$8 MIllion? No, thanks.
Last night there were choppers pacing our neighborhood, across the sky and back, across and back. I fell asleep listening to them. When I left for work this morning, there was a chopper flying overhead. Slowly. Searching.
I assumed they were looking for the kidnap victim who as snatched a few miles away from my house on New Year's Eve (Or Old Year's Day, as we call it in Trinidad). But I heard on the news that he was found on Saturday morning, about a mile from my house. He'd escaped his captors and wandered in the forest for a day.
The other lady, who has been missing for 3 weeks, hasn't been found. Even though the ransom has been paid, she was not released. I think about her a lot because although we never formally met, she had her reflexology treatments scheduled after mine, so when I left, she was usually coming in. I remember her as being cheerful, down to earth and talkative, a regular person who didn't let her money give her airs. The police has a suspect who claims that they shot her in the chest more than a week ago, chopped her into pieces and buried the pieces.
And we call ourselves civilised.
Meanwhile, in other news, the state Lotto is now over $8 million, with record lines at the lotto shops. Why? Who would want that kind of wealth in a place like this, at a time like this? This country has made success a liability. When you succeed, you put your family at risk, because there are those who will not forgive you for having what they are too lazy, too cowardly to work for themselves.
Even though we don't gamble, I asked Rawle what he'd do if he won it. He said we'd either have to hide the money or leave the country "for a little while". Lovely. The penalty for having money is either living in fear or uprooting yourself and your children from everything they know.
To be honest, though, I've always said how much I love Trinidad, and how I'd never leave it, no matter what. Now, I'm not so sure.
I assumed they were looking for the kidnap victim who as snatched a few miles away from my house on New Year's Eve (Or Old Year's Day, as we call it in Trinidad). But I heard on the news that he was found on Saturday morning, about a mile from my house. He'd escaped his captors and wandered in the forest for a day.
The other lady, who has been missing for 3 weeks, hasn't been found. Even though the ransom has been paid, she was not released. I think about her a lot because although we never formally met, she had her reflexology treatments scheduled after mine, so when I left, she was usually coming in. I remember her as being cheerful, down to earth and talkative, a regular person who didn't let her money give her airs. The police has a suspect who claims that they shot her in the chest more than a week ago, chopped her into pieces and buried the pieces.
And we call ourselves civilised.
Meanwhile, in other news, the state Lotto is now over $8 million, with record lines at the lotto shops. Why? Who would want that kind of wealth in a place like this, at a time like this? This country has made success a liability. When you succeed, you put your family at risk, because there are those who will not forgive you for having what they are too lazy, too cowardly to work for themselves.
Even though we don't gamble, I asked Rawle what he'd do if he won it. He said we'd either have to hide the money or leave the country "for a little while". Lovely. The penalty for having money is either living in fear or uprooting yourself and your children from everything they know.
To be honest, though, I've always said how much I love Trinidad, and how I'd never leave it, no matter what. Now, I'm not so sure.
posted by Roslyn | 7:05 AM
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