Turtle Watching!

This weekend was especially exciting, as we had our final two outings for the CCS program.

Friday night we went turtle watching at Matura, on the eastern coast of Trinidad. It is the second busiest beach in the world for leatherback sea turtles to nest. Leatherbacks are the largest species of sea turtles, and they were amazing to see!

First of all, it was just exciting to be at the beach at night. It reminded me of being at beaches at home at night, and camping trips on the beach on the peninsula. The temperature was perfect, not too warm or cool, with a strong sea breeze, and there were big waves and a bright moon, and you could see the silhouettes of the palm trees, and the sand was really soft.

We only got to see one sea turtle up close because the tide was strong enough that they were having trouble coming onto the beach. We saw a few that tried to get up the beach, but after being beaten back by the waves a few times went back out to sea to wait for a better tide. When you're turtle watching you have to be really careful because if you make too much noise or use bright lights the turtles won't come to the beach. You also can't get close to them until their nest is mostly made, or they will not lay their eggs.

The turtle we got to see was about 5 feet long and 4 feet wide, which I guess is pretty average sized. We got to watch her finish digging the hole, which was impressive. She used her back fins kind of as shovels, digging them deep into the sand and then turning them over to scoop sand out of the ground. Their nests end up being 2 1/2 to 3 feet deep. Then once they start laying eggs they (apparently) go into a sort of trance, so you can take pictures while they are laying. The turtle we saw had not been tagged (they tag all the turtles so they can track them. Leatherback sea turtles travel the globe, but I think mostly live in the North Atlantic because that's where their favorite jellyfish to eat live. So they travel up to Canada and then to Europe and Africa, and nest in around Trinidad, Venezuela, and Suriname) so we saw her get tagged, and then we got to see her lay her eggs, and take pictures, and feel her skin and shell.

Leatherbacks lay between 80 and 120 eggs at once, and they are perfectly round, and are slightly larger than golf balls. These turtles end up nesting about seven times, every 8 or 9 days, so they can end up laying between 800 and 1000 eggs in all. However, their survival rate is not very good, and only 1 out of all these is expected to survive to adulthood.

It was so amazing to see all the eggs, and to get to feel the shell and skin. Just the whole nesting process was amazing, and after seeing the difficulties some of the turtles were having just making it onto the beach made it seem even more incredible. This was definitely one of the highlights of this semester.

Food!

I thought I would do a post describing all the delicious food I have been eating this semester!

Bake and Shark: This is amazing! It’s home is Maracas Beach (it was featured on the Travel Channel I think), and when you go to the beach there are stands and stands selling bake and shark everywhere. It’s also a popular street food at Carnival, but it’s best at Maracas. Bake and Shark is a fried shark fillet (the shark) inside of a fried bread dough (the bake). It comes with various vegetables at most places, but the stand I usually get it from at Maracas lets you dress it up yourself. I always pile it high with pineapple, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, onion, ketchup, and garlic sauce. This makes it really messy, but it is so delicious!

Doubles: Doubles are another popular street food, but they are more common at breakfast. Doubles are a fried batter with curried channa (chickpeas) inside, which sometimes has a sweet mango sauce as well.

Pholourie: Pholourie is an Indian food. It’s fried cornmeal dough (are you seeing a trend here?), kind of shaped like donut holes, that you eat hot with a spicy sweet mango sauce.

Roti: Roti is an East Indian food. You can get several different kinds, but my favorite is just the channa (chickpeas) and potato with buss up shut. The channa and potatoes are curried, and you eat it with the buss up shut, which is ripped up pieces of the roti skin (I guess it’s kind of like a cornmeal tortilla? I don’t really know how to describe it). You eat the channa by tearing off a piece of the buss up shut and pinching pieces of the channa. It’s messy, but so good! And cheap.

Produce: There is so much cheap, fresh produce here, it’s amazing. The Tunapuna market has everything. I get fresh mangos, pineapple, and watermelon all the time, and you can even buy imported Washington apples! The fruit is so good and so ripe, and I’m definitely going to miss it when I’m home.

KFC: Fried chicken is big here. There are three major fried chicken chains here (KFC, Royal Castle Chicken, and Church’s Chicken), but KFC is definitely the biggest. The KFC on the Brian Lara Promenade in Port of Spain is the busiest and most profitable KFC in the world, and it is open 24 hours a day. KFC’s are everywhere, and I have even seen numerous ones with playgrounds, kind of like how McDonald’s has playgrounds at home. I have eaten at KFC more this semester (about 3 times) than I have in the last probably 5 years of my life. Like I said, Trinis like their fried chicken.

Creole food: Creole food is delicious, but it’s not as easy to find as most of the East Indian food. My favorite is pelau, which is rice and chicken, but there is also other food as well.

Sauces: Trinis love their sauces on everything. Pepper sauce is ridiculously spicy, and you can get it on anything! You learn quickly to just ask for no pepper, unless you have a strong tolerance for heat. French fries are slathered in ketchup, barbecue sauce, garlic sauce, mayo, you name it, and eaten with a fork usually because they are so covered you can’t actually pick up the fries. Pizza is liberally doused in ketchup, and when people go to Subway to get sandwiches they sometimes get large amounts of five or six sauces on their subs. I get weird looks at home for not really liking ketchup or mayo, but that is nothing compared to the looks I get when I don’t put sauce on my food here!

There’s other random food here, but this is the basics of what I have been eating!

Easter and a week with Mom

April 1
We went to Siparia (in South Trinidad) and went to a Holy Thursday Mass at a Catholic Church. There is some connection between the Catholic celebration of Holy Thursday and a Hindu celebration. There is a statue of a black Catholic saint, La Divina Pastora, and on Holy Thursday the Hindus gather to worship it. This is also a time when a lot of homeless people gather because they know that religious people will give them food and money. So we went to the service and then helped hand out vegetable soup to the people gathered there. There is also a big bazaar that springs up around this church, so we looked around for a while before heading back to Tunapuna.

April 2 Good Friday
After getting back around 1 am last night, we left at 3:45 am to go to the Mt. St. Benedict stations of the cross celebration for Good Friday. We ended up walking up the mountain to Mt. St. Benedict (which is a really long, steep walk – I usually take a taxi up to my class). The first part of the walk we were just walking behind a truck with speakers, and all the Catholics had candles and were just chanting the Hail Mary. Then, as we arrived at the start of Mt. St. Benedict (they own a lot of land, and it starts a ways down from the actual church) a skit following the events surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion was performed. It was all narrated by a woman playing Mary riding in the truck. It was definitely an interesting experience, especially since there was a guy portraying Judas hanging from a tree like he had hung himself, which is startling at 5 am. We ended up at the church by 6, and got to see the sunrise from the church, which was pretty. After getting back I ended up going back to sleep because I had only slept for 2 ½ hours the night before.

April 4 Easter
Easter is a long weekend here, so most people in our group ended up going to the beach a couple times. I ended up having to work on papers all weekend because I had two due the next week, but Kristen and I went to a church in the morning for the Easter service.

April 6
I was trying to completely finish my two papers by Tuesday, because my mom came to visit and I wanted to not have homework to do. She got into the airport at 10 pm, and then we had an interesting time trying to figure out where she was going to sleep. I was going to get a mattress, but the girl who had it wasn’t around that night, so we borrowed a floaty from Candice which ended up deflating during the night, unfortunately.

April 7
In the morning I made my mom edit my papers so I could print them out and get them turned in, and then I showed her around UWI. Then I went to St. Mary’s like usual in the afternoon. Our time there is winding down, and the library is looking about as good as we can make it. The children’s books were pretty much organized when we got there, and we’ve organized all the young adult books and the adult fiction books. It definitely looks a lot better now. After St. Mary’s I took my mom to Wings, where I made her try roti, and then we went to the mall to watch a movie (The Last Song), where I once again froze because the air conditioning is always so cold!

April 8
I had class in the morning, and turned in my last paper. After class we went to Port of Spain to try to see a museum exhibit with Max, but the museum was closed. I ended up walking around Port of Spain with my mom all afternoon so she could see the city. We took a taxi to the botanic gardens, and then walked back to city gate so we could see everything. I showed her the botanic gardens, the Savannah, NAPA, we stopped at a little museum, Woodford Square, I bought the art supplies I needed, walked by the waterfront, etc. It was a day filled with walking! But the good thing is that it is possible to see most of Port of Spain in one afternoon of walking. That night we had one of our last CCS lectures on the history of the U.S. in the Caribbean, which just ended up being U.S. history, and it didn’t really focus much on current interactions in the Caribbean, and it was ridiculously long.

