Pao­lo Ker­na­han

Some of you may re­mem­ber the fa­mous song in which drunk rock-icon Axl Rose screamed: "You know where you are? You're in the jun­gle ba­by! You're gonna di­i­i­ieeee! With those words of wel­come to the sec­ond run­ner-up, Com­mis­sion­er Wayne Gibbs, I want to give you a guid­ed tour of hell. I thought you might ap­pre­ci­ate a few sug­ges­tions that might aid in your tran­si­tion from a warm lov­ing fam­i­ly left in the cool climes of Cana­da to the smoth­er­ing em­brace of hu­mid­i­ty and death here in T&T. Com­mis­sion­er Gibbs comes to us from Al­ber­ta where I sus­pect the most chal­leng­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion which would have sign­post­ed his ca­reer was track­ing the de­praved soul who de­filed a moose in es­trus at the side of a frozen high­way af­ter a long night of blow­ing off steam with Jim Beam. Like the oth­er broth­ers Gibb he is al­so go­ing to find him­self com­mit­ted to the pri­mor­dial in­stinct of "stayin' ali­ii-hii-hii-ive!"

He has al­ready been dragged to Mara­cas and force-fed "the bakes with the shark?" which is ap­par­ent­ly the go-to for every brain-dead wel­come wag­on foist­ed on tourists.

If he paid for the shark and bake him­self he has al­ready been a vic­tim of the crime of rape with­out the con­so­la­tion of KY-warm­ing sen­sa­tions.

I hope you post this on your re­frig­er­a­tor next to the num­ber for Clark and Bat­too's (be­cause putting the num­ber for the po­lice on the fridge does not mat­ter any­more). These are the help­ful tips that I hope will save our coun­try the in­ter­na­tion­al em­bar­rass­ment of your be­ing at­tacked by one of our en­ter­pris­ing ban­dits. If you should find your­self out in pub­lic en­gaged in some dan­ger­ous ac­tiv­i­ty like gro­cery shop­ping or din­ing, you ought to be mind­ful of a few things. When you are ap­proached by one of our many ban­dits who growls "Han' meh dat pouch kwik be­foe ah chap yuh up!" you might get con­fused. Hav­ing come from a cold coun­try you might be moved at this teenag­er's of­fer of the sooth­ing balm of the in­dis­pens­able chap­stick for your fis­sured, un­ac­cus­tomed lips. In our lan­guage, by say­ing "chap" he is ac­tu­al­ly in­di­cat­ing his in­ten­tion to re­duce you to con­stituent parts if you do not re­lin­quish your fan­ny pack that (the wear­ing of which, in­ci­den­tal­ly, is a crime in it­self) for­eign­ers seem to favour.

When your wife vis­its, should she have the mis­for­tune of hav­ing an ac­ci­dent on our de­mo­li­tion der­by road­ways it would be a good idea to dou­ble-check the re­port writ­ten by the po­lice of­fi­cer in the charge room. For all the de­tailed in­for­ma­tion she will have giv­en him–lo­ca­tion of the ac­ci­dent, speed at which she was trav­el­ling, di­rec­tions in which both ve­hi­cles were head­ed, num­ber plates–it is like­ly that the on­ly de­tail record­ed on the form filled out by the of­fi­cer is your wife's cup size. Our lothar­ios in uni­form would prob­a­bly be more con­cerned with the mis­sus' bumper than the rum­pled bumper of her rental Almera.

At your age, you are pos­si­bly pre­oc­cu­pied with staving off the sweep­ing scythe of time. Stair­mas­ter, cal­is­then­ics three times a week, Ab Rock­er, Ab Roller and the like. It is on­ly nat­ur­al that you will be di­rect­ed to Chan­cel­lor Hill for your fit­ness reg­i­men. It is a gen­tle-to-abu­sive gra­di­ent as­cend­ing in­to a res­i­den­tial en­clave of the well-to-do that of­fers the heart-healthy a chal­lenge and the heart-un­healthy an ul­ti­ma­tum.

