Out of the Bag

'TnT' have a Blast at World Cup Party

Yoko Laurence

“Small country, big passion” is the motto that heralded Trinidad into Germany. One of my English friends coined TnT as “the little country that could.” I liked that better. Whatever your fancy, the sea of red at the Kaiserslautern stadium on June 20th was proof that all of Germany, and much of the world in fact, had caught the party fever that followed the Soca Warriors everywhere they went. Walking into the sold out stadium of 46,000 people 10 minutes after kick off, I mused as to whether Paraguay had changed its colour of support from blue to red. Where were their supporters? Had they all gone home after Paraguay’s own goal against England ten days earlier?
          

Germany, so far, had not been what I expected. Not cold and stoic. No rigidity in the Deutschland’s manner. The four solitary words I knew got me farther than I had expected. Not everyone spoke English but every German was willing to help as best they could. With no pre-planning, I was able to get from Frankfurt-Hahn Airport to Kaiserslautern Stadium in less than 5 hours – no mean feat I must impress.

The opulent town of Scholl, or the more modest Pirmasens, all have natives who are the antithesis of Germany in the early 20th century. I gathered my backpack as we approached Kaiserslautern train station and a towering, blonde-haired, blue-eyed gorgeous German male began to request (first in German, then in English), directions to a street in Kaiserslautern’s city centre. He was shocked and disappointed when I informed him that I did not in fact live there. The unfailing Trini confidence and self assertion was at work again. I began to understand why you could find a Trini in any major city of the world and most rural areas too: we are adaptable and our love of fun, endearing. Some may regard our mass migration as brain drain or escapism but I’ve always felt that I was just travelling the world so that I could see it all. Ultimately,  infecting it with the very Trini pride that saw children and adults of all nationalities sporting official, not just token, T&TFA t-shirts and chanting, more conscientiously than most calypsonians, the words to “I am a Soca Warrior”.

As my family and I scrambled at the sleepy Pirmasens station to get a train ticket to Paris, a young German man approached to help. He asked,  “Where are you from?” "Trinidad", my father replied. “Cool” was his response. Not only did he know that Trinidad wasn’t part of Jamaica but he knew the correct pronunciation of our sister isle, Tobago, and regarded us as the nicest people in the world. There was our victory! We had infected the world, even with 2-0 losses to England and Paraguay. And lest you forget, we’ll always have Sweden! Danke and Auf Wiedersehen! -yoko@brownscapeprod.com