I walk down the street.
Men say:
“I like dah ras!”
“I love your hair.”
“Princess”
“Empress”
“Beautiful!”
“Blah. Blah. Blah. So, why don’t you get your husband to help you with that hand? What?! No husband? I cyan believe nobody ain’t teef you yet!”
“Will you marry me?”
Women say:
“I love your lipstick.”
“I love your dress!”
“You look very good today.”
“I love those shoes.”
“Girl, why don’t you have a man?”
All very charming. Very polite. In almost eighteen months of living here, I have not had one disrespectful incident walking the streets, and it has done wonders… sheer wonders for my sense of my own physical beauty.
It’s as though, I spent my whole life believing this lie; and now, I’ve been put in a place where men and women stare at me in the street. Both tell me I’m beautiful. At least once a day I hear it.
I think Trinidad is beautiful. I think it’s people are beautiful.
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