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!