelmed and exhilarated to attend classes smack dab in the middle of Oxford Street, London, where I filled up on long walks and feasted my eyes on quirky window displays during my lunch hours. Everyone remembers the scene in Sex and the City when Carrie sashays between aromatic brown spices and sparkling hooked shoes in Dubai. Many Trinidadians travel to Miami to line up in the excitement of snaking queues for annual sales and Holiday discounts. But what about Downtown Port of Spain, our own shopping hub?

Stuck in bumper to bumper traffic between Charlotte and Queen Street this week, I paused to look at my surroundings with fresh eyes. The city is breathtaking. In this small congested labyrinth of narrow streets and bustling pedestrians, is the simultaneous unraveling of thousands of activities that that feed one another.

Within inches of each other one can find electrical appliances and spotted mangoes for sale. Mothers leading children along the crooked pavements, mindlessly step over the dips and holes. Everyone is in a hurry. Everyone is carrying much more than they can hold. Stretched black bags and stryfoam containers with left over lunch. Drivers ignore the traffic signals and all rush to squeeze into the narrow streets. You can smell the drains, the food, the people, the plastic. The shop signs are all dull and weathered. Old men with hardened faces appear relaxed amid the chaos, casually smoking cigarettes and carrying on conversations without being distracted by the noise. People shouting, cars screeching, music blasting from pirated CD Salesmen. The air is hot except for the brief burst of coolness that escapes from every other open door along the pavement. Dipped chain link fences around the much too small car parks. Countless shops all looking the same, yet selling unimaginable varying random knick knacks. Fierce looking faces, kind looking ones and ones you can't read. People averting eye contact except for the idle men who want the women's attention to tell them what they like. Piles of garbage swept up and left in heaps along the drains. Car horns. Laughter.

It's so much that I can't even write it all down. It's overwhelming yet strangely heartwarming. This is the city of a developing nation. It is part of who we are. It is gross and fantastic all at the same time. I know a lot of people from different parts of the world read this blog, especially from Canada, USA, India, Australia, Germany and France. Thought I would share this experience with you.