More Life in Trinidad

There are a lot of open markets down here to get fruits, vegetables, meats, fish and even clothes and utensils. There are stands with candies/candied fruits or shoe repair. These open markets allow anyone to open a business without the overhead of opening a store. They just put up a table or a booth on the sidewalk and establish “squatter’s rights” to sell there. We have been getting some real good fruit, but have not been willing to try the meet or fish from these open markets.

They lay out on long tables with flies buzzing all over. Shark is a common choice for seafood. They sell little ones like the ones in the picture below, on the left side.

Sanitation is a real problem all over the island. Open sewers are common and trash is left everywhere. The picture below is the entrance to the market…

Speaking of food, I need to tell you what Tauna has been doing. She has made several local friends and they have been teaching her to cook local cuisine. She said she wants to make it for family and friends when we get back to the States. The picture below is a family from Church, the Ningwahs, who came over to our place to teach Tauna to make pelau. I think I posted a picture and description of pelau in an earlier post on local dishes. It turned out great. The have a boy, Richard, who is the same age as Isaac. They have become pretty good friends.

I have to post one more picture of Isaac though. He likes to learn to cook (he even watches all the shows on the Food Network and won't watch ESPN... where did I go wrong?). Anyway, he was helping Tauna in the kitchen one day. I walked in and found his ingenious way to keep from crying while he was cutting onions. I had to sneak a picture. Check out the swimming goggles.

New Addition(s)

When I moved into this larger apartment prior to Tauna and Isaac coming down, I bought a few plants to dress it up a bit, including a couple of hanging ferns for the patio. Tauna had quite a surprise last week. She got out the fire hose (the only source of water out front) to hose down the floor and water the plants. She gave the ferns a good drenching, only to notice afterwards that one of the ferns has a dove nesting in it! It was pretty interesting. Tauna couldn't see it initially because she just reached the hose up to the basket and poured water in. The bird just sat there and got soaked. I got some pictures of thee bird (which Isaac has named "Claire." It's an Isaac thing to name any animal he comes in contact with, including "Jericho" a little lizard that has been hanging around the porch). I also got a picture up there one time when Claire was away and found out why she wouldn't fly off despite the drenching Tauna gave her. She has a couple of eggs she is caring for. Anyway, we thought it was interesting enough to put on the blog...

Carnival!

If there is anything that Trinidad & Tobago is known most for, it is Carnival. The celebration and traditions go way back to when slavery was abolished. Without writing out the whole history, let me tell you that it has now become a wild, extended weekend party. If you can imagine New Orleans' Mardi Gras (which actually got its origins from Carnival) 100 times bigger. For the most part we avoided the wildest aspects of Carnival, but did enjoy a few of the traditions. On the Saturday before Carnival, they have what they call "Kiddie Karnival." Hundreds and hundreds of kids dress up in unbelievably elaborate costumes and hit the streets dancing behind semi-trucks pulling 6 foot high speakers blasting out Caribbean music. The music is so loud that it hurts your chest as the trucks rumble by, but the kids dance the entire day behind the trucks as they wind through the streets of town. I have a few pictures below just to give you an idea as to how elaborate the costumes were.






On Monday, they have what they call "J'ouvert," which I am told means freedom in French. It is the throwback Carnival, also know as "Dirty Carnival," which is understandable from the following pictures. They start the parade at 4am Monday morning, although the partying and drinking starts Sunday night. They don't wear all of the elaborate costumes for this day. They use what they did before anyone could afford the lavish costumes. They cover themselves with paint, mud, chocolate, motor oil or anything else they can use to "masquerade" without buying a costume. I had to work that day, so I had to go downtown anyway. I went early to work and thought I would walk at and get a few pictures of J'overt. After getting this set up at work, I walked out into the streets and there were tens of thousands of people walking the streets dancing and drinking. LOTS of drinking, and it was 6:30 AM! They have trucks pulling open bars in the parades so participants have an endless supply of alcohol. It's actually amazing that they have as few problems as they do every year!





The Tuesday Carnival is the biggest day. That's the day that all of the adults come out in the lavish costumes. However, another common tradition for many local folk is to get away from the madness and go to the beach. Friends from church invited us to spend the day with them at Mayaro, on the other side of the island. There were about 4 families that rented an old beach house. Some of them stayed all weekend, but we only went up to spend the day on Tuesday. I subsequently didn't get any pictures of the big Carnival extravaganza, but we had a great time at the beach. It was a beautiful drive (although we were wondering where they were taking us for a while as you can see in the first picture). We made some new friends and had lots of great, local food: curry chicken, curry duck, curry goat, etc... There were people at roadside stands selling these huge iguanas (lizards) for cooking and currying as well, but none of them made it to our party (and I didn't have my camera ready as we drove by to get a picture of the dead iguanas hanging in the stands for sale). Our hosts told us iguanas taste great and they would be sure and have some for us next time...

