My room at Mrs Barnes consisted of a bed with mosquito netting over it, a small desk and a small chest of drawers. Mrs Barnes insisted on making traditional Trinidadian meals such as pigs ears and the like. She washed my white shirts by hand but they often came back looking pretty worn-out. Most of my salary went to room and board.
Another CUSO volunteer was working in Port of Spain and looking for a room-mate for a small apartment in the side of a house in a nice area of Port of Spain so I agreed to take the apartment. The problem was getting between Port of Spain and the school in Arima, a distance of 30 km.
There was the bus but I had soon discovered that most people used route taxis – 25 cents to go from Arima to Port of Spain. Route taxies were great if you were happy with their route but if you made the mistake of asking for a deviation from the route, the 25 cent cost could suddenly be $3.
I had my eye on a motorcycle. I had never driven a motorcycle, never been on one and didn’t know anything about licence requirements. I went down to the motor vehicle bureau in Port of Spain, showed them my Canadian driver’s license and told them it was good for motorcycles. I didn’t get any arguments. They handed me a license for driving motorcycles in Trinidad.
Then I made an appointment with a bank manager to borrow enough money to buy the motorcycle I was interested in which was a BMW. The bank manager sat for awhile and then said “on your salary, you can’t afford that motorcycle. However, I happen to know another bank manager who collects old motorcycles as a hobby. He might have something for you.”
I went to see the other Bank Manager and sure enough he had a motorcycle that was pretty reasonably priced. The problem was that I had no way of knowing if it was a good motorcycle of a bad one and since I had never driven one before it was going to be hard to check it out.
As it turns out however, Mrs Barnes son was a motorcycle policeman and he agreed to take a look at the motorcycle with me. He drove me to Port of Spain and he drove the motorcycle while I sat on the back. He said it was good so I bought the motorcycle and he jumped into his car and went home leaving me to drive the motorcycle back to Arima.
The motorcycle was a 1956 Velocette. It had a hand lever to start and hand gears like a car, as well as hand clutch and hand brakes. You soon started thinking you maybe needed more hands. It was water cooled, direct drive (no chain) and very quiet. There was no key to lock it. I would take a Trinidadian penny out of my pocket to turn to start then pull the start lever. Even though theft was rampant in Trinidad there was no concern about anyone stealing it because it had such a unique look (like a motorcycle you see in old WWII movies).
Because it had hand gears like a car, I was able to drive it quite easily otherwise I would have been in deep trouble.
Once I moved to Port of Spain I drove it to school in the morning and back home at night. Tropical storms were common so I often got rained on one or more times on the way and then again coming home. Tropical storms wouldn’t last long so I would be soaked for awhile but then dry off within about 5 to 10 minutes. I only ever came into the school soaked once and that was when it rained just as I was entering the school yard.
WR Foster 