April 9
We left at 4 am to catch our 6:30 ferry to Tobago. I was so tired just sitting in the ferry terminal waiting to board the ferry (you have to get there two hours early, which is really early when the ferry is at 6:30 am). The ferry is cool, it felt kind of like a big airplane that you can walk around in. There’s seats kind of like on airplanes, except with way more leg room and more aisle space, but there’s even a movie on the trip. Unfortunately I started feeling a little nauseous, so I slept the whole time. When we got to Scarborough we decided we wanted to walk around a little bit since I had never been there before. Well, there’s not actually anything to do in Scarborough, so we ate our breakfast in the botanic gardens and watched chickens and dogs run around before taking a taxi to Store Bay. At Store Bay we took a glass bottom boat ride out to Bucco Reef. I had done this trip in January, but it was definitely fun to get to see the reef again and go snorkeling. I found it odd that over ¾ of the people on our trip could not swim and did not even try to go snorkeling. They just sat in the boat and then got out in the Nylon Pool (which is only three feet deep, so you don’t need to be able to swim). The fish and the reef were amazing again, and it was fun to sit on top of the boat and watch the water and the windsurfers at Pigeon Point. There was a British family with twin girls who were about 4 years old, and they were so cute in their matching pink swimsuits and life jackets. They were entertaining to watch. After the boat ride we hung out at the beach before checking into the place we were staying. Because we had gotten up so early, both of us were asleep by 8pm, and I ended up getting 12 hours of sleep that night.

April 10
We went to this amazing pancake house for breakfast because my mom did not feel like having bake and saltfish for breakfast (but then again, neither did I!). I got the most amazing coconut pineapple pancakes, which were delicious. After breakfast we went swimming one last time before checking out and heading back to Scarborough to catch our afternoon ferry.

April 11
We took a group trip to Maracas, where the waves were the biggest I have ever seen them there! They are a lot of fun to play in, and it was mostly cloudy, which was good since I had gotten really sunburned at Bucco Reef on Friday. I made my mom try bake and shark and pholourie, which she liked.

April 12
We had an interesting adventure in our attempts to go to the Asa Wright Nature Center. After reserving our spots on a tour, the center told me to take a taxi to Arima and then hire a taxi to go to Asa Wright. Well, I had never been to Arima before, so when we reached the city we just got off the maxi and then started wandering around looking for the right taxi. One guy said he would take us for $150 TT each way, which sounded like way too high of a price. Then several people told us to go to one intersection, but it took us about a half hour to figure out which taxi stand to go to, since it wasn’t really a stand and the taxis didn’t come very often. Eventually we got a taxi though, and the guy offered to come pick us up too, which was good because Asa Wright is about 20 minutes up the mountain in the middle of nowhere. Asa Wright was cool, we saw so many hummingbirds and other random colorful birds everywhere. We got a tour where we saw some other birds in the forest, but most of the birds just come to the feeders that are around the veranda.

April 13
We got up really early to go to Port of Spain again to meet with a contact for my final project. This required a 20 minute taxi ride to a part of the city that is northwest of where I usually go. We ended up meeting with Mother Ramdoo, who is a Spiritual Baptist archbishop. She talked for about 2 hours on the Spiritual Baptists before we finally had to leave. We just barely got to my religion class on time, where there was a guest lecture on the aluminum smelters in south Trinidad.

April 14
We went to Wings once more before I took my mom to the airport for her to catch her flight home. Afterwards I went to St. Mary’s again. The other times we had been reading with the kids they started to lose focus after about 30 minutes of reading. However, during those trips they had not had school. This week they were back in school again, so they were just bouncing off the walls the whole time, and didn’t want to read, or be read to. They just wanted to walk around the library and pull books off shelves and do crazy things, which was a little frustrating and really draining.

April 15
The presentations for the costumes we made in my mas class was interesting. My costume had finally been finished, and it ended up being some weird cardboard creation that kind of resembled bamboo and was supposed to make some sort of statement about the rainforest and sustainability and conservation. I’m not sure if it actually conveyed that, but it is done! I’m not a big fan of art projects, they take a long time and end up being really stressful and requiring lots of random materials I don’t usually own, especially not here.

It’s been really cool here lately, we’ve even gotten some rain! It’s also been nice to have it be more cloudy, so the sun doesn’t wake me up before six every morning.

Sorry this has been so long, but I needed to get caught up!

Busyness in Trinidad

March 19
We visited Parliament and sat in on a session of the House of Representatives. They are based on the Westminster system of government, with an elected House of Representatives and an appointed Senate. It was kind of boring, but we did recognize the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition (there’s been a long controversy with her finally getting that post after party elections in January). We had a lecture on the political system of Trinidad a couple of days before, which made Parliament easier to understand, but we just sat there and listened to them debate a bill about hiring more judges for about 1 ½ hours.

March 22
Hannah and I went to Port of Spain to interview Rosalind Gabriel, a mas camp designer, for a paper we have due next week. It was a crazy adventure, because we ended up getting in a taxi going to the opposite side of the city, so we were late, and then we didn’t end up having enough money for a taxi back to Woodford Square so we had to walk. But I felt accomplished for remembering the way back, and we didn’t get lost at all. We stopped at a few stores on the way back, including a carnival supply store that we might visit again to get supplies for our final project. We also stopped at the national library to look up information for our CCS final project. However, all of the books for my project were checked out, so it wasn’t too useful. We had a quick lunch at the KFC on the Promenade. It’s the busiest and most profitable KFC in the world, and is open 24 hours, and while neither of us really like KFC it was fast and we wanted to be able to say we had eaten there.

March 23
Earl Lovelace came and read to us from his new book which should be published this year. It was cool that he came to meet us, but he kept laughing in anticipation of all the jokes and humor in his book, and none of us caught any of the humor, so we just sat there in awkward silence while he, Candice, and Averil laughed.

March 24
One of the Spiritual Baptist Archbishops talked to us, and gave us some background on Spiritual Baptists so we wouldn’t be completely lost when we went to the Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day celebrations. We then went to a karaoke bar in Tunapuna, which was a lot of fun. Most of the singers were really good and took their karaoke seriously, which was kind of intimidating. But it was fun to get to karaoke to familiar American music. Some of us are hoping to go back there sometime.

March 27
Saturday we had a river lime, which is apparently a big Trini tradition. We sat by a river all day, and went wading, and Candice went fishing for the first time. She actually caught a fish, which was impressive, and then her daughter Kyra poked it and it flopped around like crazy which caused Candice to start freaking out a little. Some guy cooked us food, and it was so good! We had this soup with kingfish, potatoes, plantains, and carrots, and it was filling, and then we discovered that it was only the appetizer. Later we had really good curried chicken, and dumplings, and provisions, and more curried fish. A fun, relaxing day.

March 28
Sunday was really fun. A bunch of us went with Island Hikers to visit Gasparee Caves. They’re a limestone cave system on Gaspar Grande, a small island off the coast at Chagaraumas. Our maxi was late, so we got on one of the last boats to the island. We hiked up to a cannon at the top of the island (Gaspar Grande is pretty small, only about 1 mile by 1.5 miles). From there we could look out over the water, and it was a clear day so we could easily see Venezuela in the distance, from there it was only about 7 miles away. Then we went to the cave. We had to wait a while to get in because they were only taking small groups in, so again, we were the last group in.

The cave was pretty, with lots of stalagmites and stalactites everywhere, and families of bats living inside. There is also a pool of the clearest water I’ve ever seen. It seeps in from the ocean through the rocks. The guide was mentioning that you can’t swim in it because you need a lifeguard, which we were kind of disappointed about. But then one of the Island Hikers guides told our group, whom we named the Tacoma Posse, that we could stay until everyone left and then go swimming. So we stayed behind with some of the guides and a few other people, and got to swim in the cave! It was awesome. The water was so clear, and so salty, and surprisingly warm. We only got to swim for about 10 minutes, but it was so worth it. Then we took another boat ride to another bay, where we had lunch before hiking back to the start. The hike wasn’t too intense this time, but it was hot again and we were out in the sun a lot more. It was definitely fun to see the caves and go swimming and see more of the islands off the coast, and I learned that there can be some benefits to everything being late all the time. If our maxi had not been late that morning, we would not have been the last group in the cave and so would not have gotten to go swimming in Gasparee Cave.

March 30
Tuesday was the Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day, a national holiday. We went to the celebrations in Port of Spain and Maloney. They were just big church services. The one in Maloney was especially interesting, because archbishops and bishops kept entering the service, and people somehow affiliated with the Spiritual Baptists in the U.S. came. One guy from Washington D.C. talked for a while, and he was so easy to understand, which was nice. I’m getting way more used to the local accent and dialect, but it’s still nice to hear Americans who are easy to understand.

March 31
We went to St. Mary’s again today. It was our first day to get to read with some of the kids. We did some more organizing of the library, and then went and got our kids to work with. I’m reading with a 7 year old girl named Alayah. It turns out she can’t read much, so I think it will mostly be me reading to her, but it was still fun. It’s nice to realize that our work with the library is actually paying off for these kids.

