It is said that the character of a nation can be judged by how it cares for its less fortunate. Probably the least fortunate institution in Trinidad and Tobago is the St. Ann's Mental Hospital, or affectionately, the mad house. Recently I heard about the confession of a former mad house worker who said that, "The grounds in St. Ann's better than the General Hospital...that's about it." The end, no more no less. The mad house hovers like a spectre in Trinidad society. When there are discussions on health in the nation, it always centers around the needs of the 'normal' citizenry. At few occasions are the needs and the plight of the patients at St. Anns ever voiced or even met for that matter. Clamouring for beds, medication and doctors are only the concerns of us, the 'normal'. And why are we normal? Because of how we are able to fit into the fabric of a society where people park on a highway the night before a holiday to observe their religion? Or perhaps our willingness to continually not wear seatbelts, or taxi-drivers that make their daily living on the emergency shoulders of our roads? Maybe what makes us normal is our satisfaction with our present position of 'choice', most happy with that 'choice' being reduced to a free stained index finger every five or so years. Yes, us the 'normal' ones will work eight hour days and drive four hour traffics. We will pat our sons on their heads and tell them they should be strong men, while they observe us lusting after women other than their mothers. We will be more interested in what tasty bits of commess our leaders offer up, rather than addressing real issues. We are 'normal' because we can continue to vote on race. We are 'normal' because the political parties know they can win elections simply by appealing to race.
I think I will take my chances with the not normal. I think it makes more sense to be in a room with 'crazy people'. Let me shit in my hand and throw it on the ceiling too, because that's where I'm supposed to behave like that. It's not as if we 'normal' people take our waste and just dump it whereever we feel. You will never find our rubbish in the rivers, drains, and once beautiful natural areas of this land. Of course not, cus we 'normal', and the mad house is for mad people.
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It’s important to have people like you who remind us of who we are or have become. Hopefully, with more discourse on these issues, there will be greater awareness, more passion and certainly more action.
A few weeks ago, I overheard a germ phobic vagrant quarrelling about the mess that 'dey make' at the urine-scented side of KFC Independence Sq. where the food stuff enters. Most of these vagrants require services for rehabilitation. There was, is and will always be talk of getting them off the streets. Recently, there was talk of ‘relocating’ them to ‘shelters’ in Piparo. I applaud the efforts of those who came up with the idea but I wonder how well a city-dwelling vagrant would survive in Piparo! Reminiscent of previous endeavours, I see it as relocating ‘the problem’ to another space where it is less visible. Reminds me of those teenager-days of having to clean my room (or else); I remember hiding stuff under the bed because I didn’t want to deal with the rubbish at that point. Well, that didn’t make it go away. I knew it was there; I was just reminded of that fact less often.
We see the streets as just that, the streets and not people’s homes. The 'normal' people walk around throwing rubbish in their (the vagrants’) homes probably hoping that the flood waters from Frederick St. will take the garbage to where it needs to be. Now don't get me wrong, most vagrants probably litter like the next Indira or Jason but consider throwing an Orchard pack on the floor of your friend's living room or worse- your mother’s.
It is becoming too 'normal' for us to pass the garbage and ignore it 'cause we think, ‘dem nasty people’ put it there and we can do nothing about it. What is worse: it is becoming too 'normal' for us to pass vagrants and ignore them. As children, we see vagrants, well at least I used to ‘see’ them, and wonder about their life stories; I used to ask my mother questions about them. As adults, we avoid eye contact because we don’t want to be the next victim of their pleading sometimes scheming eyes. As adults, we craft clever names like the socially-displaced in an attempt to be more sensitive. It’s a misplaced sensitivity because these attempts at being sensitive are only for the next ‘normal’ person not for the ‘socially-displaced’. I see it as an attempt to hide the fact that we treat our dogs, cars, cell phones and lap tops better than the next human being. If we call them socially-displaced perhaps the problem would not seem so bad because surely we are better citizens for wanting those vagrants off the streets than relocating the socially-displaced. Perhaps we wouldn’t seem so bad…perhaps it will go away like the rubbish under our beds.
sorry this comment was so long!
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