Musings and observations about life, previously on the island of Trinidad, now as a nomadic traveler.
Friday, February 29, 2008
adventures
Anyway, yesterday was an adventurous day -- Elspeth and I officially registered for the writing class, and then I decided to go ahead and keep her company/ride around with her as she did a few errands. We went to the Trinidad Express in Port of Spain, as well as the Film Company. We stopped at a restaurant to get some pastries and something to drink. Mmm...cheese pie -- the pastry was just perfect. And let's not forget the raisin/oatmeal cookie.
We started to go up a winding road into the rain forest -- and then we ended up in Santa Cruz. We stopped at a farm that belongs to a family that Elspeth had worked with awhile back. This was a warm, lovely family living in a simple bright blue cottage tucked off the side of this quiet road on the side of a tiny cliff, surrounded by vegetation and mountains. To get to it, we had to trek a short distance on a dirt trail. They did their planting on rolling areas of uneven ground. The kids ran around barefoot and one boy wore the coolest straw hat, and they spoke in such thick accents that I really had to strain to understand anything, but I was proud of how much I did. There were chickens (TAME chickens, and Girlblue, another one named Whitey!!) and dogs wandering around. The kids had rolled this smooth carpet over part of the hilly front yard, and we sat outside chatting with the kids for awhile on this smooth carpet on the edge of the wee cliff, just sort of enjoying the breeze that rustled the coconut trees and watching the various shades of green of the mountains and enjoying the peaceful quiet. They sent home green figs and other fruit with us.
And I came home to find that Miss Stardust had gotten herself out of her cage and was cheerfully playing on top of her cage. I should have called her Houdini. :-)
Yay! Today I found out that I got accepted into that writing workshop that Elspeth and I applied for last month (as did Elspeth, yay!). I'm so excited -- looks like a great workshop and I feel so honored because there is a long waiting list for the class and we had to submit our work to be judged and I was a little nervous about all that. *feels very writerish right now*
Somehow it influenced me into some really good solid work today.
Mmm...pineapple flavored St. Benedict's yogurt.
Had to go to Tunapuna to get new headphones because Stardust chewed right through my old pair.
I had just written a nice long post earlier...when Flow went out on me.
As I told Elspeth, I was pretty glad actually because it forced me to stay offline so I could get a big chunk of stuff done and it was pouring rain outside (hey, how come it's always raining whenever I make a post in here?) so I didn't feel guilty about not going anywhere or getting anything done.
But oh boy let me tell you what I did get done earlier this morning. I went to the bank to wire some money to my account in the US (to pay some irritating pesky old bills from my utilities there...strangely, they still seem to want their money :D) and stood in line for ONE HOUR AND A HALF. And of course it was the one day that I did NOT bring a little notebook with me in my purse. That is 1 1/2 hours I will never ever get back. :D What was most irksome is that I would think that the line was moving. Choirs of hope would sing in my heart...A customer would finish and walk away...But then the worker behind the desk would leave and not come back. And then there were some customers at one window that were there almost the entire time, whatever they were doing (opening bank accounts in every currency in the world?), they did not move from the time I was at the back of the line to the time I finished my business. It really ultimately didn't bother me (aside from a pain in my back from standing for so long) since I didn't have to be anywhere at a certain time, but still. Then I grabbed my daily bundle of food at Hi Lo and made my way home.
I made some rolls today -- came out really well! *pats self on back*
A few days ago, I went to attend the outstanding screening of Elspeth's documentary about children living with H.I.V. who get discriminated against. I also got to see the beautiful dream window. What a great group of people in attendance! I'd like to contribute in some way but I'm still contemplating exactly how...In the right time it will come to me.
Here's our sweet Stardust singing as she looks out the window.
Stardust is on her cage singing away to the rain. Or maybe she's wondering where all her kiskadee (sp.?) friends are (the birds with the bright yellow tummies).
Yesterday I limed a fair amount of the day with Hayley and well, this is indeed what I get up to when I'm under such baaaaaaaad influences....
