It's Carival - also for the Blind

Holding Sheldon's elbow tightly, Lingo is being led onto the stage. "Audience, all you looking good tonight!" he greets the posse which responds with roaring laughter and enthusiastic applause. The doddery sideband starts playing the ever same extempo-rhythm. Alternately Lingo and his contender Black Sage have a go at each other with taunting rhymes. Black Sage is teasing that the king of extempo, the master of freestyle calypso, should be rewarded by the competition's sponsors with a new car.

Quick-witted Lingo replies: "What I want all you to understand, they wouldn't like to give the car to no blind man. So the sponsor I know is not a louse, if you don't want to give a car, well then give a house!" The spectators on the stands go wild and the triumph seems sure for Lingo. Against all expectations the jury sends Black Sage into the final battle of words. The crowd is raging and chanting vociferously: "We want Lingo!"

The next day, Wayne Martinez and Clarence Patia are sitting in the shade in front of the basketry waiting for the carnival fete to get going. They suspect Lingo was not allowed to win because he is blind. Now the first loud sounds from the amplifier in the parking lot temporarily banish their ill-humor and cheerfulness returns. It's Carnival.

Lingo and his friends are employed in the workshop of the "Trinidad and Tobago Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired" (TTABVI), the biggest of three organizations caring for the blind and partially sighted of the small insular state. An enormous task as every hundredth inhabitant is visually impaired. In the headquarters of the organization in Trinidad's capital Port of Spain, a joyful crowd is weaving baskets and bags out of cane, repairing rattan and upholstered furniture or is just having a good time in blithe company. The TTABVI is an important employer since a handicapped quota is something not yet to think of in Trinidad. The bigger part of visually impaired people in Trinidad and Tobago lives in poverty, often alone in deplorable circumstances. Not always is there family or friends who can help. The TTABVI tries to reach those who endure a solitary life in darkness. Sighted staff of the organization, supported by volunteers, help the visually impaired with correspondences, administrative paperwork or buying groceries.

Those who are employed in one of the basketries like Clarence, Wayne or Lingo, are content to have laid-back work in good company. For them the workshop is almost a second home. There is always laughter coming from some corner of the vast room. Mishaps amuse the colleagues, who always hear if something is happening despite the ventilators, television and voices. Their blindness is always good for a laugh. Together they just joke their disability away. "Sometimes loneliness strikes us and we quarrel with our destiny. Here in the workshop we are not depressed about our disability", says Clarence. The man with the perky round face in whose features one can guess his Amerindian ancestors was up until recently a weaver himself. He has been instructing beginners and trainees for some time now. However, most of the time he sits in the middle of finished baskets at his desk attentively following cricket matches on his pocket radio; or he relaxes on the bench in front of the basketry chatting. Many here are childhood friends since their shared time in the school for blind children in Santa Cruz.

Just like everywhere else on the small island, the blind students as well celebrate carnival time. The loud soca music echoes down to the road. In the school's vast foyer, a cheerful procession of small figures wearing pointed hats is parading. Anil adjusts his self-made paper hat without bothering whether the observation slits of his mask are in front of his eyes. The boys and girls do not care that there is no money anymore for fancy costumes like in former times. They enjoy themselves anyway.

On the simple wooden stage a shiny ghetto blaster is heating up the anticipation of Carnival Monday - "J'ouvert is coming!" Excitedly, Rischi slides over the polished stone floor waving his sweaty rag wildly.

The little band of children seems lost in the spacious entrance hall. The small school situated near to the rainforest has passed its best times. The large dining room, the class rooms, the numerous dorms, all these are testimonies of times when the school was of greater importance in the Caribbean. Much has changed. The boom years, when Trinidad was swimming in oil and money, has been over for quite some time. Oil is still mined in vast quantities, only the general public benefits much less now.

The children grow up in the remote yet sheltered and familiar community of Santa Cruz. In class, they sit in airy rooms typing essays on their braillers about the sense and nonsense of carnival, feeling the outlines of the motherland Trinidad on a plastic map or practicing to handle a cane. In the afternoon, when one of the students rings the bell in the hallway, only one thing matters - fun! While the housemothers have an eye on them they are ranting through the dim corridors, which are so familiar to them.

Outside, Nyol is playing cricket with other boys who have partial vision. It is not always easy for them to find the ball but that does not hamper their pleasure.

Those who display keen intelligence and eagerness to learn are allowed to attend a public school where they can earn more widely recognized certification. Only a few however take a chance at this challenge, which cannot be accomplished without help. Ornella will try it. Next term, she will be sitting between sighted students and focusing all her efforts and concentration on her studies in order to successfully compete for her high school degree. Although her parents do not live far away from the school, Ornella prefers spending the week in the dorms with her friends. Also Nyol's talents are also convincing his teachers to give him a chance at public education. Together with the TTABVI, they try to facilitate the boy with his own personal computer and speech software. Hard to imagine as there is not even sufficient funds to equip the school with more than one pc! For most of the students, the basket workshop is the only way to earn money after they have left school.

< In the car park in front of the basketry, preparations for the party are in full swing. A tower of loudspeakers held together by strings and duct tape almost tops the ground floor. Kerry is acquainted with every dial and every socket of his amplifier plus mixer. He can hook up his rig blindly as Sherwin teases him. Smiling as usual, Jeremy sits on a bench not far from the shaky loudspeaker giant. The ear-splitting noise does not bother him. It's carnival. Even after 40 years the old man with the gray goatie still likes to come to his work. Here everything is familiar, he knows everyone, has many friends and is happy to earn money. The weavers used to be paid per item. "Since the workers are paid per hour they work much slower. Actually the baskets would have to be unaffordable", states Simone Brown, deputy manager of the TTABVI. The moral of her workers makes her laugh. The basketry never was nor will be cost-covering. Fortunately the government pays all salaries.

Joined in small groups the revellers either sit or stand in the open staircase on the front of the organizations building. After Kerry has finally wired his keyboard and Sherwin tested the microphone the "Limers", the entirely blind group start playing their first carnival hit. Normally Lingo would cause some laughter with spontaneous rhymes but the disappointment about the unfair defeat is so deep rooted that his friends have to celebrate without him. No later than the day after Ash Wednesday he will be back at his workbench finishing the rattan couch that he has been working on for weeks entertaining his colleagues.

Now rum makes hips swing and rags are waved through the air. Many a passer-by will wonder about this strange party. A band is playing for less than a handful dancers while all other guests sit around the staircase. The music sounds into the remotest corner of the building. Together they are having fun. It's Carnival.

(c) oliver dietze & astrid breitenstein