Google greeted me this morning with the waving Red White and Black national flag, digitally constructed to imitate the many buntings hung on, in and around Trinidad and Tobago.
To honour this day transcendent.
Fireflies bright, shine through the night:
Illumine our thanksgiving
Of this great day each heart can say
This is our Nation’s Dawning
It buoyed my spirits as I awoke, ready to be full of praise for this dawning of my nation, and drawing inspiration as I often do from its rich cultural repertoire.
But only one ditty sprung to mind, Black Stalin’s, Wait Dorothy Dorothy Dorothy Wait. So for those praises, book a LiTTour, LiTTribute or get copies of LiTTscapes. For now I am just singing, Wait Dorothy Dorothy Dorothy Wait... Here’s why.
The Quest for National Identification in the Digital Age
Sure, my heart lifted at the pretty mass-produced buntings and national flags proclaiming our national watchwords that greeted me as I headed out – hung on electricity lines, walls and buildings and I wanted to sing the indelible words from my childhood of our nation’s dawning:
O land of fairest beauty
We pledge our lives to duty
And vow this day, and vow this day
And vow this day to serve thee.
I wanted to sing of national pride and praises that we were getting with the digital age as I had been able to make an appointment online to renew my National ID card and was on by way to collect it.
But Wait Dorothy Dorothy Dorothy Wait.
The appointment with the Election and Boundaries Commission was made two months ago as my ID neared its expiration. Yes, you heard right, I said two month-wait! And even at that, the waiting, it seems, had only just begun.
I happily climbed the two floors of stairs to the office of the EBC which issues ID card because I needed the exercise as much as I had no choice given that the elevator was out of service. I spared a thought for those who may be mobility challenged who might be having an appointment with these offices.
So Wait Dorothy Wait Dorothy Wait.
Although I had an appointment (made two months ago, shall I reiterate?) and was very much on time, I was jovially invited by the reception/security to join a line. There was only one person ahead of me so it wasn’t a long wait. Or so I thought. On reaching the counter, I dutifully presented the printed copy of the appointment I had made online and was instructed to PRINT and take to the appointment. The story of printing is recounted below….
So Wait Dorothy Wait Dorothy Wait.
I was then invited by the person behind the glass divider to take a one-inch square piece of crudely-cut green cardboard stuck into a length of wire in the way my dearly departed Ma, the Nonagenarian, used to file her important documents. On the cardboard was a number, which indicated my position in the queue – despite having an appointment! The attendant carefully hand-wrote my presence and the information from my printed online appointment into a dog-eared ‘Registration Book’ (in image, left) and informed me that they will call me shortly.
Nations of wonders
Half an hour later, way past the time of my appointment, I was still waiting. I sat, stood, walked in my slippers in Keatsian wonder, as I was nurtured on English ditties, rather than any of the rich literary repertoire contained in LiTTscapes.
Birds in the trees waft to the breeze/ Hummingbird bright, lend your delight/Kiskadee call, summon them all… the melody of my favourite of all the national songs rose to the tip of my tongue.
I enjoyed the beautiful view of the now evergreen Northern Range on one side of the administration complex that housed several other State offices, all of which is captured with intellectual wit and magnificent fictional depth and awesome breath in LiTTscapes, as in the national song of our dawning…
Flamboyant gay, make glad the day
Colourful blooms resplendent
Hibiscus hedge witness our pledge
To honour this day transcendent.
I strolled over to the other end of the corridor to witness the beautiful panorama stretching across the Central Plains.
In the distance the misty Gulf of Paria. …I admired the expanding and darkening clouds over the landscape, threatening to turn some district into a lagoon, I thought of the Swamp Symphony I created with Dr Shadow.
The atmosphere, yes, absorbed the thrilling trills of the hills.
Three sister hills, list to the trills
Echoing to high heaven
And from the sea, the blue Caribee
Breezes will join the revel.
Palm trees on high reach to the sky
While bells aloft are pealing
Man, bird and beast, earth, sea and sky
Raise chants of joy excelling.
I waited, occupying the time admiring the Red White and Black buntings and ribbons that tried to lend an air of festivity to the musty office. I silently commended the clerks for turning-up with a smile to serve despite the near dilapidated state of the office.