Am attempting to make bread again. Kneading is no fun.
Last night was nice. I finally figured out how to download some t.v. shows that I wanted to catch up on (like Lost and Supernatural), and so I enjoyed watching those last night as well as starting up on my cross-stitching and knitting again (neither of which I had touched since I moved). Oh, the exciting life that I lead!
Writing is going well. My only complaint is that I need to find a time and place in which there are no distractions! I wish there was a cafe where I could go and plug my laptop in and work. Maybe I'll find out if there's somewhere on campus where I could work undisturbed and just make a schedule. But then I get nervous about walking to campus with my laptop and possibly getting rained or poured on on the way back. (I know, then duh, don't walk home then or duh, bring an umbrella) But of course that would be too logical. *laughs*
Good morning, all!
And by the way, who knew that string could be so fascinating for a little bird? Stardust has been entertained for hours, scaring herself and playing and biting at this piece of strong that had been tied around some post that I received.
Hee. I usually stay FAR FAR away from politics in here, but I couldn't resist displaying this video by Trinidad's Mighty Sparrow (calypso artist) on Barack Obama. It's called Barack the Magnificent so if you're a fan of the Bush administration or not an Obama fan, then you probably wouldn't enjoy it, but otherwise, enjoy! :-) (It's got a nice, jaunty tune, too, and lots of swoon-worthy pictures of Barack)
So the bread came out pretty well. I think it needed a bit more salt and the outside needed to be crispier but aside from that, it tasted delicious with some lovely New Zealand butter.
So I accomplished quite a bit today. I wrote for two hours this morning (go me!) and it was good, solid work.
I paid my Flow (cable/internet) bill. I can do that at my bank, which is nice since it's so close and on the way to everything else.
Went to UWI (the university) and mailed some things.
I walked to Tunapuna and got some pretties. I love walking around the market in Tunapuna, tons of little stores, mostly owned by Indian families so there's this awesome mixture of household items, clothing, and Indian items. I am starting to tackle one room at a time as far as "decorating". It's not really my thing, and I'm pretty simplistic, but I like little touches here and there. I am starting with the downstairs bathroom. I got a rug, some pretty Indian-style candle holders, scented candles to go in them, and a hand towel. Yay, starting to look civilized. I also got a chair for the upstairs patio, the kind that is soft (vinyl-like) and has a drink holder. Perfect for sitting outside and reading. I took the maxi taxi back to my area (since I wasn't going to walk with the chair). I stopped at HiLo and picked up a few things and then walked home.
*gives self a gold star before kicking self back into work mode*
Okay, and today starts the great quest, the attempt to make the perfect French baguette. I am SO picky when it comes to French bread. Sometimes HiLo does it okay, although in all my experiences with grocery stores in every place I've lived, I rarely rarely rarely find French bread that I like or even find satisfying. For me, it has to be just perfect. It has to be crispy and tan on the outside so that if you squeeze it, it crackles, and on the inside it has to be soft and chewy. Well, the only way to find perfection I suppose is to start making it myself. So..today's experiment will be the first. I armed myself with regular flour, regular salt, a packet of yeast and a sprinkling of sugar. Let's see. It's smelling pretty good from the oven so far.
I also need to make more cookies because I might as well take advantage of this time in my menstrual cycle (sorry for the tmi) when I want to eat everything bad for me in sight -- might as well be fresh, good quality bad food.
I wish I had a clue about gardening, too. I would love to start on a very very small scale, like in a pot on my patio. Unfortunately, I have the black thumb of death when it comes to living plants.
