Clap she up

What a week...good, bad, busy, exhausting, relaxing. I've been in San Fernando working this week, which is in South and is just under an hour commute. The hour, however, doesn't start until you get into a car, and if you don't get down to the taxi stand early enough (before 6:30am)there is a whole mob of people anxiously waiting for more cars to arrive. When Trinis wait for public transportation, all general human generosity and thoughtfulness pretty much goes out the window. There is no order, no line, no "he's been here longest." The rule is, whoever gets to the car first and is able to box out the hovering crowd gets a seat. So I have been getting up quite early to make my way to the taxi stand and avoid the rush (I was late one day and decided that participating in the mob was not going to work out for me and I decided to take a maxi instead. This was a 2 hour commute instead of 1, was hotter, less comfortable and more expensive, so this week I'll be setting the alarm a little earlier!) I have 3 more days planned in San Fernando and then my data collection is all finished!!

So the early mornings weren't the only part that were made sleep hard to come by this week, I also had a lot of evening activities. I've started tutoring again at Cyril Ross (house for HIV positive children), helped out a friend at an HIV awareness event at the university and went to the semi finals for the U-17 Women's World Cup. The game was awesome, Japan must do endless 1v1 drills because those girls had some sick moves and weren't afraid to use them! I loved the crowd, anytime someone got schooled everyone erupted and would praise the schooler/mock the schoolee for the next 10 minutes.

Tennille, Simmy, me and Danielle at the game

But the best part of the week was heading to Toco for a girl's weekend getaway. I went with Tennille, a friend from playing soccer with the university, and her two friends Adaeze and Tyrish. It was about a 2 hour road trip up to Toco, with a stop off at a famous chicken and fries place, before getting to Adaeze's aunt's house. Toco is wonderfully simple and country, we actually went crab catching on Saturday night! Crab catching includes walking around in the dark with a flashlight and a bag looking for crabs. Once you find one you strategically step on it and carefully scoop it into the bag. Later you season em up and make some stewed crab and dumplings or calalloo. I didn't have the guts to step on any, but I was a good crab spotter. We also played a few games of Scrabble, often getting on the competitive side, and a game of Monopoly that Tyrish dominated in. We cooked good food, hung out at the beach and did lots and lots of talking!

Like any girl's weekend, the talking was centered around boys, relationships, and of course a little friendly gossip. I didn't know anyone they were talking about, but I learned a few new Trini phrases that are some new favorites...

1. "I clap she up"(this is also a gesture that includes, obviously, clapping and a look with a lot of attitude). You'd clap someone up to emphasis your point, usually done a tad aggressively and to show your complete and utter disapproval and annoyance with someone.

2. "She gettin horned" Horned=cheated on and from the sound of it half of Trinidad is cheating on their significant other!

3. "He cuff she up bad" This would describe a real "stink" guy (awful guy) who beat up his girlfriend, heck he probably was hornin her too!

4. "That girl is slack slack" or "slack talk" slack is like loose, so describing someone as slack means they probably get around a bit, someone you might refer to as the village bicycle in the States. Slack talk would be like rude/loose talk

5. "She make a baby for he" This one is obvious, but it sounds way more interesting than she's pregnant.

There were plenty more, but so many aren't affective without the facial expression that goes with them. The moral of the story was that it was a really great weekend and I've now got a lot of dirt on a lot of people...too bad I can't remember any of their names or which thing was about them!


We caught a crab!!


The four of us on the crab hunt...me, Tyrish, Tennille and Adaeze


The sunset while hunting


Auntie Gracie, who we stayed with, Adaeze, Tyrish, Tennille and Happiness (yes, they call him Happiness. He helps out Grace with the house and was an interesting character!!)