O land of fairest beauty
We pledge our lives to duty
And vow this day, and vow this day
And vow this day to serve thee.
Coat of Arms Resplendently Inaccurate in the Digital Age
I took a snapshot of the beautiful bunting with our National symbols.
But Wait Dorothy Wait Dorothy Wait.
The costly banners and buntings were already collapsing though the anticipated 60th Independence was still a few days away.
The most resplendent of symbols, National Coat of Arms, was still boasting of its historical inaccuracies that our history books and departments and scholars continue to regurgitate ad nauseum as fact, despite generations of calls to correct them. And now they are nicely replicated and regurgitated for posterity in new digital era, as my attempts to correct them meet with urgings for patience:
Wait Dorothy Wait Dorothy Wait.
Almost one hour later, I was still waiting, although I could count on one hand the handful of others in the waiting gallery, who seemed to be there for other services than the one I needed.
A few minutes? A few more weeks! In the Digital Age
When I was eventually called, it took but a few seconds to take the snap shot for my National ID. My nirvana happy cap already on from the several deep and even breaths I had taken during the interminable wait, I thought I might have to wait a few minutes more to collect my spanking new ID card.
‘It would take about four to six weeks,’ the clerk announced on my enquiry, filling out a piece of paper in neat handwriting with my ID details, saying I could use that with my old card during the waiting period, until my card was ready.
I bit my tongue. A Visa for the USA applied for online had returned by mail within a week.
Wait Dorothy, Wait Dorothy Wait.
‘Would you send me an email, or call, on when I may collect?’ I asked, trying to hold on to my Zen.
‘Oh no. You might receive a letter in the (snail) mail from TTPost, but check back with us around that time in case the letter does not arrive.’
Wait Dorothy, Wait Dorothy, Wait!
Holding on to the few breaths of patience left from months of meditation, I walked the two flights of stairs to TTPost to complete a request from another public office.
Registrar General’s Office in the Digital Age
This was to receive an endorsed/stamp after making an online payment from the Registrar General’s office.
The emailed instructions from the Office of the Registrar General was to PRINT the email of approval, PRINT two copies of the receipt and PRINT two copies of the original form I had completed online to make the payment online, and send these in a self-addressed envelope by snail mail/registered mail.
Having curbed my travel to improve my very murky carbon footprint – which I consoled myself was necessary since it was for giving effect to the sustainable development goals – I sighed for the trees that were being sacrificed for this purpose.
These emails from the Registrar General’s Office to make the payments were surprisingly timely and prompt, although the many requests for official documents of the registration and certificate and refunds owed from duplicated payments demanded by that office stretching into the last DECADE remain unanswered. No amount of pleading, cajoling, emailing, making appointments and standing in interminable lines at glass-cased counters have yet been able to solicit a response. Mine is not an isolated case as countless other networks and individuals can recount similar experiences. This stymieing of every entrepreneurial impulse from a system tasked to activate the entrepreneurial and creative economy in the Digital Age of nanoseconds, waiting a decade for action, must set it on track for some international record on public bureaucracy
National Library and Information Services in the Digital Age
To access some document, wanting to complete the task as I was already out, I made my way to the National Library Services across the road. The very accommodating staff showed me to a computer to access the files of the documents through email.
It took several minutes and several more, and more while the antiquated Windows 7 software twirled its way to first booting up, then tried to find software for the drive. I didn’t even know Windows 7 was still in use, but here it was, at the National Library and Information Services tasked with leading our next generations, who has the ‘history of the nation in their book bags,’ through the Digital Age!
As I exited, I got a whiff of a past-time I could have indulged in while waiting for the antiquated computer to get with the times. There were more youths on the corner from which was emanating a strong scent of marijuana legalised while reading is criminalised, as one of the many old colonial laws still remain alive, endorsed and actively whipped out from the Law Books when the authorities need to remind ex-slave society who’s in charge!
As with the EBC office, it was the willingness and warmth of the staff to duty to serve that saved the day.
TT Post haste, or not
Not so warm and willing was the one on duty that hour at TTPost – as I am leaning on disbelief and refuse to say that what follows is the modus operandi of the service as a whole!
At the the TTPost office, also pridefully clad in spanking new national garb, I obediently joined the line to mail the documents to the Registrar General’s Office as requested.