Okay, I've been in kind of a quiet, subdued mode lately. Part of this is creativity. I have been on a pretty good pattern of writing although I'd like it if I could focus for longer spurts. I have this creative fantasy about getting into a project and being so into it that I forget to eat, sleep, or have a desire to do anything else (read: get on the internet). That hasn't happened yet and I feel like it should happen because this is the first time in a very long time that I haven't had other obligations. My big fantasy is that I'd emerge from a week or so of this complete pulling out from reality and be shocked that my entire novel has written itself. Okay, so that HAS happened before, but in much smaller chunks. I remember once while with Lara at Starbucks in Jacksonville writing with headphones on and getting so into a scene that I was writing (that I have yet to revise and merge into the Novel of Doom) that I was actually crying to myself, so affected I was by actually being pulled into my own story and the background music that I was using. But I'm selfish. I don't want it to just happen for one hour or two. I want it to happen for a long chunk of time. I remember in the movie Amadeaus how Mozart would get into these fits of (okay maybe insanity but aren't all of us artist types a bit insane?) creativity so that he blocked out all else. Nobody wants to sit in front of a blank screen and curse being there and feel like the words that are coming out are awkward and juvenile, something a six-year-old might have written. It hasn't been that way for me, but there are certainly days. But my favorite days are when I write and then I look back on it and think, "Who wrote this?" Not so much because it's brilliant or well-written, but more so because I don't recognize any of the words as being specifically chosen by me.
In more mundane news, I am trying to get going on planning a day trip to Tobago. Local peeps? Do you know the easiest way that one can book the Air Bridge? Or is the ferry better? I feel totally lost at this (since it's the first time, lol!) although I know it must be astoundingly easy.
I'm eager to post again so that my latest post won't be such a bummer. It's difficult to get the images out of my head from the shooting at NIU. I wanted to stop watching the media coverage of it, but I couldn't turn away, especially when I saw the familiar setting. M taught all of his classes in that building, it turns out, when we were there. One girl who survived the shooting (who was in that class) told how it started in such a chilling manner, how one minute she was taking notes, and she looked up and he was just there on the stage, no noise, no words, no nothing. AND of course the shooter came from my hometown of Champaign. Creepy.
Well, today I finally got back to writing and am doing a pretty good job of it. I did take a long "thinkie" walk on campus this morning, and good thing because I couldn't stop eating this chocolate cake that I mistakenly bought (thinking that I'd er...have the willpower to only have a few bites here and there, hahahaha). Apparently I needed comfort food yesterday and downed about half of it. Well, I justify it this way. It was a Valentine's Day cake, right? Valentine's Day = love. Are you with me so far? Cake = love. One can never have too much love, right? *nods* Yep, I thought so.
There was a mass shooting at Northern Illinois University, the university I used to go to. Five dead and 22 wounded, although they keep changing the numbers, so who knows what the final tally will be.
I got my teaching certificate at NIU and M got his Ph.D. We both lived in the community for about six years and both of us had at least one class in that hall. Yeah, upsetting indeed.
I am SO mad at myself. I am not naturally a late sleeper...I didn't think. But yet today I woke up a few times in the morning during bizarre bizarre dreams of swimming underwater among gorgeous corals and sea creatures but then there was this annoying deadly jellyfish that was ruining it for me because I had to keep getting away from it. D'oh! Anyway, every time I would wake up, my eyes felt so heavy and tired that I'd just fall right back into sleep. Next thing I know, M is above me saying, "Hey, it's 10 o'clock." I don't even sleep that late on the weekends when I'm working during the week! I didn't even go to bed that late last night. Soooo....I'm going to have to start being stern with myself. Not only am I banning myself from the internet during the daylight (er...except for right now of course because I had to look something up and realized that I hadn't posted in here in a few days), but I am going to get up no later than 7:30. *nods*
I have a very clear-cut writing goal today and hope I can accomplish it. Sweet little Stardust is singing and chattering away this morning.
I believe that there's something seriously wrong with me. I have been practically living off of this weird mixture of cut up cucumbers, tomatoes, snowpeas, chickpeas, a bit of cut-up ginger, dab of West Indies hot sauce, a bit of oregano, all soaking in garlic red wine vinegar. I get into these stages where all I want is super pickly food and this urge far outweighs my urge for chocolate and freshly baked baguettes.
And also there's this chicken broth soup mix here that I adore called "spicy cock soup."