On another note, it’s crazy to realize that it’s almost April. There are days where I feel really homesick, and days where I don’t, but mostly I just feel like I don’t have enough time for all the projects I have to do. Time is going by fast!

Phagwa, a hike, and some temples

Sorry it's been so long since my last post, it's been a crazy couple of weeks.

On February 28 we celebrated Phagwa with the UWI Hindu Society. We left at 8 am and went to four different sites to celebrate. Phagwa is the Hindu festival celebrating the coming of Spring, and it also celebrates Holika Dahan. During Phagwa there are Chowtal competitions (type of music), but the main attraction is the spraying and smearng of abeer on other people. Abeer is colored liquid and powder that you spray people with and smear all over their faces and clothes. It gets insanely messy, but you wear white clothes so the color stands out. At the first place we went to we got fed doubles (but they were the spiciest doubles I've ever had, my mouth was literally on fire afterwards, which is not fun) and then the little kids started spraying everyone with the liquid abeer. They had these sprayers built out of PVC pipe, so they could spray large amounts of abeer across large distances. They mainly went for each other, but they would occasionally go for our group. There was one time I was refilling my waterbottle to go spray someone else with abeer, and a little kid who was also filling up his sprayer (which goes a lot faster than filling a waterbottle) just emptied his whole sprayer into my face. Candice had bought a lot of the colored powder for our group, so we had fun smashing into people's faces and smearing it all over their faces and hair (I had my hair mostly covered with a bandanna, but there are people who still have pink and green hair from the powder). The second location was mainly just chowtal singing, as many groups travel around to different sites to perform. The Hindu Society we were with had a song prepared, and we got to stand onstage with them when it was performed, but we all just stood around awkwardly because we didn't know the songs at all. Our third stop was the Tunapuna Hindu School, which has one of the largest Phagwa celebrations around. There were hundreds of people around with abeer, but we were already soaked and covered so we didn't really care anymore. Again, we stood on stage with our group while they performed, but this time we were performing for hundreds of people, and the chowtal songs go on for a long time, so we stood around and tried to look like we knew what we were doing. Our final stop was at one of the Savannahs west of Tunapuna, where there is a large rowdy celebration. We got there before it got too bad, but there were lots of old creepy guys who wouldn't leave us alone, so the guys we were with started acting more like bodyguards. Some of the men would just come up behind you and, with absolutely no warning, just smash the powder into your face, so you had no time to close your eyes or mouth, which is not fun at all. We tried to leave before it got too rowdy, but we were stuck for awhile because one of the vans was blocked in by a truck with the keys locked inside. We finally got out, but people like to stand on the side of the road leaving the Savannah with huge containers of liquid abeer (some of these containers took up the entire bed of the truck they were in), so we got drenched again, and one truck used a powerful hose that just hurt. But for the most part Phagwa was fun. It took forever to get the abeer off, and it doesn't really come out of hair easily. When I took my contacts out that night one of them was pink from the abeer. At one of the stops they fed us delicious Indian food, so when we got back to the lodge we continued our Indian day by watching Slumdog Millionaire.

On March 6 we went to Lopinot village, which is a settlement in the Lopinot Valley in the Northern Range. We went on a short hike, where our guide showed us several spice trees he had planted in his yard, including cinnamon, bay leaves, and coffee. We went up a huge hill overlooking the valley. After that hike we went to a small church with the only sunken baptistery in the Western Hemisphere, and then went and toured an organic farm. We got to eat some of a cocoa pod again (when you open a ripe cocoa pod there is a flavored jelly covering each bean that tastes really good to suck on) and see all of the differnet herbs and vegetables they were growing. Then we went to a historical house where we learned more about the history of the valley.
That night we went to the Kendra Phagwa and Holika Dahan celebration in Central Trinidad. There was a long Chowtal concert, and fresh cheap pholourie to eat, and then at the end they burned Holika to represent her demise according to an acient legend. We were just glad that there was no abeer at this celebration, and that the fire at the end warmed us up a little.

Then on Sunday we had the option of going on a hike to the Paria waterfall on the Northern Coast. We left at 6:30 am (so early!) but the trip was definitely worth it. We went with the Island Hikers, so there were around 200 people on the hike, but we got really spread out. We met at Maracas, but the hike left from Blanchisseuse. It was 5 1/2 miles each way, and there were a lot of hills, and it was hot, so it was a difficult hike. But there were gorgeous views the whole hike, we kept seeing little beaches along the way. We stopped for lunch and swimming at a beach just before the waterfall, and then it was only a 10 minute hike into the waterfall. The Paria Waterfall is a gorgeous waterfall, surrounded by jungle and tall rocks. We went swimming under the waterfall, and then ventured back behind the waterfall, which was fun although there was so much spray it was kind of difficult to breath some of the time. Several other people were climbing up some of the rocks and jumping into the pool, and I really wanted to try it, but I couldn't get up the rocks. Max was the only one from our group who could get up there, but the rest of us just jumped off smaller rocks.

On March 13 we had a tour of Central Trinidad and much of the Indian presence in Trinidad. We toured the Chaguanas Market, which is about triple the size of the Tunapuna market (I bought fresh basil and oregano!) and then looked at a little shop which had old tools Indians used to use to cook with and such. We stopped at a little Indian pottery shop, which had so much amazing pottery, and then we visited a big Hindu temple and a museum of the Indian presence here in Trinidad. My favorite stop was our last one, at the Temple in the Sea. Temple in the Sea is a Hindu temple that is built about 100 feet into the ocean. The guy who originally built it had first tried to build a temple on land, only to have it be torn down by some of the Africans in the area. He figured that no one owned the sea, so he spent the next 20 years or so building a path and a small mud temple out in the sea at low tide. After his death the government rebuilt the temple, and created a permanent path (the other one was only accessible at low tide). The temple is gorgeous, jutting out into the ocean, and there are Hindu prayer flags in the water all around it, and you can see Port of Spain to the north, and you can kind of see a hint of Venezuela to the west. What I found amusing was that there was a fenced in statue of Shiva along the path to the temple. Somehow a dog got in and was just laying right in front of Shiva (it was in the shade). Apparently the dog and Shiva are close friends. There was also a really cute puppy.

Yesterday we went to Jewels of Nature, which is a family who makes organic instruments out of bamboo, kalabash, and other plants they grow on their land. They build all these instruments by hand, and some of them sound exactly like birds you hear around here. They performed for us, and then let us try all their instruments.

Other than this life has been pretty normal, with class and lectures for the CCS course. It has pretty much been about 95 degrees and sunny every day, which gets really monotonous. But it rained today! I never thought I would be this happy for rain. It cooled down, and then I heard the rain and smelled it, but at first I just thought someone was just using a hose (which people aren't supposed to use, because we're in a drought). And then I realized it was pouring! It took me some time to put it together because it hasn't rained since January, so I'm not really used to it anymore. I ran outside to look at it because it just made me so happy. But when it rains here it doesn't rain very long, and it stopped in about 10 minutes. But it was glorious!

A Week in Trinidad

This last week has been pretty uneventful. Life is settling down into more of a routine now, although lectures and excursions will be starting up again soon. Last Saturday some of us went to the Trincity mall to go see a movie. Trincity mall is a maxi and taxi ride away, and we had another interesting taxi driver. Taxi drivers always like to chat and ask lots of questions. This one gave us his phone number and told us to call him if we ever needed a taxi. He told us he could take us to Port of Spain to go clubbing, or he could take us to Maracas Beach. He was really eager, and was ready to take us to Maracas the next day, and he wanted to give us a ride back to the lodge from the mall. We didn't end up calling him, but if we ever need a taxi we have his number. His name is Raymond, "like Everybody Loves Raymond".

The mall was pretty similar to any American mall. Lots of clothing stores, two food courts, movie theater. It was a pretty standard mall. Several people had told us there was a Mexican restaurant in the mall, so we went on a search for it because Mexican food is impossible to find here and it is so delicious several of us have been craving Mexican food. We searched through the mall and looked where people had told us it was. All we found was an Italian restaurant, so we asked some of the cleaning staff if there was a Mexican restaurant. They again pointed us to the Italian restaurant. Apparently Mexican food isn't big here, and I guess Italian food is similar to Mexican? We were disappointed, so we got ice cream instead. I eat so much ice cream here, because it just always sounds so good! It's been getting up to 95 degrees here the last few days, so it has been kind of ridiculously hot.

We saw Dear John at the mall. I thought it was a pretty good movie. However, the girls who had already read the book were disappointed. There's a reason I try not to read the book before I see the movie. I am usually disappointed with the movie if I read the book first. I hadn't read the book, so I thought it was decent (now that I have read the book I know that it is so much better, but I still liked the movie). It was interesting to note how the audience's reaction to the movie was so much more vocal than in American movie theaters. The audience was talking at the screen, and some of the acting wasn't very good so in scenes that were supposed to be really sad the audience would just start laughing, which was entertaining.

