By Fae Ellington

Caribbean people are able to find the funny side in everything, and that includes, adversity. We are usually ‘giving laugh fi peas soup’ before the impending catastrophe, and after. Never during, though! During the disaster is when you know we love God.

It not uncommon to hear someone who is faced with great challenges respond to the query, “So, how are you today”, with,

‘Mi a tek kin teet suh kibba heart bun’. It simply means that the person is putting out the best even though they’re going through great difficulty. Or they may say, ‘mi haffi smile, or mi wi go under’. This is about fortitude.

It has been part of the coping mechanism of Caribbean people that may be traced back to our forebears who were enslaved. They weren’t about to show their deep hurt and pain. They masked their feelings. Similarly, they masked their messages and communication using the drums, and through their proverbs and songs.

As much as we laugh to camouflage our feelings, we are fully cognizant that what’s funny to one might not be to someone else. Here it is illustrated in the Trinidadian saying: ‘What is joke fuh schoolboy, is death fuh crapaud (frog).’ You know children are always messing around with frogs and toads.

The saying is similar in St. Vincent and the Grenadines: ‘What ah joke fuh school pickney is death fuh crapaud.’

The Jamaican equivalent is, ‘What is joke to you, is death to me.’

And in Grenada, ‘Thing for you to cry, you laugh’.

Anyway, put fun and jokes aside.

I’m writing this as the whole world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic. There are so many things that the scientists still do not know. So many things we do not know. There are still debates about its origin. Still daily findings on the myriad ways it affects the body. What’s for sure is this, the world as we know it, will never be the same. And at this juncture, we have absolutely no clue to what extent it will change, and how our lives will change.

I do believe, however, that Caribbean people who are left to tell the tale will fall back on their indomitable spirit which has been honed over centuries, and they will still tek bad tings mek joke. A jus suh wi stay.

Walk good!