ORDER OF PREACHERS
The Dominican Family
Trinidad & Tobago

THE DIARY OF FR. COTHONAY, O.P.
Missionary Priest from France

PART ONE

October 1882 – January 1884

CHAPTER 2

Mosquitoes — An Interesting Story — First Confessions and First Wedding —
Our Lady of Laventille

Port of Spain
October 30, 1882.

I have been in Trinidad almost a week. During that time I have gone around Port of Spain and its suburbs and wondered at the many things that were new to me. I have made the acquaintance of many people of all nations and colours and was well received by everybody. I did not feel like a stranger. Rather did I feel that I was coming home after a long absence.

The heat does not seem unbearable to me; so far the temperature has not been over 32 degrees C [90 degrees F] and I am assured that the thermometer does not go much above that, and that it rarely goes below 24 degrees C [75 degrees F] even at night. In Carpentras [Dominican House of Studies in France] or Lyons you have often had 36 or 38 degrees C [97–100 degrees F]. I am told that this is unheard of in Trinidad because of fresh winds that blow from the east for a part of the year.

The day I was leaving, one of you told me to take precautions against the Trinidad mosquitoes, whose reputation has spread as far as Europe. The poor mosquitoes, what an undeserved reputation they have got! It isn't necessary to come to Trinidad to get bitten by them. Don't you remember how in Chalais [Dominican Novitiate], and especially in Carpentras, they were the despair of so and so, who at times spent part of the night defending themselves. To tell the truth I must admit that though they have not forced me to get up at night I have already been bitten in spite of having a mosquito net. But it appears that the little devils prefer European blood, newly arrived, and I am told that after a few weeks I shall be troubled by them no more than the veterans. Some have become so immune that they sleep without a net. Speaking of mosquitoes, let me tell you the story told by Père Bion, a former missionary in Trinidad. It goes back to the early years of the English occupation of the island. I am copying it literally from Année Dominicaine of 1865

“You know,” Père Bion wrote, “that in England, or rather in Scotland, there are some army regiments which have a not very English kind of uniform, the lower part of which is not unlike the simple waist covering of our East Indians, though the Highlanders (as they are called) wear shoes and stockings. When the English took possession of Trinidad, it was thought, rightly or wrongly, that because of their light uniforms a regiment of Highlanders would be suitable for the new colony and one was sent to St Joseph which was still the capital of the island. Alas! no account was taken of the mosquitoes. Whether because Scottish blood was particularly savoury or whether because the fury of the mosquitoes was roused by the prospect of having to do battle with an army, it seemed that they came from the four corners of the island as though invited to a royal banquet. In a short time the regiment was in complete disarray; training, manoeuvres, everything became impossible. The Highlanders had to be sent back to the peaceful mountains of Scotland and the custody of the island entrusted to better ... let us say, better armoured soldiers. So you can understand that though there is danger we are not so exposed.”

At night–time I have been less disturbed by the mosquitoes than by the dogs and the cocks. There is an innumerable army of them in Port of Spain. When the people cease to use the streets, the dogs say: “It's our turn now,” and they come from everywhere. They start real battles and the echoed barking makes an infernal concert, while beneath our windows a multitude of frogs join in. At daybreak the cocks begin to take part, and since in the tropics the nights are unusually calm, their crowing reverberates like thunder. And that is not all. Far from it. Two hundred yards from the convent the train engines join in for a part of the night with their strident whistles.

From these examples you will readily see that in order to sleep in Port of Spain you have to get used to the noise. I forgot the goats, the bucks and the nannies, which in a civilised town like Port of Spain enjoy full liberty to run about the streets day and night and I can assure you they make the most of their freedom. When the dogs have finished their goumer the goats take over. (Goumer is a Creole word meaning to fight or do battle).

In Trinidad, English, naturally, is spoken, as it is an English colony. However, many of the ordinary people speak Creole. It is simply French with a mixture of some words of English or Spanish origin, mutilated but following certain rules; a Frenchman picks it up fairly quickly.