I must go on about the yogurt here again. Okay, the Mount Saint Benedict yogurt (made at the monastery) is simply the best. It's a crapshoot as to which flavors are available at HiLo on any given day and sometimes there is absolutely nothing left or just a few little containers. Here are the flavors: strawberry, plain, guava, passionfruit, almond, soursop. They are all so delicious that I don't ever care which one I'm able to snag. Smooth, rich taste, an explosion of taste in your mouth (hey, I sound like an advertisement).
I've had a repeat dream involving several variations of the same scenario of being back the US and explaining to people that I run into (like coworkers *waves if any of you are reading*) that I'm not really there.
Now this was a pathetically do-nothing weekend. I swear, I barely left the house. Wait. Correction. I didn't leave the house at all. I'm a "go with the flow" person so I was open to staying home all weekend or going places if that came up. What I wasn't motivated to do is plan anything myself. So I did a lot of organizational things, like organizing my computer files and music files (whee, playlists I can work with!) and got a big chunk of writing done. So while I feel vaguely guilty for not leaving the house or doing anything (especially as far as exploring new places or trying new things), it's all good.
Stardust has been hyper all day. It is perhaps the weather, which has been dark and rainy all day (despite it being the dry season). By hyper, I mean she's been running around on top of her cage, jumping from the cage to the couch, climbing all over the cage, etc, and cutest of all, singing prettily on top of the cage.
It is a rather cozy morning, with a little bit of rain, although the sun seems to be trying to peek out.
I made some chocolate chip cookies yesterday and they came out very well. Local ladies? I'm sure there will be plenty left for you, as long as I don't eat them all today...
I've been oversleeping this whole week, and I'd really like to stop that pattern, especially because I like to get my walk-about errands done before it gets too hot.
You know what's hard to get here? Spiral-bound notebooks that aren't clearly marked for students.
Stardust is afraid of the toys I got her yesterday.
I'm in that stage of creativity in which there's a lot of internal contemplating and the feeling of getting ready for a marathon surge.
Wow, what an experience! First of all, I had never taken a maxitaxi into "town" as people here call the capital city, Port of Spain. So I walked a few blocks and waited for one. I got one right away. I was in the front, crammed in with another person. The windows were open, the soca jams were on the radio, and I was feeling fine. I arrived in Port of Spain about 20 minutes later. With no rush hour traffic and on the bus priority route, it really takes no time at all to get there. Once I stepped out, it was really only a few steps to get to the action, since it was everywhere on almost all the streets of Port of Spain.
Here are some costumes:
I must point out that I did not dress up, but I did decorate my face a bit:
When the parade of bands would stop for some delay or other, us unmasked people were allowed to go in and mingle and dance to the music, but when they were ready to move again, these security people would run up and rope us all back...
Here is a short video of people dancing. Note the Kentucky Fried Chicken in the background. I am NOT kidding when I say you can practically find one on every corner...This will always amuse and sadden me :D
After walking awhile, I stopped at a vendor and got a "bake and shark." Yum, yum, yum. It was a deliciously fried shark meat in a pita-like bread with sauce and veggies. I got mine at a small vendor, but I regret not waiting because later I came upon a self-serve stand that had ALL KINDS of toppings and sauces that I could have put on. There were also vendors selling coconut milk, right out of a coconut (you actually drink the coconut). Also you could find arts and crafts and tons of beer/rum stands. However, anyone chooses to drink tons of alcohol in that heat is insane. I went through 2 bottles of water and couldn't stop drinking water once I got home.
I came upon some of the drumming bands.
Here is a very short, tiny video I took of some of the drumming:
Here is the Queen's Savannah Park which is like a big park in the middle of the city, like a mini Central Park:
I finally, by some brilliant stroke of crazy luck, found Hayley and her masquerade section. She is a miracle! Not only did she "play mas" yesterday all day and then came home and had guests (that would be me and some others at her Carnival lime) and didn't get to bed until after midnight, but she had to get up at 4 a.m. on Carnival in order to be ready to start playing mas (dancing in the parade) again at 6:30 a.m. AND go on until about 6 p.m.! AND she had to go back to work today.