On Monday I went to UWI to run some errands. I walked to TTPost to mail some postcards, and then looked in the bookstore because I hadn't been there before. TTPost is on the completely opposite side of campus from the street that leads to the lodge, so I got to see more of campus than I usually see. I discovered the pool. It's a small outdoor pool, and I'm assuming students can swim there. It just looked so amazing because, like I mentioned before, it has been so hot here! The bookstore is tiny, but I guess most students don't buy many of their books for class. It was kind of like what the PLU bookstore was before it moved to Garfield Street, so I didn't look around for long. After the bookstore I went to the library to check out Silent Spring for my religion class. You're not allowed to bring bags into the library (actually, you're not really allowed to bring bags in anywhere: the library, the grocery store, any other random store you might want to go in to) so I just grabbed my wallet, phone, and keys out of my purse and left it outside in the giant pile of backpacks sitting outside the doors into the library. The security guard checked my ID before I was allowed into the library. It was really easy to find my book once I looked it up in the catalog, they use the same call system as PLU, so it took me about 2 minutes to find my book, which was really convenient. However, when I got to the desk to check out the book my card wouldn't work for some reason. So I had to stand at the Help Desk while they tried to figure out why my card was blocked, make a copy of my ID card, and then make it so I was able to check out the book. Then, when I was leaving the library the security guard checked my book to make sure it had been checked out and I wasn't just taking it out of the library. So much different than any other library I have ever been in. After the library I went to Rituals (Trinidad's version of Starbucks) to get a delicious banana chocolate chip muffin! They are so good, although I was waiting in line for a long time, but at least there is air conditioning! Later I went to Hi-Lo to do some grocery shopping. That was my exciting Monday of errands to run.

On Tuesday I stopped at the market on my way to Mt. St. Benedict for my religion class. I bought onions (for chicken fajitas!), mangos, and portugals (kind of like clementines or satsumas), and then caught the Mt. St. Benedict shuttle. I ended up being the only person on my shuttle, so I had an interesting conversation with the driver. I think it's the same driver I've had conversations with before, he started talking to me, and eventually ended up telling me how to know which fruits are good fruits to buy, and how to tell when portugals and mangos are ripe, which is definitely useful information. Then, when we were most of the way up the mountain, he just stopped the shuttle to point out a cashew tree. Cashew trees not only have the nut, but they also have a fruit which is edible (although apparently not very good). He also told me about the poui tree, which is flowering right now. It has pretty pink blossoms, similar to cherry blossoms, but the tree is bigger and greener. The trees will also probably flower again in April, so I will get to see the blossoms again.

My religion class is always interesting. This week we talked about the relationship between science and faith, which inevitably led to a good natured debate about the nature of God. The Catholic church established in Vatican I that science and faith cannot be irreconcilable, but one woman in my class always brings up questions like, "how can science explain the Eucharist?", "how does science explain healing miracles?", and "God can always do whatever he wants, though, which can go against science". To this my teacher responds with something along the lines of "God does what he wants, but he has established the laws of nature and acts within those", and I guess the original idea of the bread and wine changing to the body and blood of Jesus comes from an old scientific idea, so even that fits with science. I don't understand all of it, but their debate is always entertaining, and I usually start to laugh at it (and I'm not the only one either).

As usual I got a ride down the mountain with Delmar, the woman who always starts those debates in class. I asked her a few questions about Mt. St. Benedict and the seminary and the academic block because I still don't really understand what the relationship between them is. Anyways, after she told me that students from all over the Caribbean, and a few from the rest of the world, study at Mt. St. Benedict, Delmar mentioned that the seminary is closing after this semester, and the academic block would only remain open until the current students finish their studies. This news made me kind of sad, because I'm starting to realize what losing the seminary would mean for Mt. St. Benedict and the Catholic church in Trinidad. I am also sad for the future PLU students who will come study in Trinidad, but who won't be able to take a class at the academic block. I have felt so welcomed there, and the library in the academic block is one of my favorite places to sit and do homework, and I love my walks home from class, and it's just a great, small, friendly atmosphere. Those students who will come here but not be able to take classes at Mt. St. Benedict won't even know what they are missing because, while everything in class is from the Catholic perspective which can make it more work for me, this class has been so fascinating and such a great experience.

Part of the Caribbean Culture and Society class is a service-learning component. For the rest of the semester I will be volunteering 4 hours a week at St. Mary's Children's Home. St. Mary's has kids who have been neglected or abused and have been taken there by the state. There are about 120 children from 0-18 who live there. I think we will be working with the younger kids, but I'm not sure yet. On Wednesday we went to St. Mary's to meet the woman we will be working with. While we were waiting in the administrative building one of the women who had worked at Rosalind Gabriel and played mas with us was there, and she definitely remembered us. She had been so friendly at Rosalind Gabriel, and she works at St. Mary's, which just makes me more excited to start volunteering next week. As we were walking to another office one young boy, maybe age 10, walked over and, without saying anything, just put his hand in mine and walked with us through the compound. He asked me if I was American, and then asked, "Do you know Mr. Donald Trump?". This question kind of made me laugh, and I just had to respond that I had never met Donald Trump. I'm so excited to get to start working with the kids!

CARNIVAL

Carnival was amazing! It was a busy time here, but it was a lot of fun.

2/ 10
5:00 pm: Lecture on traditional Carnival characters: Some Midnight Robbers and a Pierrot Grenade came to the lodge to perform for us and give us some background information on their characters. It was really interesting to see the characters perform up close and then to get to ask a lot of questions about the characters.
8:00 pm: Leave for Traditional Carnival competition: This was a competition in Port of Spain with all of the traditional Carnival characters. We didn't stay for too long, but we got to see Dame Lorraines (including one who had come to do a presentation for us the week before), Baby Dolls, Clowns, and Moko Jumbies. The Moko Jumbies (guys on really tall stilts) were exciting because they had awesome costumes, and danced a lot, and they were the tallest Moko Jumbies I've seen so far.
11:30pm: Back at the lodge, sleep to prepare for Canboulay

2/11
3:15am: Leave for Canboulay south, in San Fernando: Canboulay is a re-enactment of the Canboulay riots of the 1880s. The British tried to outlaw Carnival, but the Africans rebelled because it was such an important part of their cultural expression. Part of our group was in the Governor's Ball, where they got to dance a variation of the waltz, pretending to be the British preparing to go crush the riot in the morning. The rest of us were members of Captain Baker's troops, who were supposed to quell the rebellion. We had to paint ourselves black (to fit in with the rest of the troops who were African, it's not offensive here like it would be in the U.S.), and then marched into a giant mob of people armed with sticks and fire, where we did a choreographed stick fight for about 30 seconds before we retreated. The re-enactment started at 5 am, and then we got food afterwards before heading back to Tunapuna, where some people still had class to go to. I didn't go to my mas class because I had only been able to sleep for 2 1/2 hours, but I found out later it had been canceled. I ended up sleeping for several hours, and then being lazy for the rest of the day.

2/12
4 am: Leave for Canboulay north, in Port of Spain: This re-enactment was exactly the same as the one in San Fernando, but we were better prepared for what was going to happen, and we were closer to the action so we could see what was going on better. The location for this re-enactment was on the actual location of the riots in Port of Spain, and it was cool to be there and realize that we were in a historical site. Downside to this re-enactment is the soldier next to me got a little overly enthusiastic with his stick fighting, and he kept hitting me in the head, which was painful. I was excited to retreat to get away from the end of his stick. We got back to the lodge earlier (around 7), so I was able to sleep for another few hours.
1:30 pm: Leave for Traditional Carnival parade in Port of Spain: Some of the members in our group joined a group of Candice's friends and played with the Blue Devils for the parade. We went later to watch the parade, and got to see them all painted in blue. The Blue Devils get completely covered in blue paint, and then get red food dye in their mouths which makes them drool, so they look like blood is coming out of their mouths, and they are supposed to scare the crowd to try to get donations of money. We also saw several other traditional Carnival characters, including one of the Midnight Robbers who had been at our lecture.
8 pm: Leave for Soca Monarch: An optional trip for us was to go to Soca Monarch. Soca Monarch is the biggest soca music competition in the world. All of the artists with the most popular soca songs get together and compete to see who was the best performance and song. (Maybe compare it to if the most popular musicians on the radio in the U.S. got together into one stadium to perform their songs, with extreme amounts of special effects, to compete to see which song is the best. There is absolutely nothing in the U.S. to compare it to.) There were two competitions, the Groovy Soca Monarch and the Power Soca Monarch, and it took place in the cricket stadium in Port of Spain. It was completely full, and the music was loud, and there were huge special effects (more fireworks). It was similar to the Chutney Soca Monarch, except with more people, more musicians, more effects, and more bars. It was fun for a while, but I didn't enjoy the music as much as I had enjoyed the Chutney Soca. We ended up not leaving until around 3 am, so we didn't get back to the lodge until around 3:30, and the people in our group who went were all falling asleep in the maxi on the ride back. But the song that won was Palance, which is the best dancing song and is a lot of fun.

