CJ Moore

Tech. and Am. Society

Sept. 28, 2012

Oral History Report

My Oral History Report is on my grandmother from the small Twin Island Republic of

Trinidad and Tobago. Her name is Georgette Goddard and she means the world and the rest of

the solar system to me. Born in the capital of Tobago, the city named Scarborough on October

1st, 1941.

In her time, there were single family homes, parcel of land, big enough for subsistence

farming, growing their own food and extra to sell at market which consisted of plants,

vegetables, meat, fruits. Plenty of fishing took place from the sea nearby. The family owned

hogs, chickens, goats, sheep, and cattle. Also planted corn, pigeon peas, sweet potatoes, yams,

yucca or cassava, fruits like mango, citrus fruits, cashews, sapodillas, plums, dasheen, and

avocado. vegetables of all kinds were cropped from bread fruit or chatigne, its botanical name,

golden apples or pummecycthere, plantains and bananas.

Coconut palm trees were everywhere, and sustained life in many different ways. Coconut

branches were used patched roof to make brooms for sweeping. Coconut fruit was used to extract

coconut water and coconut jelly, the white part inside. Then dried out to use in multiple ways;

The outer husk was used as a fuel for fire for cooking food. The hard inner shell was used for

making handy craft. The jelly or kernel was used to make coconut oil for animal seeds and for

human consumption. Coconut oil was also used for skin and hair care. The trunk of the coconut
tree was also used as fire wood and for building construction, which meant nothing from the tree

was allowed to be wasted. The husk was also used to make mattresses from the fiber in it along

with grass, stuffed in a white casing that made the bed.

Cocoa was from which chocolate is made was farmed and made their own chocolate.

When it was the season for corn, peas, cocoa, coconut or to slaughter an animal for food,

everyone in the family as well as others from the village would join in the effort. The cocoa and

coconut fruit was dried in the sun before being processed into chocolate and coconut oil.

Whatever of all of the above were not used sustaining the family was sold at market or

exchanged for other products not grown by the family. The goats also provided milk for the

family in addition to meat along with the cattle.

When a particular fruit, vegetable or farm product was in season, the entire family

existence was built around its consumption. For instance, corn would be boiled, roasted, dried

and ground into corn flour to make cron meal from making porridge making bread and muffins

and cucu, made from corn into boiling water until it gets thick. Corn was also stored for use later

in the crop cycle.

Life at this time was very difficult even though they didn't know it then, initially there

was no electricity, no running water, and no television or phones. The only means of staying in

touch with the outside world was by mail or by battery powered radio. There was no inside

toilets or showers, instead there were outdoor shower houses and latrines (dug a deep hole and. It

was always an adventure to go to the latrine to go in the darkness of night.

 Cooking was largely done on outside stoves that consisted of three big boulders with a

pot on top with fire wood or coconut shells in the spaces beneath the boulders. They also planted

sugar cane which they used to make sugar, to suck or consume, to feed the animals and from

which others who knew how made alcohol (Rum).

A typical day in the life of a school child would have been rise at the crack of dawn,

about six thirty with a rooster crowing in the yard. The boys will take care of feeding the farm

animals and tying the goat, sheet and cattle out in the pasture to graze for the day. The hogs and

chicken were also fed in their pens after the pens were cleaned at the time. To clean the pen,

water would have to be carried from the nearby river, down in the valley or in the drums from

the rainwater. After the morning chores were finished, we would take a quick shower using the

rainwater and was never cold, close to room temperature. Went back into the house where the

women and mom would have prepared breakfast. The radio was on all the time, new with

breakfast the off to school. Everyone walked in school uniform, a different one for a different

school. And nobody could afford more than two uniforms. Had to make sure you were ready to

walk the mile to school by eight.

Going to school late was not an option. There was no excuse at all. Any adult in the

village was entitled to discipline any child on the spot. It took a village to raise a child, the values

of the village were shared by all, that is why any adult could discipline any child. Misbehavior at

school was punished at school in addition at home with a message of your misbehavior often

preceded your arrival home. School went from nine to four. At this point you headed home, once
home, your chores began again. You will retrieve your animals from the pasture, feed them all

and put them back in their pens along with watering the plants with a watering can from the

rainwater in morning and evening. Fire wood was also collected to cook during the day. Then,

came in the house for dinner and had to be done by six o'clock with the radio. Only source of

light was gas laps, candles, and other oil lamps. Usually the lamps were in the living room and

the kitchen. If you wanted to use the bathroom, you had to carry a lamp. Homework was done by

lamp light and in bed by nine o'clock. Playtime was sometimes after you necessities.

My grandmother had the luxury to witness the change of media over a course of seventy

years. The means of communication were very basic. They started off with no street lights or

roads anywhere at all, only dirt roads. Many people were barefooted and cut their toes a lot and

there was no initial hospital.

There were very simple TVs that were in black and white. Only business people and

wealthy groups of people had color. Often times, people would attend other people houses and

had to be respectful of the home and sit on the ground and watch TV. Movies like Big Valley -

The Cart Right Family, Tombstone, Shane, Bonanza. As the early to mid sixties arrived, there

was a phase where a red plastic was placed in front of the TV, which was sold to make it look

like color. TVs only had two stations amongst the two islands. At the time, they only had one or

the other, channel two or thirteen. There had to be a big antenna on the roof, on an iron pole from

seventy to eighty feet high, with a wingspan of 30 feet and had to be adjusted daily due to the

birds or random strong winds.

 Radios stations began on an AM Frequency Belt. The first station was established in

1947 in the capital of Trinidad, Port of Spain on 730 AM. The oldest station in the country. Soap

operas, local and international news, and educational documentaries. Over the course of the next

thirty years, it changed to FM frequency at 95FM.

Transportation was led to the upper classed people. They were the only group able to

afford their own means of private transportation. The rest of the nation were left to do plenty of

walking, and public transport or biking. Trinidad was the more industrialized island and had

more technology from the world than Tobago and always got up to date a year or so later. There

was one main road in Tobago, a dirty road that stretched from Crown Point on the west side of

the island to Charlottesville on the far east of the island.

Telephones were public junction phones. In the beginning, they had to go out to the main

village or capitals to use a phone in Scarborough or Port of Spain. The Candle telephone was the

start of this era. Then, they moved one into separate villages under one hub from the capital, then

finally to homes.

Mail system only had one station in main town. Mail would come there and there would

be no way you anyone actually knowing unless you worked there or knew someone there.

Otherwise, you'd have to check once a day or once a week. That went along from the fifties to

the sixties. As the sixties were coming to an end, they began to send mailmen around to the

villages and dropped it off there and people of the village would come out and check their mail

from there. Mail usually took month to send and receive mail over seas, which was also the
means of communication with the outside world. Mail went out with ships, at the time neither

island had and airport not until the late seventies.

Finally, as the seventies came to a close, both Trinidad and Tobago began agreements

with the outside world, importing and exporting goods, from cars to food to contractors and

engineers to uplift into a developing country, even though it is still a third world country

amongst the rest of the Caribbean and the richest due to the amount of oil.