Life in Trinidad

I thought I would share some pictures of our new "lifestyle" here in Trinidad.

If you have read my earlier posts, you know there is a savannah (a huge sports field) next to our apartments.


Every evening people come from all over the local area to run, walk, play soccer or other activities in the cooler twilight hours. One of the activities that Tauna is really enjoying is an aerobics class that is put on by a professional trainer under one of the big trees. She comes out every weekday evening and anyone can participate. She just asks a $5 donation (that's 80 cents in US currency...). You can see Tauna in the back row on the right, or just look for the white lady.



I tried the class a couple of times but was so sore the next day I think I'll stick to running around the savannah (Ike took the picture below). He will occasionally join me around the track a couple of times then we all go to the pool for an evening swim.



Speaking of Isaac, he has a couple of weeks under his belt at his new school. He likes it. It's a Hindu sponsored school, which is a little different, but it is walking distance, so Tauna walks him to school every day. Isaac is required to wear a uniform and participate in Hindu prayers each day, which he finds interesting. The facilities are pretty humble. Classes are in a long hall where individual grades and classes are separated by only rolling chalk boards. So, there is a lot of noise and distractions.




Isaac is quite the celebrity, being the only white kid in the whole school. Kids are hollering out to him all the time, in the store, from car windows, all the kids know him. His teacher told me last week that the principal called all the girls in Isaac's class into the office for a special meeting to tell them that they would have quit hanging on Isaac all the time, that it wasn't "appropriate" behavior for young girls.


All and all the family is doing well in our new environment, making new friends, but really missing family and friends from home.

Pitch Lake

We had a great family adventure yesterday. It started out with a drive to San Fernando, a city in the southern part of Trinidad, to attend the national Calypso band finals competition. Calypso Caribbean style music is huge down here. The competition is part of the build up for Carnival, which starts next weekend (I'll do another post about Carnival later). Anyway, by the time we got to the site of the music festival and heard the bands warming up, we decided we really haven't developed a taste for Calypso music and didn't think we wanted to pay the admission fee and fight the crowds all day to attend the concerts.

Since we were down that way, we decided to drive even farther south to "Pitch Lake", the largest natural asphalt (or tar) lake in the world. There are only 2 others, one in Venezuela (which is connected to Pitch Lake by an underground channel that flows under the ocean floor) and the La Brea tar pits in southern California. In fact, Pitch Lake is located in the town of La Brea. La Brea litterally means "pitch or tar" in Spanish. The tar pits in southern California were named after the town in Trinidad. Pitch Lake was discovered in 1595 by Sir Walter Raleigh.


When you first arrive, it isn't much to see. But we signed up with a local tour guide to see it up close and personal since we had come so far. Our tour guide, Cyril, has probably smoked enough weed in his life to to keep most of California high, but he was knowledgeable of the lake and pretty entertaining.


In addition to producing tar, the lake produces pools of mineral water that bubbles up from underground springs. In fact, it's surrounded by a marsh of mineral water thats covered with water lilies.


There were some capitalizing local young boys wading into the marsh to pick the lilies...



and sell them to gullible visitors...


The adventure starts with walking through the marsh (at which point I realized I could have reached down and picked the lilies myself...). There are boards that have been placed on the pitch bed just below the water to walk on to get past the marsh and out onto Pitch Lake.

However, there were other pools that we had to cross out in the middle the lake (without boards), which not all of us wanted to cross...


The springs bubble up through fissures in the pitch which can be several feet deep.


Cyril said that there were different springs with different combinations of minerals that create pools of different colors and characteristics. The bright green one is for minor skin conditions, the brown one is for serious skin conditions, the milky green one is for tightening old age wrinkles and the clear pools are great for general aches and pains. People come from all over to soak in the pools.



Of course Tauna wanted a "souvenir" bottle of the anti-aging water to take back with us.


Isaac enjoyed the pitch itself. Cyril tells a great tale how the entire lake is a giant living organism with lots of mystical stories surrounding it.



In conclusion, what initially appeared to be a very dull-looking "tourist attraction" turned out to be an interesting natural wonder that we all enjoyed.

Back to Training

Well, back to work.

We conducted some training this last week train and certify some of the local police officers as Crime Analysts.


But, like true Trinis, they always find reasons to party. So, why not celebrate completing the course? They brought in food and drinks for everyone. The funny thing is that they have the party right at police headquarters. It still strange for me to see alcohol (a LOT of alcohol) being consumed by police officers while still on the clock at police headquarters. However, this is real common. In fact, there is an "Officer's Mess" on the 5th floor which is restricted to police executives, but has an all day open bar which is used regularly by the command staff...

Here are a couple of pictures from our "meeting."

Cheers!