2/13
9 am: Junior Parade of the Bands in Port of Spain: The Junior Parade of the Bands is the children's Carnival, so it if just junior bands parading through the streets. We saw lots of amazing costumes, and took lots of pictures. I especially enjoyed getting to see Rosalind Gabriel's band, since they are the band we play mas with, and they won the junior Carnival last year. It was fun to watch the parade, but at that point a lot of us were exhausted, and I was getting a headache from the sun and the music.
6:30 pm: Leave for Panorama Finals: We went to the Panorama Finals at the Savannah, where we got to sit in the stands this time to be able to see and hear the bands better. Panorama is the large steel pan band competition, where bands from all over the country perform to try to be the best band. There are different categories based on the size of the band, and the music is amazing. It's also fun to watch the performances because the players get really into their music, and dance around a lot, and really live up their moment of fame because for the performers there is no guarantee they will ever make it to the finals again, so they have a lot of fun. The bands were amazing to listen to, but there is a lot of down time between each band because it takes so long to move each band on and off the stage. Some of the group chose to go to Insomnia from Panorama, which is an all-night fete, but the rest of us left around midnight.

2/14
Sunday was a lazy day for me. I slept in, and then made brownies and watched a movie to celebrate Valentines Day by myself. I am getting so much better at lighting our gas oven now! I used up so many fewer matches making brownies this time than when Nina and I first made brownies in January.
4:30 pm: Leave for Dimanche Gras: Dimance Gras is a big culmination of the competitions of Carnival, and it takes place at the Savannah in Port of Spain. We got there really early so we could get good seats, and there was a calypso band playing some older calypso to entertain us. The first song had a Big Band sound, and it made me really want to swing dance, and then I got sad because I don't know anyone in Trinidad who swing dances. The show started around 6:30, with the national anthem played on the steel pan. The first competition was for Kings and Queens. Most mas bands have a King and Queen who compete to try to become the King and Queen of Carnival, and the winner is the one with the most elaborate costume. Most of the costumes are supported with wheels, and are around 25 feet high, and 20 feet wide and 15 feet deep, they are so amazing it's ridiculous. However, some of the performers support their costumes all by themselves, which is impressive because some of the costumes can weigh around 150 pounds. Unfortunately, the wind was really strong, and several of the costumes tipped over or collapsed, including my favorite ones, which was really sad. Thankfully all of the performers are ok, but they lose a lot of points for that. My two favorite costumes didn't do so well, though. My favorite one for Queens was a Dame Lorraine on stilts, and it was so amazing! I had no idea how she could walk like that. But then part of her skirt fell apart, so that was the end of that. My favorite for Kings was a huge dragon, and without wheels, it was incredible, and was the favorite to win, but then it tipped over in the wind and was destroyed.
The next event was a big performance, it wasn't a competition. It was a choreographed dance with amazing costumes, so there were dancing flowers and trees and clouds, and a huge puppet of a dancing girl, and a large multi-person caterpillar and snake. It was a great performance. After that was the Calypso Monarch, which is the big calypso competition, with 15 people performing their best song and trying to win the Calypso Monarch title. I don't like calypso too much, and we had already seen some of the songs when we went to the Kaiso House, so I was kind of bored for most of that. At the end of the night they announced the winners of Kings and Queens and the Calypso Monarch, and then performed a finale dance to Palance, so that song played over and over again for around 20 minutes, which was a little ridiculous.

2/15 Carnival Monday
9:30 am: Leave for Port of Spain to play mas with Rosalind Gabriel: We didn't get to participate in J'Ouvert this year, instead we played mas on Monday and Tuesday. Monday was kind of hectic because we didn't know what to expect, and Candice wasn't around for the first couple of hours to help us figure out what was going on. We played with Rosalind Gabriel, who's theme this year was "Love Your Country", so each section portrayed a different aspect of Trinidad and Tobago. We were the section representing the Chagaramas Sailors, and we had a choreographed dance planned, but our music/dj truck didn't know about it, so at the first judging point we just did whatever in front of the judges and felt ridiculous. Rosalind Gabriel was a medium band this year, and traveled with a music truck (a huge truck with even bigger speakers which was our music for Carnival), and truck holding all the extra costume pieces people didn't want to wear all day, only at the judging points, and an ambulance. It was interesting to have our own little caravan, and some of the other bands had way more vehicles traveling with them (some bands had traveling bars, and food trucks, and trucks with several port-a-potties to use along the parade route). We played mas for about five hours on Monday. When Candice finally joined us she straightened out the whole thing with our dance, so we performed it at the other two judging points. The whole day was hot and exhausting, but we got lots of free water to keep us hydrated. It was fun, but exhausting to be expected to dance in the streets for five hours. We finished earlier than anticipated, so we had to wait at the mas camp for our maxi for about an hour. The people at Rosalind Gabriel saw us sitting in the yard looking so tired they felt sorry for us, so they took us inside and fed us pelau, which was delicious! Their hospitality was so typical of how we have been treated all trip. The majority of the Trinis I have encountered on this trip have been so welcoming and friendly, and it was so nice of them to take us in and feed us, even when they had been playing mas with us all day too and were probably also tired. After we got back to the lodge I was asleep by 8:30 because I was so tired.

2/16 Carnival Tuesday
6:30 am: Leave for second day of playing mas in Port of Spain: Tuesday started early, we met the band at 7:30. We first met up with Mr. Fullerton and his Malik entourage (they travel everywhere together and know everyone: they performed at the Malik performance we went to, and were in Canboulay with us, and then played mas with us), where we got the flags we were supposed to have on Monday, and little wristbands (which I got a tan line from just from that one day) and hats which didn't fit anyone, so we didn't end up wearing them. Mr. Fullerton also gave us drinks and food, which is always nice to get. Tuesday was way more intense than Monday. There were a lot more bands, and more people, and as a result we were stuck waiting at the judging stages for a long time. At the last stage at the Savannah we were waiting to perform for probably around 3 hours. But the whole day was similar to Monday. Hot sun, lots of dancing (my feet and hips are so sore!), drinking lots and lots of water (I'm pretty sure I had the equivalent of 5 nalgenes of water on Tuesday). But it was a lot of fun! I wish we could have seen more of the other bands, but we are pretty isolated within our band, so we really only saw the bands in front of an behind us. The song Palance won the Road March easily (award for most popular song played on Carnival Monday and Tuesday) so we danced to that all day (it's still stuck in my head), but it's an awesome song to dance to. We performed our sailor dance with our new flags three times on Tuesday, and I think we kept getting better. By the time we finally got the last stage we had been trying to be energetic and had been dancing to Palance for so long that by the time we finished our dance, I was so tired and just walked down the road. I had absolutely no energy to try to dance down the road. Thankfully, we were finished then and went to Mr. Fullerton's office (Ministry of Culture) and got to sit, and eat food and wait for our maxi. We had to walk a little ways to our maxi, but it's way easier and less tiring to walk down the road than it is to chip down the road (chipping is a kind of rhythmic walking which we had been doing all day, so tiring!). We finally got back to the lodge around 7:30, and it felt so good to just take a shower, and then I sat down and watched the new episode of Lost, which was confusing as usual.

2/17
We went to Maracas Beach on Wednesday to just relax after the craziness of Carnival. It was so nice to just sit on the beach, and go in the water and play in the waves. The beach was really crowded, a lot more crowded than the other times we were at Maracas, but the waves were amazing. We also got a spot in the shade, and I remembered to keep putting on sunscreen so I didn't even get sunburned. Hannah and I split some pholourie after lunch, which was delicious. Definitely a relaxing day at the beach. The water made me feel less sore, but then I got stung by a little jellyfish which I couldn't even see. It didn't hurt too bad, but I got out of the water for a while after that. It was also interesting to note how soca music is not on the radio anymore. Soca was playing 24/7 from when we got here in January through Carnival, and then the music switches and soca isn't really played until next Carnival season. It was so weird to walk into Tunapuna and not hear soca anymore.

2/18
I had a make up class for my missed theology class on Carnival Tuesday, so I was up at Mt. St. Benedict for most of the day, finishing my homework and going to class. Two people were missing, so class was only 4 students, which is still taking some getting used to. It's really interesting though. Rosalind Gabriel placed 2nd for medium bands on Tuesday, so there was a party at the mas camp we went to. There was a buffet with delicious food, and they had decorated with some of the costumes from Carnival. It was interesting to get to talk to several people who were in our band. People kept asking us if we were coming back for Carnival next year, they really seemed to enjoy having us there.

Carnival was a lot of fun. It was really exhausting, but it was an experience I will never forget.

happy day

A Carnival update is coming soon!

