Roadtripping and living the life of a Trini

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Here is the rest of my Trinidad adventure... sorry it is all at once. I am writing retrospectively as I now back in Canada and back in school after a wonderful March Break in Trinidad.

Here is the next segment...
On Monday night we watched the opening ceremonies of the World Cricket tournament being hosted in Jamaica. It was neat to get a feel for the music, costumes, and players of cricket too. Tuesday, I left Tracy for a few days and embarked on the “Road Trip all over Trinidad” part of my journey with my new friend Jesse as driver, along with his friend Kevin for the first part of the journey. Jesse is a good friend of my friend Alex and it was his job to be my tour guide. Our carriage, his old grey station wagon! We traveled south on the north-south freeway through Chaguanas, Freeport, past Gasparillo, to Debe and Penal. It was neat to just watch out the window and get to know my new friends. What are most interesting are the many bush fires I saw and sugar cane fields ablaze as it is the dry season in Trinidad. We got of the highway at one point and Jesse shared that there had been a major accident under this bridge where we stopped and that the girl’s father had put a memorial to her on the hill. Legend says that her ghost is sometimes seen at night in the area.

We continued on down the road to Debe and dropped off Kevin who lives even further south in Siparia. Jesse and I then continued to Gasparillo to meet up with Joel. But first, we stopped by Joel’s family’s home and met his brother Chris, nephew and niece, sister-in-law and parents. When we got to Joel’s house in Gasparillo I was met by him, Jakob, his energetic 5 years old and wife Rhoda. They live in a cute blue and white house with a carport, nice porch and a house full of toys and musical recording equipment. I was quickly introduced as Aunty Katy and was invited by Jakob to see his room (that would become my resting place for my time there). Jakob showed me all his sound making animal models and taught me how to roar like a lion! Sounds strange, but I love that kind of make believe with young kids. He was keen to show me all his toys too. I had brought down a Curious George colouring book, books by Robert Munsch, crayons and mini-stampers as a gift for Jakob and we cracked that open really fast! Jakob loves to colour and was excited that the colouring book had stickers that he could add to his pictures when he was done! Every free moment we took out the colouring book and hung out together. Jakob even wanted to wake me up early in the morning to find his book and get back to colouring. That was really cute.

In the evening I met some more of Joel’s friends at a church meeting and then headed off to hang out with Alex in St. Julien village outside of Prince’s Town. I sat with his daughter Alexa and headed to his family’s house where he lives with his wife Tricia and his parents live upstairs. This is quite common in Trinidad. Then Alex and I headed off traveling on the back roads of St. Julien. We had one of those conversations that you never want to end! We sang songs, talked about life and what we had been up to. We drove through to New Grant past the sugar cane refinery and into San Fernando and ended up back in Gasparillo for the night.

When I woke up I met Joel’s other house guest Rev. Tara Tyme from Jamaica who was in Trinidad planning a youth congress for the church for October. Jesse came to pick us up and we toured around checking out venues for her youth meeting both in Arouca, and then up to Victory Heights camp where they made a booking for meeting. I learned a lot about the workings of the church in Trinidad. There is some discontentment over the leadership down there and the lack of support for youth programming, despite its success under the leadership of many key young adults like Joel, Alex, Jesse, Micah, Christopher and others. In the afternoon after lunch in Tunapuna, we drove to Port of Spain as Tara had to meet a minister friend of hers. On the way, we stopped at the lookout and took some photos of Port of Spain and stopped for some pineapple chow. Pineapple chow is sliced pineapple covered with hot pepper sauce. I love the mix of the sweet and hot flavours yummy. In town we visited the Grey Friar’s Church of Scotland, one of the oldest churches in the city. The organ inside is beautiful and is the original dating back to the late 1800s. On our way out of town we saw the most successful Kentucky Fried Chicken store in the world. They sport the Col. Sander’s logo of a more hip and younger Colonel. I snapped a quick photo as we drove past.

In the evening Joel and I sang at the midweek Lenten service at Trinity Presbyterian church. It is always so great to sing harmony with him. Joel has a wicked voice and is a well known singer in Trinidad. One of the people there said that my voice was captivating. I sang two worship songs with Joel and then played of my own songs too on guitar. Joel made a huge stir-fry for dinner when we got back and then I hung out with Rhoda for a while and chatted with her.