As soon as we (Père Bariou, Père Britton and myself) arrived, the missionaries in Trinidad began their retreat; so I had to start immediately preaching, baptizing, conducting weddings and funerals as if I had been doing these things all my life. You will be interested to hear that my first penitent was a young girl of a hundred and twenty years. Two days after disembarking I was sent to hear the confessions of the old people in Spaccapietra Hospice, founded by the saintly Archbishop Spaccapietra who was Archbishop of Smyrna when he died. I began with the oldest, and the matron of this large establishment assured me that the woman must be one hundred and twenty years old. I can certainly say that the old negress was the oldest woman I ever saw. She looked like an Egyptian mummy, completely shrunken. Her face, which was like crumpled and faded parchment had long gashes beginning at the mouth and reaching to the ears, as well as on her chin and forehead. I asked for an explanation of this curious feature and I was told: “This negro woman, like many others in Trinidad, was born in Africa, where the faces of young slaves were marked in this manner. Sometimes, however, it is just a sign of nationality. Each tribe had its own particular set of markings.”

A word about the first marriage I conducted. The pair in question were an elderly Negro man of at least fifty years and a dark beauty who seemed some years older than he. At the moment when the bridegroom was putting the wedding ring on the bridge's finger, I found it hard to keep serious. First of all, it took some time to remove the white glove in which the hand was imprisoned, a condition to which it was not accustomed. Then the wrong finger was selected. With the assistance of an experienced companion, the correct finger was finally discovered, but as soon as the ring got to the first knuckle, the woman drew her hand away and tried to push the ring the rest of the way herself. But the bridegroom would have none of this. He took hold of her hand again and energetically insisted on staying with the ring until it reached its final position in spite of the resistance of her ladyship. I had been witnessing a piece of Creole superstition. The people believe, it appears, that the more thoroughly the man puts the ring on the finger of his bride, at the moment of marriage, the greater the authority he will have later. Under this conviction, the women resist and it is not rare to see such funny scenes as the one I witnessed.

Before concluding this letter I must mention that I went to say Mass yesterday in the chapel of Our Lady of Laventille, the Fourvières of Port of Spain. This chapel, of which you will hear more from me, is about the same distance from our town as Fourvières is from the centre of Lyons and it dominates Port of Spain as Fourvières overlooks the town of Saint Pothin.

At the feet of our Lady of Laventille I prayed fervently for my dear teachers and brothers of the house of studies, whom I left behind in the heights of Valais, near the banks of the uppermost reaches of the Rhône in their land of exile [Switzerland].

You won't mind, I hope, if I tell you that I feel less of an exile in Trinidad than I did in Switzerland. Though I love France as dearly as ever, as our native land, I feel that in Trinidad I am in the home that Providence has given me and am not in the least inclined to regard myself as a stranger. So I stayed a long time at this modest shrine and promised myself to return there often. It seemed fitting to give thanks there to the Blessed Virgin and her divine Son for having saved me from danger during the hurricane at sea and for having granted my wish by bringing me at last to this mission. It will not be hard for you to imagine the great joy one experiences on reaching the goal at which one has been aiming for years, the goal which was the great desire of one's youth and for which one has sacrificed everything. I think I told some of you that I have never had any other ambition except to be a missionary. But this ambition was the torment of my life because of the difficulties I saw in it. Up to the age of seventeen I intended to go to the seminary of the foreign missions as soon as I had finished secondary school. But I gave up that idea and entered the Order of St Dominic. I did so in order to avoid a danger of which I was afraid, namely to have to live alone. The foreign missionary priest in the plains of India or the mountains of China and Tibet, often separated by hundreds of leagues from his nearest confrères, has assuredly a fine vocation; he carries the torch of the Gospel into the darkest places, and for that he needs a powerful grace of state; he may even be given the grace of martyrdom. Still the vocation seemed to me to be difficult and fraught with danger. Knowing my weakness I wanted to get over the difficulty, and the Order of St Dominic not merely fulfilled my innermost aspirations, but it also seemed, as it still seems to be best suited for the fulfilment of my desires. First of all, it gave me a longer and more thorough formation, which I needed; and also, while it invited me to become a missionary, it enabled me to work under the eyes of my brethren. “A brother supported by a brother is like a fortified city.” Here in Trinidad we are really privileged in this respect. There are about ten fathers here and this enables us to have the exercises of the regular life, office in common, meditation, etc. and at the same time we can engage in the work of the apostolate. This work is as varied and can be as fruitful in Trinidad as in any country of the world.

You must pardon me, Reverend Fathers and dear brothers; my pen has, I see, wandered in all directions and has betrayed me so much that I am hesitating about sending you this letter.