Today I had one of those moments where I absolutely know I have chosen the right major (and the major I’m referring to here is religion, not history). I was doing one of my readings for my theology class, Theology of Creation, and it was from Pannenberg’s Toward a Theology of Nature. Now, Pannenberg and I have a sort of love/hate relationship. His writing is so difficult for me to get through, and he uses lots of big words I have to look up and I always have o re-read sections multiple times to even start to understand what his meaning is. But once I understand his writing, I absolutely love his ideas. So today I was reading a chapter called “Theological Questions to Scientists”, and it was all about looking for the link between science and religion, and the links between scientists and theologians and their works. Anyways, I was reading this chapter and Pannenberg lists the questions he is going to deal with in his chapter. The last question he introduced I had to re-read several times to comprehend what it was asking, but when I finally figured it out I couldn’t help but smile, because I found the concept so fascinating! I figure if the questions posed in a reading make me so happy to ponder, then I have to be studying the right subject.

The question that made me so happy:
“Is the Christian affirmation of an imminent end of this world that in some way invades the present somehow reconcilable with scientific extrapolation of the continuing existence of the universe for at least several billions of years ahead?” (Toward a Theology of Nature, 18)
This whole chapter was looking at questions like this one which attempt to find a way to reconcile the traditional differences between science and theology.

Trinidad Update

Finally, time for a long update on the last couple of weeks. We got back from Tobago on January 17, and then had a week to get settled in at Tunapuna and UWI before classes started. We registered at UWI, which was a long process and took several days, and then had a short international students orientation at UWI. There aren't very many of us! We got a short tour of campus, which wasn't very good but at least I got to look around campus some, and figure out where my class is. I'm taking one class at UWI, Steel Pan History and Development, and one class at Mt. St. Benedict, Theology of Creation. Each class is about 3 hours once a week. I haven't had my steel pan class yet because no one else showed up for class last week. But my theology class is really interesting. Mt. St. Benedict is a monastery, seminary, and Roman Catholic church up on one of the mountains, and I'm taking my theology class at the seminary. My class is only 7 students, which is kind of nice. The focus is on the relationship between God, nature, and humans, and what the church's response to the environmental crisis should be. At our first class we watched An Inconvenient Truth, and we've been discussing all sorts of ecological problems, and discussing the church's views. I've read documents by some of the recent popes on what the Catholic Church should do in regards to our problems. It's been really interesting, and I know I will get a completely different perspective than I could ever get at home, because I'm being exposed to both the Catholic response to environmental problems, along with the Caribbean response to these same problems.

We've also had a lot of interesting cultural events. We've visited a lot of different mas camps and panyards, which are fascinating to look at for a little while. The costumes the mas camps are creating are so elaborate. Watching them make the costumes, it's hard to imagine what the streets of Port of Spain will look like on Carnival Monday and Tuesday. As part of the Caribbean Culture and Society class we've had lectures on rapso, soca, and calypso at the Caribbean Lodge, which have been interesting. We went to the Kaiso House on 1/23 to watch a calypso performance, which ended up being four hours long! Our lecturer, Chalkdust, was one of the biggest people performing there. Another highlight was going to see the Malik Folk Performers. There we got a small taste of many of the traditional dances of Trinidad and Tobago. There are different dances presenting some of the different influences on culture, including the French, African, and East Indian influences. Our group got to participate in some stickfighting and limbo, and some of the people got a great video of Barbara dancing!

Our dance class for Carnival started upon our return to Trinidad as well. We are playing mas as sailors, so we have a dance we have to learn to perform in front of apparently thousands of people in Port of Spain. We are also participating in a re-enactment of Canboulay (the 1881 riots against the British when they tried to ban Carnival), so we have to learn our part as soldiers. During a lot of our classes I just feel like an idiot trying to learn the moves, but apparently we're starting to look really good. We also got a tour of Port of Spain. It was the first time I'd seen much of the city, besides driving to the Kaiso House and mas camps at night. There are so many beautiful historic buildings and churches! The Financial District down by the water is also pretty. We stopped at the Botanical Gardens, where we learned all about many of the plants there, some of which are native to the Caribbean, but a lot are also native to India and Africa. The Governor's House is right next to the gardens, so we got to see the outside of that, as well as the Red House (their Parliament building).

We took our first trip to Maracas Beach on January 22. It was amazing! Probably the softest sand I have ever felt, long wide beach, swaying palm trees, the Northern Range surrounding the beach, and delicious bake and shark. While the water in Tobago was nicer for swimming, I don't think you can beat Maracas for the beach. You couldn't do much swimming because of the current and the waves, but the water was still nice. We will be making several trips back later this semester, which I am looking forward to. The beach was actually fairly empty when we were there, but I heard that it gets really crowded on weekends and after Carnival, which is when we're next going.

Last Saturday we went to the Chutney Soca Monarch in San Fernando. Chutney Soca Monarch is a big music competition for chutney soca music. It was amazing! The showiness of the performers was incredible to see. Everyone at the very least had background dancers with elaborate costumes, but some went completely over the top. There was a fireworks show at the beginning, mini fireworks ON STAGE while they were performing, and some big torch things, and lots of confetti, and one guy got rolled onto stage on a couch, and a different guy started riding a horse on stage. It was just amazing, and the music was fun too. Plus, my favorite performer of the night won, which was pretty cool (even though we didn't stay until the end). But some of the guys in the crowd were kind of creepy. Some of them just tried to dance with you, but would leave pretty easily. But there was one old guy who just stared at Nina for about an hour, even when all of us moved with her and were surrounding her. He was a creeper.

Then on Sunday we went to the Panorama Semi-Finals at the Savannah (big park) in Port of Spain. Panorama is the big steel pan band competition, and the bands are amazing. But, we got there at 1 pm, so it was ridiculously hot, and it was so loud it was hard to hear the bands. But it was a good experience, and when we go to the finals we will be in the stands where it will be a little less of a party and more focused on watching the bands and hearing the music.

The next two weeks are going to be pretty busy, leading up to Carnival. But everything should be fun, as long as I have the energy to really enjoy the experiences!

New Perspectives on Pirates of the Caribbean

This weekend, I've been watching the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and I have gained a new perspective on them due to my experiences here in Trinidad and Tobago. Yes, I realize this posting shows my nerdiness, and most of you probably don't care about my changing views of some of my favorite movies, but here they are anyways!

1. The water really is that blue. Before, I always watched these movies and thought the scenery was beautiful, but I did not think it was possible for the ocean or the sky to be that blue or the landscape so beautiful. It really does look like the pictures. Looking back at some of my pictures from Tobago, I realize that the landscape is truly amazing. It may look fake, but it is real.

2. I know what an obeah is. Tia Dalma is called an obeah at one point, and I now know what that is! (An obeah is kind of like a witch doctor, they practice voodoo)

3. It's weird to see a movie about the Caribbean with so many white people. Here, I am a member of the very small minority. Especially in Tunapuna, there is such a low white population that I stand out everywhere I go. The situation is much the same in the rest of Trinidad and Tobago. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies really only focus on one small segment of the population, and disregard the rest of the people. The colonial experience is depicted, but all of the colored people are left out from this interpretation. I realize that this is a fictional movie, but there is some historical background, and it romanticizes the roles of the whites while ignoring how they treated the classes beneath them.

Haiti

It has been interesting to watch the world’s response to the earthquake in Haiti. I get a vastly different viewpoint here than I would be able to get in the United States. The Caribbean countries are very interconnected. They share similar histories and cultures, and are connected politically through Caricom. Although I was in Tobago without much access to newspapers or the internet when the earthquake took place, upon arriving back in Trinidad I saw the immediate response by Trinidadians to the earthquake. Caricom held emergency meetings, and supplies and relief workers were sent to Haiti. While I know the U.S. responded quickly to this disaster, the Caribbean countries responded with a sincerity I don’t think the U.S. will ever be able to match. In addition, much of the Caribbean has criticized the U.S. involvement in Haiti since the earthquake. Many people are worried that the U.S. will try to occupy Haiti again as it did for almost 20 years in the early 20th century. It’s just interesting to get a completely different viewpoint on that disaster than I would be getting at home.