Thursday, we headed to the St. Andrew’s Theological school to finish up some of the details of Tara’s planning and then shopped at the Gulf mall in San Fernando. I bought a soca music cd and a cd of steel pan music too. We then headed into Port of Spain again to drop of Tara and then returned to Gasparillo along that long stretch of highway again. This evening Joel and I sang at the New Century Presbyterian Church in St. Julien Village. It was neat to meet more of Alex’s friends and chat with some of the locals there. They were very welcoming and appreciative to hear about my journey in Trinidad. Alex’s family served us amazing dinner that night of curried potatoes and peas, fish, and pumpkin on a banana leaf. Yummy traditional food again! I am so blessed! Joel and Alex and I then road tripped down to Siparia to visit Jesse and to have tea with him. It was a great time to reminisce about our time in Grenada, and to listen to Joel’s new cd. Lots of meaningful conversation… I wish it could have lasted forever!

On my last full day in Trinidad we drove to the beach in Mayaro. Alex’s boss has a beach house there so we were able to use it. We picked up some curried duck, and some provision= vegetables (yams and dasheen). Jakob took the day off school and joined us along with Justin and Alison, two other friends. We trekked northward and drove across the country to the beach through Arima, Sangre Grande to Manzanilla and then south to Mayaro on the Atlantic Coast. Once again a beautiful road trip through the countryside. When we got to Manzanilla, we drove a long stretch of road flanked with amazing coconut trees on both sides of the road. It felt like a scene from a movie! After settling in we went to play in the waves of the Atlantic. The scenery was breathtaking from the fishing boats heading out to catch fish, the driftwood, the low tide and the sound of the crashing waves on the sand and very few people just taking a swim. Jakob and Joel built sandcastles as we rode the waves. Dinner of curried duck was awesome and it was like being part of a family on a picnic. We then headed back to the beach when Alex, Victoria and Anita arrived and took silly photos of the Lifeguard hut!

That evening I headed back to the Dookie family and was reunited with Mom, Dad, Gary and Ian, my Trini family. We ordered pizza for dinner and in Trini tradition, Tracy put both ketchup and mustard on the pizza. A weird way to eat, but so goes the tradition. Tracy and I caught up on my adventures, listened to music and shared photos.

Saturday morning, my day to go home… sad that the week was coming to an end, however, all good journeys have to end some time. We ate doubles for breakfast again and then headed off to the outdoor market. There was every fruit and vegetable to be had there. All the provision was still covered in dirt, or gently cleaned off as it had just come from the ground. There must have been over 100 fruit and vegetable stands specializing in different things. Everything is weighed on old scales and the organic produce is very reasonable.

Since it was St. Patty’s day, I thought it would be fitting to have a beer! I love the Shandy ginger beer in the Caribbean; sadly you can only buy it there. So before I left I enjoyed my drink and ate cascadoo fish-another trini dish before getting ready to go to the airport. Before heading out Tracy and I souvenir shopped at the airport as she waited for me to head through security to my flight. We chatted with Alex, Joel and Jakob before I left and even at the airport. I was so sad to leave them. I had felt so much a part of their lives and families while being in Trinidad that I didn’t want it to ever end. So I shed a few tears as I left Tracy to fly home. The craziest thing I noticed most being back in that airport, that hadn’t occurred to me before was that I was the only white person I had seen since leaving the airport and returning to the airport in those seven days. Funny to think that being a visible minority was never an issue there. People were just accepting of me for me.

The flight home was not very eventful. Beautiful views as we flew over the Antilles-beautiful blue water and sandy beaches. We were delayed in Miami for two hours because of waiting for other connecting passengers. I arrived back in Canada around 2 a.m. I was exhausted yet satisfied for yet again I had come home from an experience of a lifetime, shared with great friends, amazing sights, wonderful opportunities and time well spent in Trinidad. I can’t wait to go back. There is a reunion planned for 2009 in Trinidad so I am hoping time will fly by fast. I have since called Trinidad and know that they miss me there as much as I miss them. As it should be I think.

Thank you for reading this long catch up blog. I hope some day you will get to see the beauty of Trinidad and feel the warmth of the weather, hospitality and hot food as I did.

Love you all,
Katy

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Comments

[marianna adams]

missed you
dear Katy, we thought about you as we read your journal, and what a fabulous adventure you had, Marianna and I listened to your music cd that you made, and it calmed us and made us want to listen more. looking forward to hearing first hand about your trip. Marianna and Maria Adams