Here are some people really jumping up and jamming.
I hung out with Hayley and her parade section on and off whenever things stopped. When they moved again, I would get kicked out of the "band" by security and so I could follow along on the sidelines. Finally, I was getting hot and tired and my legs were aching from so much walking and dancing. So...I bid my farewells and made the monstrous walk back to City Gate, which is where all the maxitaxis are. When I say monstrous walk, I mean I walked and walked and walked and then I got lost. I wasn't scary-lost, but it was enough so that I just wasn't 100 percent sure I was even walking in the right direction. And sadly there was no choice but to keep going because ALL the streets were blocked off/nonfunctional (no taxis or any way for anyone to drive me where I was supposed to be).
So at long last I made it back to City Gate but looked like a fool when I tried to get on the maxitaxi at the wrong place. An old and very kind policeman had to give me instructions a couple hundred times for finding these stairs to take me on a crosswalk to the other side of the terminal...finally I got it.
I got home with my legs aching pleasantly. The sunscreen did its magic because I wasn't sunburned or sunstroked from walking for hours in the hot tropics. I slept like a baby last night.
So the problem with a four-day weekend is that I had to wait for nearly 1 hour and a half at the bank just to make a simple deposit. Note to self: Don't do those types of errands after a holiday!
I'm too exhausted to give a proper report right now, but I braved Port of Spain to see what Carnival was like in person! Here I am with Hayley, who is fantastic and has endurance beyond anything I've ever seen before! :))
So I was walking home from the store in the blazing heat, when Hayley called, asking if I wanted to go to a "jump up Carnival party" at her daughter's school. Never one to turn down such an opportunity, I was like, sure, and ran home (almost literally in the heat) to meet her.
So we went to her daughter's school, and it was possibly the most amazingly adorable thing ever. When we arrived, they were in the midst of limbo contests. We settled in and got some overly priced rotis and I had a "smalta" -- a malt-like drink very similar to the Vita Malt that I described down below...
There was a theme to the whole party, that of a celebration of a famous calypso artist named Lord Kitchener. There were decorated banners everywhere, displaying the titles of Kitchener's songs, posters and knowledge about his life, etc.
Classes from about 2nd grade through 5th grade took turns in the steel pan contest, and each played a different song by Lord Kitchener. The kids were absolutely fantastic, considering how young they were! And not only fantastic, but they had real stage presence. First, they were dressed up in themed costumes with glitter on their faces. Second, while they played, they danced, got everyone excited.
But here's the really amazing thing that blew my mind with coincidence. One of the classes was in about 3rd or 4th grade, and the kids all dressed up in bumblebee costumes (okay, adorable enough alone). So then they started playing "Bee's Melody" a very famous Lord Kitchener song, a very bouncy and happy tune and you just can't help but dance to it. The kids were AMAZING! And here I was just squealing to myself in happy surprise because not only had I used that piece as a sample of "island" music in a presentation I gave in a music education class years ago, but I also used it in great detail in a scene in my novel (!!!!). AND not only that, this class won the contest!! They got a huge enthusiastic applause.
Here's a link to an adult band, the Renegades, playing a variation of the same song at Panorama, just to give you a feel for the whole idea of pan bands...Bee's Melody by the Renegades
So after the party, Hayley and I went to Port of Spain so that she could pick up her Carnival costume. This was a long ordeal because many people were picking up their costumes. I bought some facial and hair glitter and make up for the eyes and face. I'm getting mighty mighty tempted to go see if there are any unpicked up costumes on Sunday so that I might participate as well...mighty tempted...well, we shall see...okay, so that means I'm a masochist since that would be dancing and walking for miles in the hot hot sun for two days in a row...eh, we shall see!
After running a few errands, we ate at a really good Chinese restaurant. And now I am home. I didn't accomplish ONE THING as far as my writing schedule...and that's okay!
I have two lovely nieces, Princess Rose and her charming sister Char-bing. I am a 40-something writer who lives outside the box, teaches literacy for a living, and has had world-wide adventures.