I also learned more about Haiti in my theology class. I’m taking Theology of Creation, which looks at the relationship between God, humans, and nature (in the first class we watched An Inconvenient Truth, and I’m going to do a small presentation on Silent Spring). During class I learned about Haiti is down to just 3% tree cover for the country. If you look at a picture of the Haiti-Dominican Republic border, the contrast in vegetation is striking. In all the newspapers they keep mentioning that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, but they never mention why it is so poor. Haiti gained their freedom through the successful slave revolution in the early 1800s, becoming the first island in the Caribbean to be free of their colonizers. However, France refused to accept the loss of their colony. Eventually Haiti agreed to pay 60 million francs in reparations to France in order for France to accept their freedom. They finally finished these reparations payments in 1922. This is a large reason for their current economic situation. Many people around the Caribbean completely blame France and the U.S. for Haiti’s poor economy. Some are even advocating for France and the U.S. to pay for much of the repair for Haiti now, as kind of a refund for Haiti’s payments to France and reparations for the U.S. occupation of Haiti. Part of the reason for the limited tree cover is because after the slave revolution in freed slaves started using slash-and-burn techniques to farm the land, which had huge environmental repercussions. Later, Haiti experienced a swine fever (as in a disease in pigs, not related at all to our current swine flu) and all the pigs in the country were slaughtered. However, for many poor families their entire savings were tied up in pigs, so when they lost them they had to use the only resource available to them, which was the forest.

Anyways, I just thought I’d share with you the perspective I’m getting on this disaster.

Adventures in Tobago

On Monday we headed to Tobago! We flew there, and it’s only a 20 minute flight. The plane is so small! It’s the smallest plane I’ve ever been on, with maybe 15 rows of seats, and 4 seats per row (2 on each side of the plane). But it was really exciting, because you get to walk out to the plane and walk up the stairs onto the plane, which I had never gotten to do before. The airport in Tobago is right on the ocean, which I hadn’t realized before the flight. The wheels for landing came down while we were still over the ocean, and we got so close to the water before we were over land and landed. After landing in Tobago we had a 1 ½ hour drive to Charlotteville, the town we stayed in on the complete other side of the island. Although Tobago is only about 20 miles long, the roads are winding and there are lots of steep hills, which is why the drive is so long.

Charlotteville is beautiful. It sits right on the edge of Man O’ War Bay and is built into steep green hills, and the water is the prettiest blue you can imagine. We stayed in cabins literally on the beach, so I fell asleep every night to the sound of waves and a sea breeze. We got to Charlotteville Monday afternoon, where we had some free time to go swimming before our first J-term class. The water was so nice! It was warm enough so it always felt good to be in, but never so warm that it felt hot. Most of the beach was sand, with some rocky places, which was a nice change from Washington beaches. Candice had a snorkel from the lodge that we got to use, and there was a small reef that had lots of fish to look at. All week we had three hours of class in the morning (Caribbean Short Fiction), and then had the rest of the day to be at the beach before meeting for a group dinner. There was a stall about 5 minutes away from our cottages that sold the most amazing homemade ice cream. I bought some a couple of times, and it was delicious coconut and peanut ice cream! Why doesn’t the U.S. have peanut ice cream?

On Wednesday our whole group went to Pirates Bay, which is a bay a half hour walk away from Charlotteville. The trail to Pirates Bay goes up a big hill, and on the back side there are steep stairs down to the beach. Something interesting about Tobago are the animals that are everywhere. Goats are tethered all over the place, there are cows by the side of the road occasionally, friendly stray cats and dogs, and about a million chickens and roosters that just wander town and the hillsides. According to Nina, at least we know there are no basilisks in Tobago! J So on the way to Pirates Bay there was a group of goats walking through the middle of the road that we had to walk around. It’s just kind of amusing to see random animals running around everywhere. Anyways, at the top of the hill to Pirates Bay there is the most amazing view. All of Man O’ War Bay and Charlotteville and the surrounding hills is just laid out in front of you, which is just beautiful. Going to Pirates Bay it was sunny and bright, but on the way back it had just rained so if was kind of misty and I saw sunbeams shining through the clouds onto the bay. Pirates Bay is famous for its clear water and all the fish you can see snorkeling. However, due to heavy waves a few days before the sand had not yet settled, so the water was not very clear for the most part. But over by the rocks at the edge of the bay the water was really clear and there were so many fish! There were some schools with thousands of little fish only a couple of inches long, and some sea urchins in the rocks and bigger fish swimming around near the ground.

On Thursday we took a boat out to St. Giles Island, which is a bird sanctuary that is about a 45 minute boat ride away. There’s a rock formation called London Bridge, which is a huge rock with an arch with water underneath it, kind of like a bridge (funny, I wonder where it got its name…J). There were so many birds flying around above us! The island was interesting too, because it is so dry that cacti grow instead of the lush tropical vegetation I had gotten used to. Then we got to go swimming right off shore, in the bluest water I have ever seen. It was also really clear, so you could easily see all the way to the bottom. However, the water felt about 10 times saltier than Man O’ War Bay, so when I got out I had a residue of salt everywhere. But it was really fun to just be swimming in the Caribbean, while birds are swirling about overhead and our prof was swimming twenty feet away. Crazy, once in a lifetime experience!

One of my favorite days was Friday, when a group of us went down to Store Bay to take a glass bottom boat out to Buccoo Reef. Getting into that boat was slightly ridiculous, as there is no pier or dock or anything. The boat gets brought close to shore and held as steady as possible, so you just have to rush for the ladder between the waves, trying not to get your stuff or clothes soaking wet. The boat went by Pigeon Point, which is one of the nicest beaches in Tobago. It has the cliché white sand, tall palm trees, turquoise water, grass thatched huts, and lots of windsurfers. The glass bottom boat had a lower level where you could look at the fish and coral we went over, and an upper level where you could sit and look out over the water (it was also a lot drier!). When we got to the reef the boat stopped so we could look at the reef life, and then we go to go snorkeling! It was my first time ever really snorkeling (other than using the mask at Pirates Bay and Man O’ War Bay), and there were so many cool fish. The current was strong, so it was harder than expected to stay in one place, but it was a lot of fun. My favorite fish were the long skinny fish with the long nose, they look kind of like long sticks floating in the water, and the big purple and blue fish. I also liked the little yellow and white fish with big fake eyes near their back fins. The coral was also pretty, but I liked the fish a lot more.

After the reef we took the boat to the Nylon Pool, which is a huge sandbar-like area in the Caribbean. Ocean currents carry dead coral pieces to this one spot and dump them so the coral breaks down into coral sand, and the water is about three feet deep way out from land. There were three different glass bottom boats at the Nylon Pool when we were there, and one of them had a big sound system so there was a little dance party on top of that boat. Some of the girls went up there, but I can’t dance, so I stayed in the water with Sam and Max (who weren’t invited up) and watched. After getting back to Store Bay all of us were really hungry, so we got food. I tried Bake and Shark, which is so good! Bake and Shark is a local food (which I think was featured on the Food Network at some point – it’s famous!) with really good light bread, fried shark, cucumbers, tomatoes, and ketchup. I tried it to be adventurous and to be able to say I had eaten shark, but it was actually really good. So everyone should try it if they ever get the chance! It doesn’t taste fishy at all.

On Saturday our group went to some wetlands and the rainforest. I thought it was funny how there were so many cows tethered in the wetlands, apparently locals depend on the land to help sustain them. We saw some birds, and learned all about different plants and trees, including what medicinal properties they have. We saw mangrove swamps which, according to our guide, are the kidneys of our ecosystem. They cut down on storm power (remember how after Hurricane Katrina people were talking about how it was so destructive because the bayou was diminishing? If only there were mangrove swamps in Louisiana!) and filter salt water to remove the salt and other bad things. Down by the water (the wetlands were just across the beach from the ocean on the Atlantic side of Tobago) there were so many plastic bottles and litter everywhere. Environment Tobago has work days every so often, and at their first one they picked up over 600 pounds of trash. I have only seen one recycling bin since I’ve been in Trinidad and Tobago, which is kind of sad when you think about how much bottled water, juice, and pop is consumed here every day. Also, from the beach by the wetlands you can see where Swiss Family Robinson was filmed. Such a good movie! Coming to Tobago made me realize I haven’t seen that movie in about 10 years, and I need to watch it.

The rainforest in Tobago is the oldest protected rainforest in the world, created with the very first environmental law passed in 1776. The rainforest was so lush and green and beautiful, and a lot cooler than the wetlands! Bamboo taller than trees, bird calls, waterfalls, and so much green. Unfortunately, we were at the rainforest at the wrong time of day to see much wildlife, so I only saw a couple of hummingbirds. But they were pretty! The hummingbird is the national bird of Trinidad and Tobago, and we also saw the national flower, but I can’t remember what it was called. It was red and kind of spiky, but it looked cool, and is also the symbol for the PNM. We hiked through the rainforest to a couple of waterfalls. It was really muddy, but we rented boots so it wasn’t too bad.

After the rainforest we went back to Charlotteville, for one last swim at the beach, because on Sunday we left for Trinidad. The return to Trinidad was kind of hectic, as we got to the airport to find out our travel agent had somehow booked half of our group for a flight that day (January 17), and the other half for a flight on July 17. The rest of the group ended up getting on the flight after our original one, but for a little while it looked like they might have had to take the ferry back to Trinidad or a flight the next day. But we all got back to the lodge safely that night!

Homestay in San Fernando - crazy events!

