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!