Springtime in Trinidad

You always know it’s this time of year in Trinidad because these trees called Poui blossom all over the country. There’s really no springtime here only dry and wet season, but these trees tend to flower towards the end of dry season. That’s how you know rainy season is on the way. I like to just call it springtime.

These last few weeks have been really busy for us in a good way. For the whole month of April, two LLU med students came to do an elective here at the hospital. It’s always nice to see and hang out with people from back home. I hate to say it, but it’s like a breath of fresh air. For some reason even though we feel like we’ve adapted pretty well here, it’s still just not the same. Anyway...we had a good time with them. Here are a few pics of our time together:

This is actually just before they left, right after I did a filling on Rita (middle). That’s Jean on the right.

Dinner at our receptionist’s house. The food was awesome.

At least twice a week Jane, Joshua and I go for a walk around the largest park in Trinidad called Queen’s Park Savannah. It’s approximately 2.3 miles around and has a paved sidewalk for walkers/runners. This is usually our weekly exercise routine. The only bad part about it is that we ruin it by having dinner at these street vendors that sell local foods. The two things that we usually eat are corn soup and a local favorite called doubles. Doubles have become my new favorite Trinidadian food. It’s two flour patties with curried chickpeas, cilantro sauce, tamarind sauce and pepper sauce. yummmmm....you may not like it at first, but these things are soooo good. Here’s a picture of one of my doubles: I eat like 3 or 4 of them.

Does that not look so good? After doubles and corn soup sometimes we treat ourselves to a snowcone, another local favorite. I’m pretty sure the ice is not clean or sanitary, but I think our bodies have adjusted by now. Sorry I don’t have a picture of that, but maybe I should take one next time.

The girls after our walk/run.

After the girls left. Oh I gotta tell you how sad Joshua was when we were saying goodbye. It was so sad. I don’t even know how he knew we were saying bye for good but when they came around to say bye to Joshua he didn’t want to leave them. When Jane came to take him away he pushed her away and wanted to stay with the girls. And usually when he wants to delay the inevitable for example bedtime he tries to play cute by saying “nose” and pointing to your nose. And he kept doing that to Jean. How sad. He rejected Jane like 3 or 4 times until I had to distract him just to take him away and as they walked away he started to whimper and almost cry. It was really sad. I had to really distract him in order to keep hi

m from crying. I wonder if he’ll ever get to see them again.

But right after they left, we got news that our friend Grace formerly from Cali now from NY was gonna come and visit us for the weekend! It was so short, but we had lots of fun. Saturday night we took a trip with some people from the hospital to go and watch gigantic leatherback turtles come on shore and lay their eggs. Supposedly Trinidad is one of only 2 places where this happens so it’s a pretty big thing. The reason we never did this before is because it’s soooo far away. It took us over 3 hours to get there with half of the distance being winding crazy roads. And the turtles only come out at night so we didn’t get back home until 4 am! It was crazy but so worth it. Check out these pictures.

This is a picture I took of a picture. They specifically told us not to take pictures with flash when we

got outside so I thought I wouldn’t get any good pictures.

But check this baby out! This is a picture that I took. Accidentally! I promise. I turned my flash off not realizing that if you turn the camera off and on again the flash turns back on automatically. So I pointed my camera into the dark and took this picture and much to my surprise the flash came on! But luckily nobody noticed cause i didn’t get in trouble and I got this nice shot! I know that if Ray is reading this he’s thinking that’s classic Fred. But i promise you I didn’t know!

Here are the eggs. It’s really cool. You can actually see them drop. And these turtles are literally all over the beach. It was kind of strange at first, but really really cool.

On Sunday we headed out to the beach and spent most of the day there.

Bake and Shark. One thing you must eat if you come to Trinidad. Of course we just eat the bake and veggies, but it’s still good.

Joshua absolutely loves the beach!

Joshua wanted to drive home.

It was sad to say goodbye after such a short weekend, but Grace says she’ll be back. Next up...Jane’s mom and sister come next week! And I have planned a weekend trip to Tobago. Can’t wait. Anybody else want to visit? We’d love to have you. We’re starting to get good at this.

Our New Home

After months and months of waiting to be called, we've finally arrived in our new home -- Trinidad. The anticipation and anxiety of leaving for Trinidad seemed to fade after the many months of waiting because it seemed as if we weren't going to be leaving any time soon. Or so it seemed...

Once we arrived in Trinidad it seemed to be as if we were just on another vacation (maybe because of all the traveling we had done last year). We arrived Wednesday night at the Port-of-Spain airport and made ourselves at home temporarily in a guesthouse apartment called "Simple Escapes" in the city of Woodbrook.

Although the guesthouse facility is clean and well-maintained, just outside the facility looks ramshackled as does most of the Trinidad, some places worse than others.

Thursday morning we were introduced to the hospital staff by Vicky, the hospital administrative director. Most of the 40-bed hospital does not have air-conditioning, excepting for the offices and a few private wards catering to the upper class. The dental clinic is located in the corner of the first floor.

The clinic currently has 3 dental chairs but is looking forward to the hospital expanding hopefully in the near future.

That's Marilyn, the dental receptionist, in the window. I wanted to get some more shots of the dental staff but they are all so camera-shy except for Dr. Ovid, the local dentist who will be working with us in the clinic. She invited us to go to Frederick Street where Trinidadians go for their shopping.

Down the street from Frederick Street is Woodford Square where people go to sit and talk about politics and other matters. In the center of the Square is the fountain that was erected in the late 1800s.

Just across the street from Woodford Square sits The Red House -- the seat of Parliament. In 1990, it was attacked in a coup by a fundamentalist revolutionary group.

The food here has a strong Indian influence mixed with Creole cuisine. We've been eating at the hospital cafeteria half the time and out in the city the other half.

Breakfast at the hospital served a porridge with quick oats, milk, and what tasted like butter. Fred wasn't very fond of it.

Lunch at the hospital served pelau -- seasoned rice with beans, veggie beef, and plantains. Not bad...

For dinner, we tried Trinidad's famous roti -- salted wheat flour (kind of like a thick tortilla) wrapped around either potatoes, channa -- curried chickpeas (yum!), pumpkin, green beans, chicken, beef, lamb, goat... you name it! I tried it with potatoes, channa, and pumpkin. Yum yum! Sorry no picture! Next time.

But the best meal we had was on Sunday afternoon... That morning we went to La Fillette -- a small, quiet village over the Northern Range -- to do some outreach medical and dental exams.

Outreach is organized every two months in this Catholic elementary school building to provide medical attention to this village. Clarence and Andrea Wilcox, retirees, have given their hearts to this village to help them become more physical and spiritual sound the past 12 years. Such a lovely couple!

29 patients showed up to the clinic. Not as many as usual. But we got a taste of what outreach in Trinidad country is like.

After outreach, we went "seabathing" = swimming in the ocean at Tyrico Bay. The water was the warmest ocean water I had ever swam in. Very nice. For all who are thinking about visiting, maybe that will be an incentive. So come visit!

After our seabathing, we stopped by a stand just south of Tyrico at Maracas Bay for the most delicious meal in Trinidad so far... bake. Shark 'n bake (more properly called) is fried flour made into a loaf filled with shark but can also be filled with chicken, beef, lamb, or veggies. We ate it with the veggies. Oh so goooood!! This is the only picture that I got of it in front of the Richard's Shark and Bake stand. Mmm! I'm craving it riight now as I type. Mmm! =)

So do I feel like I'm on just another vacation? The past week has allowed me to swallow the reality of finding my place in my new home... our new home. Stay tuned for pictures of our new home... er apartment! To be continued...