Today's Installment

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So I'll go ahead and send this email since it was all queued up in drafts before the internet went down. But just know that, and I don't even know how to get into it now, because I'm so tired from all this liming, tomorrow's email is going to have some interesting info.
S

It's quite hard to sit here in this office day after day, staring out the window at all the activity going on outside. At least Trinidad isn't like Tobago, in that it isn't a resort. Trinidad is where the industry is… But today, I got out for a little bit. The driver, who is right up my alley because everyone and their cousin knows him, and he knows the best gossip, took me out for a little drive. Even more up my alley, we went to a hardware store and then went and looked around at where the rich people live. But more about that in a second.

I couldn't figure out what exactly we were doing at the hardware store, but it turns out that his house doesn't have air conditioning and he is thinking of making that addition because his boss will pay for it now and just subtract a portion each month form the driver's (R.) check. Like personal layaway. Every day when R. comes to pick us up it is after he has taken some rich person's wife to the gym and the kid to daycare. I thought it was because they didn't speak English.

But I'm really getting ahead of myself. So first, everyone in Trinidad it seems drives a new car. But you don't see any particularly flashing cars, like BMWs, Mercedes, etc. All the cars are mid-priced Hondas, Suzukis, Toyotas, etc. So everyday this rich oil executive from a non-English speaking country has his wife and kid driven around in a very regular sort of car.

One day R. comes in a different car, his own car. It doesn't have the same tinted windows as the other car he points out. He is going to get it tinted because he can't drive the wife and kid in this car without tinted windows. I'm like, how come, are they afraid of the sun? He says it's because it isn't safe without the tint because rich people get kidnapped. So that may explain why everyone has low-key kind of cars, they don't want anyone to think that they're rich… and could cough up some ransom money. A little bit scary, I don't want anyone here to think I come from Venezuela and am loaded. Except the family I mentioned above isn't Venezuelan. I don't want to be responsible for anything. And come to think of it, the tint that these cars have going on is way more tinted than what we're allowed to have in the US. It's like blackout tinting. I thought maybe it was to keep the leather from cracking or something.

Anyway. Some other things I've noticed are cars that have "left hand driver" painted on the back. I was a little ticked (no, not really). I mean I got called out for being lefthanded in Thailand and for eating with my lefthand. I'm proud to be lefthanded. And now in Trinidad, what, we're automatically bad drivers that need to be looked out for. I should have calmed down. It's actually cars where the driver sits on the left, like we have in the US. Whew…

And something called "Lime" is everywhere. Join my Lime. Get your Lime on here. Liming this that and the other. Today I learned what Lime or Liming is. It's code for happy hour. You go and meet your friends out to listen to jazz and drink and talk. Except I think jazz may be kind of a universal music word. Because the jazz festival in Tobago this weekend has Elton John, Mary J. Blige, LL Cool J, and Al Green. So after work today I'm going liming, which is good, because I wanted to hear some music. I don't know if it'll be odd if I'm having my own liming with myself, you know if I start carrying on a conversation with myself at the bar. I'm hoping I can crash someone else's lime.

Then tomorrow I'm going back to the beach. R. is going to take me. He has chairs and coolers and all that because one of his jobs is to pick up a certain country that sounds an awful lot like Mmmmcanada's pilots. And I'm never flying Air MmmmCanada from Trinidad. His orders are to pick up the pilots at the airport with the cooler already fully stocked and the beer iced down. He says they're only here 72 hours but they do it all while they're here, and by all, I mean A-L-L and things that Nancy Reagan told us not to do.

Atkin's is still in full effect. But I did get toast the other morning. I ate it down so fast I almost cried.

Alright, back to work.

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