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There was one person in the queue ahead of me. She had been waiting for over 30 minutes while the person behind the counter did whatever such persons do, sitting and staring at computer, moving from the front to the back of the room and back again. The patron in front of me indicated that she was feeling faint from waiting, complaining of back aches. I showed her to some seats at the far end of the room and returned to waiting. I stood in my slippers and I wondered, as here there was no lofty and inspiring view to occupy my gaze. Whatever the ailment of the client, the attendant was unmoved and continued fiddling unconcerned. I tabled it to add to my cultural case studies/case stories of our mastery of ‘the art of doing nothing’ that our much celebrated liming culture reveres.
Having planned my day to complete outdoor transactions so I wouldn’t have to disrupt my creative time, I watched the clock tick on, seeing that the offices where my next transactions were to be would be closed by the time I was through. No amount of pleading with the clerk for the woman ahead of me, nor of my own case would get him to speed up and treat the now lengthening queue with any degree of urgency.
Of course it means that I have to set aside another day to take on the other offices I need to treat with for official business, but that would have to wait, until I replenish my nirvana, to be able to face such an ordeal again.
Entrepreneurship and the Creative E Economy in the Digital Age
As I enjoy the digitally lit buildings and awesome digital light shows celebrating our 60th Independence, and am in awe that Toronto can pay such homage to our National Day, I am sitting/standing, in my slippers, wondering if I would be around to see the actual emergence of the State into the Digital Age as its state of preparedness seemed to be still decades away.
I could say much more, how the much touted potential of the e-economy for the creative sector has already slipped us by, or at least left us with more than a decade of catch-up – as most institutions remain in the dark ages. Not only the Registrar General’s systems of birth, death, incorporation, and other official documentation are lagging in a time where time is off the essence and counted in nanoseconds.
Basic facilitation across services leave much to be desired – across banking, finance, trade sectors. And the education system, the universities are woefully oblivious to the imperatives of the rapidly changing world, still steeped in dog-eared systems like the ‘Registration Book’ of the EBC ID Card issue system.
The creative printing and publishing sector that never really got-off the ground in the last paper age, have already missed the boat in the new one. None of the glories of the e-economy are available to us with these deficiencies.
Amazon and its satellite of services, politely asked that I move to another country with which they had completed arrangements with banks when I made enquiries about payments – and that response came within minutes of requesting clarification!
Local Content? Foreign Consultant! Wait Dorothy Wait...
Every state sees its image in those forms which have the mass appeal of sport, seasonal and amateurish. The folk arts have become the symbol of a carefree, accommodating culture, an adjunct to tourism, since the state is impatient with anything it cannot trade. This is not what a generation envisaged twenty years ago, when a handful of childish visionaries foresaw a republic devoted to the industry of art, for in those days we had nothing else.
Derek Walcott, What The Twilight Says
About this unprecedented exemplary campaign for the Caribbean arts and creative economy, read more here https://krisrampersad.com/vision-of-a-republic-devoted-to-industry-the-arts/
Meanwhile, I await, raising an Independent toast to the nation sipping meh Rumbunctious Babash – illegal because it local – for the next foreign or other consultant who would call me to ‘source’ my views on the State of the State because someone recommended that I can provide succinct strategy and policy recommendations and directions about upgrading the systems, though engaging local consultants like ourselves is not on the books, no matter how much education, experience or know how one may possess They just want me to sing in they party, for free – but that’s another calypso for another time!
Foreign consumption is not only confined to French Fries, sodas and apples and grapes at Christmas. Countless processes over the last couple decades of urging local sector to get on board on local content issues were sneered and scoffed at – until Guyana as the new beacon of prosperity and plenty in the region with its new-found oil and other bounties, recently laid down the law on local content and the grand scramble has now begun – as if Guyana invented the notion of local content.
Some foreign consultant contracted by the local authorities is sure to call soon asking me to feed them the dossiers on local content in the years spent working with UNCTAD and other international standards agencies to devise relevant directions for the Caribbean on local content that could accrue value for local IP. With the new kid on the block, NFTs, which many are struggling to wrap their heads around, save that it looks like a nice means of quick profit, it has become imperative and there is need for a quick fix across the board. Sweet Sweet T&T! No place in the world…..!