We’re now back in Trinidad from Tobago, which is kind of sad, because I loved Tobago. But before Tobago was our weekend homestay, which was definitely a memorable experience. I went with Sam to San Fernando, where we stayed with Mr. Mohammed. When we arrived in San Fernando we waited for Mr. Mohammed at the San Fernando Creative Arts Center, which he is the head of. (Most Trinis operate on what we like to call “Trini Time”, which means that people show up and events start anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours later than they are supposed to start. I’m quickly starting to learn patience, although I still operate on American time!) While we were waiting, Mr. Cupid, a member of the National Carnival Commission and one of our lecturers for our Caribbean Culture and Society class, talked to us about various cultural and historical aspects of Trinidad. Mr. Cupid’s talks are sometimes difficult to follow, as he makes these profound connections in his mind that he shares without telling you how he got there. What I have been able to understand is amazing, but he can be difficult to follow. Also, while the national language of Trinidad and Tobago is English, most people speak a Patwa, which is an English creole that is difficult to understand. Anyways, Mr. Cupid told us all about the oil and natural gas industry in Trinidad, which is big near San Fernando. According to Mr. Cupid, World War I was won in Trinidad because the British relied on Trinidadian oil to power all of their war equipment. In World War II German U-boats attacked Trinidad to try and gain control of the oil. Churchill and FDR also met in Trinidad, where they struck a deal in which Great Britain would receive old U.S. war ships and the U.S. received prime pieces of land in Trinidad to build naval bases. The U.S. did not leave Trinidad until about twenty years after the war. Another point that Mr. Cupid made several times was that in Trinidad, there are not really any religious tensions. Almost everyone celebrates Christmas, Diwali, and Eid, whether or not they are Christian, Hindu or Muslim. The Sunni and Shiite also worship together in the same mosques here. This is remarkable if you consider how in most of the rest of the world these different sects cannot get along on anything.

Mr. Mohammed is an old Muslim man, very involved with local politics (he used to be deputy mayor of San Fernando) and local Carnival (he’s one of the mas judges for San Fernando Carnival). Mr. Mohammed is a scary driver to ride with. First of all, in Trinidad people drive on the left side of the road, which is difficult to get used to. Mr. Mohammed honks his horn every time he turns a corner, starts his car, backs up, or just drives down a street to let other drivers (who are not always nearby) know he is coming. Drivers here also barrel through spaces that Americans would not dream of driving though at all, as cars will pass with literally inches to spare. So my hours long tour of San Fernando occurred under these driving conditions. We arrived in San Fernando on Friday afternoon, and got driven all around the city. San Fernando is in southern Trinidad, built on a hillside close to the coast. That night we drove around the city to different mas camps and steel pan yards. Mas (short for masquerade) camps are the places where all the Carnival costumes are made. We went to four different camps, where we looked at the elaborate costumes that people could order. Trinidadians go all out for Carnival, and the costumes were covered in hand done beading and trim. The last mas camp we visited had lots of people working on hats and headdresses. They were attaching feathers and sequins and such to them, and it made me so excited to see/participate in Carnival next month. We also went to listen to several different steel pan groups practice for Carnival. At least one of the bands is consistently in the finals of Panorama, the nationwide steel pan competition during Carnival. The bands were amazing! PLU has a steel pan ensemble, and no offense to them, but these bands were a thousand times better than PLU will ever be. It’s also crazy when you realize how expensive these bands are to maintain. Each steel pan costs around $100,000 TT to tune correctly, and some of the bands have over 100 musicians. But they sound amazing, so it’s totally worth it.

On Saturday morning Sam and I walked on High Street in downtown San Fernando for a while. It has all these shops which look tiny from the street, but then go back a long ways and also end up having multiple floors. I tried doubles for the first time, which are a popular Indian food. The fillings vary, but these ones had fried dough with a lightly curried chickpea mixture inside. They’re pretty good, although I had better ones in Charlotteville, which were a lot sweeter and lighter. We also got lost a few times getting to City Hall where we were supposed to meet Mr. Mohammed, but because he was running late we got to sit and enjoy the few and the old Spanish colonial buildings which house City Hall and the police station. We then drove to the Regional Carnival 2010 kickoff, which was held just east of Tunapuna. When we got there we had no idea what was going on, because Trinis also don’t really like to tell you where you are going, they just tell you to get in the car and then take off. So we arrive at this place where a big stage is set up and there are food vendors set up, and then Mr. Mohammed sent us off with some of his friends. So Sam and I ended up liming on a random street for around two hours, and then watched some mokojumbes (the men on stilts) get ready, and then just sit on their bus, waiting. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a giant parade with all the traditional Carnival characters started coming down the street. There were drum groups on trucks, and bands, and mokojumbes, and the Midnight Robber, and Blue Devils, and it was so loud and exciting and crazy. Then we walked back to the giant stage where all the different groups got announced and performed a short choreographed dance, where the MC was none other than Mr. Mohammed, who is apparently a member of the Regional Carnival Committee. Lots of groups performed, and then were walking around afterwards. Some of the Blue Devils breathe fire, and then walk around scaring people and harassing them until they receive money. When the Blue Devils came around to me I gave the first guy a dollar, but then the devil right behind him came over and wouldn’t leave us alone. The Blue Devils are covered in blue paint and gold glitter, so the paint gets all over everything, including clothes (not fun!). But the ladies sitting in front of me were really nice and tried to get the Blue Devils to leave me alone. Everyone I’ve met here has been really nice and friendly and welcoming, and you can tell they want you to have a really great experience here. After all the groups finished performing different people made speeches, and they played the national anthem on the steel pan, which makes sense because it is the national instrument, but it was really cool to hear the steel pan played again.

On Sunday Mr. Mohammed took us to a Spiritual Baptist church, which was definitely an experience. There was lots of singing and dancing and drums at the service, which lasted over two hours. The majority of the Spiritual Baptists are female, which was interesting, and the archbishop was there, who was also a female. Everyone had on matching/coordinating clothes, which looked amazing but made me feel even more out of place than I already felt. In the middle of the service, Mr. Mohammed got up in front of the congregation (taking me and Sam with him!) and introduced us and made a speech which was kind of a summary of all the various tidbits of wisdom he had been giving us all weekend. It was crazy, because here’s this old Indian, Muslim man, whom everyone knows and respects enough to have him get up and address a completely African, Spiritual Baptist church. In Trinidad the population is pretty evenly split between Africans and East Indians, so it was interesting to see how Mr. Mohammed was able to fit into a different group. After church we got to go to the top of San Fernando hill, which overlooks the entire city, and then we got picked up to head back to Tunapuna.

Also, they don’t have normal milk here, it’s all in a box or powdered and it doesn’t taste the same at all. So I am craving milk so much right now! And I don’t know how I will live without milk for four months!

I will update on my trip to Tobago when I have more time, I haven't had internet in a week and a half, sorry it's so long!

TRINIDAD!

I am in Trinidad! We got in late last night, and the trip was pretty uneventful, other than a few problems getting through Immigration at the airport. Somehow they didn’t have the list from the University of the West Indies formally admitting us so we could get through. But we finally got through, and then arrived at the Caribbean Lodge in Tunapuna where I am going to be staying until May. Ironically, my first meal here was KFC, eaten late last night because it is one of the only restaurants open late (we didn’t get out of the airport in Port of Spain until around 11).

Our whole group is staying in the Caribbean Lodge, which is a sort of guest house only a couple of minutes away from UWI. Nina and I are roommates, we have adjoining rooms and are sharing a bathroom. The Lodge is pretty cool, pretty much everything is outside, and it’s breezy which helps cool us down, cause it’s so hot! We can see the mountains from the Lodge, and they are so pretty and green, and a lot of us are hoping to get to go hiking later.

Then this morning we got up, had a short orientation led by Candice, our site director, before we got to go out and explore Tunapuna. I got some Trinidadian money and some other toiletries, and then we ate roti for lunch. I had potato channa roti, which is chunks of potato and chickpeas in curry all wrapped up in something similar to a cornmeal tortilla. We then went to the open market, which is massive! Nina and I got a pineapple, and it was AMAZING! It was probably the sweetest pineapple I have ever eaten, and it was so messy with juice dripping down my face and hands. But it was totally worth it. For dinner we walked over to UWI to eat at the Subway and see part of the campus.

The group that’s here is a great group, even though it’s so small. There are 12 PLU students, 2 students from St. Lawrence University and a girl from Ithaca College. 13 girls and 2 boys, which is an interesting mixture, but they’re all a lot of fun. We leave on Friday for our homestays, but we don’t really know anything about those yet, and then on Monday we leave for Tobago. In Tobago we work a lot on our short story class and also get to go to the rainforest and bird watching and see the Caribbean (cause I haven’t actually seen the water yet, except for a black expanse late at night when we flew in). I’m excited to get to see more of the country. That’s all for tonight, but I’m here and enjoying it!