by Sherla McKenzie
Tobago
I’d been hustling the week I came to the theater house, walking the town shouldering buckets of pies, thinking single-mindedly of survival. One year earlier, at the age of 35, I’d left a broken marriage and moved with my six children into a shelter. I’d brought my kids so they could do what they loved, performing music, dance and song. I’d come for them, not me—for me it was not a time for dancing.
And yet the theater director felt otherwise. From Trinidad, she was unfamiliar with the dances of our native Tobago, where the play was set, and asked if I would demonstrate a sequence of the Bongo dance performed at wakes. I showed her and sealed my fate.
“You are a dancer!” she cried. “You are familiar—no, I need you—I cannot let you go.”
My weekday rounds selling pies up and down Tobago grew no easier, but they now were walked to the sound of calypso—specifically the songs of Winston Bailey, on whom the play was based. Better known as the “Mighty Shadow,” this bass man left Tobago in his youth and came back with a new sound that redefined the calypso of my generation. And along with the “Mighty Shadow,” I did my rounds to the rhythm of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo—I’d befriended a Buddhist at the theater house.
The more I spoke with this friend—the only Buddhist I’d ever met—the more I resonated with the philosophy’s central message, which contained a vibrant spirit, one that felt familiar. “Hard work never hurt anybody” was my father’s favorite saying; and “One hand can’t clap” was his second, meaning that work is good for the soul, but that the soul won’t work in isolation. To me, Buddhism conveyed the best of this sentiment: We’re each more powerful than we know, and working hard together for the sake of happiness, there is nothing we cannot accomplish.
It was my father who, while my children and I were living at the shelter, laid the foundation of the floor for our future home. Together with my eldest sons, he’d come early and work until the day grew warm—around 9 or 10 a.m.—casting its floors and walls on a tiny plot of land my grandfather left me—so tiny, in fact, that there was not space enough to park a car outside. Actually, I’d been left a much larger piece of land where my grandfather had parceled roughly into thirds between my two brothers and me. It had been a spoken agreement, but after he passed, strife ensued—the matter was taken to court, and I was railroaded into the tiny square where now my father worked. It was up to us to settle our differences, something that, as the years rolled by, seemed would never happen; and it pained me deeply.
In Buddhism, however, we don’t wait for others to change. We change and then our environment changes. This can be difficult to believe, which for me was all the more reason to show proof—specifically, to live as an example to my children. Encouraged by my Buddhist friend, I began taking an adult literacy tutors course, completing it in a year and going on to teach the beginner courses myself. I left soon after to fulfill my dream of receiving a higher education, traveling to Trinidad to receive a degree in sociology and a postgraduate diploma in Arts and Cultural Enterprise Management.
I should say, it took time for me to come out as Buddhist—I did not receive the Gohonzon until my eighth year of practice. Tobago is a small island, where, at such a sensitive time in my life, I did not want to risk some grave misunderstanding with my family and community. My turning point came in 2005, when I attended an SGI conference in Trinidad, along with some 50 others practicing this Buddhism on neighboring islands. It was here that I grasped the SGI as a wider movement, something larger than our small group in Tobago at the time. In Trinidad, I received guidance that for me, it was vital that I strive with a stand-alone spirit, with the determination to open a path for the future of kosen-rufu in Tobago. Awakening to a sense of mission, I took a stand the following year, receiving the Gohonzon and letting it be known to all that I am a proud Buddhist.
This year marks a new beginning, both for Tobago District and my family. As a district, we began hosting our first elementary school division events, which the local youth are joyfully supporting. As a Buddhist community, we opened the SGI-USA Trinidad and Tobago Center in April, giving us a training ground to raise capable people. As a family, I broke through with my brothers, settling our disagreements about the land, which resulted in a redrawing of the boundaries along the lines my grandfather had originally described. The greatest victory, however, was that the affair was ultimately settled out of court, not by legal force but through mutual understanding.
Today, I’m the proud owner of a thriving ice cream business and bakery, which I expanded in 2018. It was a year of tremendous growth—the year I attended the Florida Nature and Culture Center, made my first May Commemorative Contribution and accepted leadership for Tobago District. It was after making these tremendous causes that I received a lump sum from a prior job, enabling me to expand my business to include the bakery. When the pandemic threatened to close down my business, we got creative, weathering the storm with daily individualized deliveries. The business survived and has since grown into a family affair—just the other day, we baked for a large community event whose order took nearly our whole family to fulfill. I did the coconut tarts and drops, my daughter the banana bread and sponge cake, while one of my sons did the sweet bread and pone (a traditional pudding made with cassava, sweet potato, pumpkin and spice). My other son made the smoothies.
We are still hustling, but in the best sense of the word—vibrantly, in harmony. As a district, we are bustling—working hard alongside the youth to connect them with Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and Ikeda Sensei, to the message that they are more powerful than they can imagine and, united, the world is theirs. For me, it’s a time for dancing.
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