So while I await my national ID, which may or may not arrive as a Christmas present and replenish my Zen, praying for the day that my country awake ‘into ever-widening thought and action,’ let’s sing together with Stalin,
Oil money come, oil money go
Poor people remain on the pavement and ghetto
When Mr Divider start to divide the bread equally
Ah goin finish the whole damn calypso bout Dorothy
Wait Dorothy, Dorothy Dorothy, Wait
O land of fairest beauty
We pledge our lives to duty
And vow this day, and vow this day
And vow this day to serve thee.
…And May God Bless Our Nation!
Edutainment – a Coconut Branch of Conciliation
In commemoration of the 6oth anniversary of Independence and 46th Anniversary as a Republic we offer a breathe of fresh air to the Nation through a number of Edutainment initiatives.
Get inspirational insights into developing the creative economy and other sectors, resuscitating communities and villages, inspiring youth, engaging elders. Whatever your occasion, all activities can be customised to give your customers – local or foreign a unique taste of the flavours of our region. Make contact to discuss your needs.
Explore mindscapes and landscapes with LiTTscapes
Trinidad and Tobago through the eyes of its famous, and not-so-famous thinkers and characters of fiction who represent the everyday folks, heroes and villains of in T&T.
Inspired by the highly acclaimed LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago which was launched in commemoration of the Jubilee (50th) Anniversary of Independence by Heritage Educator, Dr Kris Rampersad, we will explore the natural and cultural fabric of the islands and the sum total of “Trinbago” from our primordial and prehistoric origins through indigeneous settlement, multiple migrations, industrial, social, cultural, political and economic development, through novel lenses
These interactive novel excursions and events will meander from South through Central, North, East, and West to rediscover landmarks and lifestyles pivotal to the making and character of Trinidad and Tobago and who and what we are. They will highlight the unique heritage of our islands in many dimensions – geophysical, industrial, agricultural, cultural, historical, educational, culinary, festival, spiritual, institutional, while digging into participants’ own memories and experiences, family lore and legends to enhance appreciation of what makes up the NaTTion.
Many RouTTes One DestiNaTTion
LiTTours and LiTTributes inspired by the highly acclaimed book by Dr Kris Rampersad, LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad &Tobago, aim to:
- Breathe Fresh Air Into Understanding of PatrioTTism
- Enhance appreciation of the inspired physical and metaphysical real and imagined landscapes
- Encourage exploration of Trinidad and Tobago’s in its many dimensions through its rich oral cultures, literary heritage and intellectual traditions
- Deepen appreciation & and re-envision development paths.
- Inspire ecological, environmental and cultural appreciation in the context of and in relation to rural-urban evolution
- Cultivate and strengthen confidence in home grown initiatives counter/alternative to crime, scepticism, historical mistrust;
- Celebrate heroism & resilience of the Caribbean spirit,
- Strengthen the socio-economic and cultural fabric: identifying with, promoting and enhancing appreciation of literacy and synergies with the homegrown cultural heritage and artistic sectors with other sectors and systems of Trinidad and Tobago
Many RouTTes, One DestiNaTTion will explore:
- The rural-urban landscapes and multicultural lifestyles of T&T
- The evolving oral-& literary fesTTivals and tradiTTions
- The intellectual and grassroots appreciation of our heriTTage
- Potential synergies between the creative sectors with corporate culture,, architecture and construction, education, engineering, science, ecology and the natural environment, agriculture, the culinary arts etc…
Who Can Benefit?
Anyone ages 3 to 103 in any sector or from any field, discipline or interests: families, public officials, decision makers, diplomats, politicians, industry leaders, educators…
Look out for our exciting package of offerings this year.
A new phenomenon in CEIBA-EDUtainment is coming your way soon…
About Dr KrisRampersad
Dr Kris Rampersad is a Global Development Consultant, Creator, Innovator prepping for the post pandemic planet with novel Sustainable Creative Edutainment Initiatives with blended media education and cultural tools, techniques. She is a UNESCO-trained educator/facilitator, National Geographic certified educator, global Woman Techmakers’ Ambassador and Google Digital Skills Ambassador. To support, collaborate, sponsor or adopt a community, find out more in this link. Make contact to join an initiative. or develop one unique to your identity
Email: lolleaves@gmail.com Visit Facebook: LiTTscapes; T @lolleaves
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