Drug Street?

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Uh, drug street? Not interested, thanks.

So that's how my afternoon went. But let me give a brief rehash (oops, pun) of the week. My man Rohan has kept me well stocked with good food - goat roti and food from the Breakfast Shed, including callaloo, um, don't know what the rest of the plate was, but it was good. I think it included macaroni salad, pasta salad, salad greens, provision (cousin of cassava), big boney hunks of meat, plantain, rice, the list keeps going on...

So in return, I took him out to dinner at Sweet Lime. Refer to previous postings to find out the full definition of Lime, but it means hanging out.

Rohan is the taxi driver from before.

In any case, all has been welcome diversions from the evil client of the client who likes to yell at me and my client non-stop. Including storming out of meetings, insisting on tape recording my every word, and then generally ignoring me. Oh, and giving me a very cramped desk to try and complete my verification from. In any case...

Yesterday Rohan came to pick me up. In pulling out of the driveway of the office, somehow there was a bump or ditch and the muffler just split. Rohan's car is his life. And livelihood might I mention, but really his life. From non-stop discussions of the rims he is planning to buy, to the color of paint he is considering, to the shocks, the audio system, etc. Somehow seat belts and installing working ones are not important. I felt horrible and said, look, I have 75 TT''s with me, please, take it. He said, can we run by the muffler shop because it is on this part of town before I take you back to the guest house. So off we go, into St. James, the part of town that never sleeps. The first guy refuses to fix it because he has set up the steel pans for practice.

We head over to this other guy, but to get there, you go down this street and Rohan is like, this is Drug Street. Sweet, that's what all those folks are doing sitting on the ground beside of the road. The repair place is at the end of that street, fronting a highway. The mechanic has a little concrete dugout and the cars drive over top of him. Scary. I also like people that weld while smoking and not wearing protective glasses. We're there for over an hour, close to two hours. Finally I get back to the guest house.

Then I go out with a former colleague here in Trinidad. She and her husband took me to the best things ever - Pan Yards for Carnival - where I was entrusted with the receipt of a booze cup on a rope.

David then arrived and we went to Tobago for a long weekend... We ate roti non-stop, all kinds! And then on our way back to the US, we stocked up on doubles outside of the airport for the flight back. So spicy...

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