You should know that the area at the foot of the hill where hap­less jog­gers park their cars is known as "Ban­dit's Prices­mart."

That is be­cause, in the space of less than one hour twice this week, a small group of "shop­pers" was able to smash and grab a wide ar­ray of items and cash from nine cars. This un­fold­ed in the undi­min­ished light of the rain-herald­ing crim­son hue of a breath­tak­ing Tri­ni sun­set. All a stone's throw away from the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion. If rig­or­ous ex­er­cise is your thing, might I sug­gest then run­ning in place, in the com­fort of your gov­ern­ment-leased gild­ed cage. Com­mis­sion­er Gibbs, nev­er un­der­es­ti­mate the po­ten­tial for a crim­i­nal act to be per­pe­trat­ed on you based on the amount of time you are ex­posed to the crim­i­nal el­e­ments. When you close your door be­hind you in this coun­try, think of your­self as a gazelle in low grass in an open sa­van­nah. A cam­era­man who works with me was work­ing in cen­tral Trinidad (not for me) one evening. His first as­sign­ment had come to an end and the next was just one block away. With­out a car or a lift, he de­cid­ed to walk to the next gig. Big mis­take.

Two men leached out of the shad­ows and set up­on him. The weighty tri­pod, ap­pear­ing per­haps as oner­ous booty to them, was left be­hind, the very ex­pen­sive cam­era they took. I am quite sure those men are sit­ting on a foam mat­tress in a shack some­where scratch­ing their heads, "I eh know what dis is, but it look­ing ex­pen­sive!" In many ways, Mr Gibbs, liv­ing in Trinidad is a lot like a pic­nic in a beau­ti­ful flow­er­ing park. El­e­ments for a won­der­ful af­ter­noon in the mar­malade sun are there: your plaid blan­ket, smor­gas­bord of savoury and sweet, and great com­pa­ny. Trou­ble is, ants get in­to every­thing. Su­per­im­pose this idea on the crime ex­pe­ri­ence and the very first thing you will come to ac­cept is we can­not lay down boric acid for the man-sized ants we have been fight­ing off in this coun­try. Mr Gibbs, a lit­tle birdie told me that your first or­der of busi­ness is to ex­tend the hours per work week of po­lice of­fi­cers. Not to dis­cour­age, but don't ex­pect any stand­ing ova­tions for this open­ing sal­vo. The en­su­ing sick­outs will have you an­swer­ing your own echoes in that big build­ing in down­town Port-of-Spain.

When you read the news­pa­pers it will be use­ful to put the crime sto­ries in the prop­er per­spec­tive. For every mur­der which qual­i­fies for cov­er­age in the press, you can count that as 100 rob­beries and ten rapes that have gone un­re­port­ed. Mur­ders make the news be­cause they are a lot like the ide­al date, easy and sexy. Crime re­porters prob­a­bly have a "mur­der tem­plate;" the same tem­plate is used, just the vic­tims' names, the num­ber killed and the lo­ca­tion would be cut and past­ed. I guess what I am say­ing, Mr Com­mis­sion­er, is fol­low these sim­ple sug­ges­tions and you should be able to sur­vive on the job and in your life at least for the few months that you will be here; this is un­til you re­alise what a colos­sal mis­take you've made by com­ing. When you find your­self wedged in­ex­tri­ca­bly be­tween the machi­na­tions of politi­cians and their promis­es and a re­cal­ci­trant po­lice force, you will yearn for the sweet fi­nal­i­ty that a ban­dit can bring. You can take this all as a joke, and you would be right be­cause that is what it is. We live in a coun­try where a ban­dit will tief a cell­phone from a woman, and when her hus­band calls the phone, the ban­dit will an­swer: "Yeah, you is de man? Hear nah, put dat reds on de fone fuh me!"