Working in Tobago

Woo Hoo, I'm in Tobago! I'm in Tobago's capital, Scarborough, doing work at a clinic that specifically treats HIV/AIDS and chronic illness patients. It is a really interesting little clinic and I'm doing my pilot study here, testing out my methods for when I do my big study in Trinidad. Today I did some time studies and I'm hoping to do more tomorrow along with passing out my survey (that I really hope people fill out!). I am still having trouble explaining to people what I'm doing here and what my research purpose is, some of the staff members just don't understand how my presence is going to be helpful what-so-ever to them in the long run. Hopefully I can prove them wrong.

My living situation here is nothing short of interesting. The house, which is under construction, therefore in a state of slight disarray, is the last on a dirt road and the surrounding houses have wooden plank walls and corrugated iron roofs. One has a mattress sitting in the front "yard" and there are chickens just walking about all over (but I discovered that actually occurs all throughout town, no matter how busy the area!) My house does have real walls and a real roof and is also real hot without any real air conditioning! This wouldn't be bad since I have a decent breeze and a fan, except for the fact that I am evidently a bug magnet. The first night I lost a few battles with some angry mosquitoes and sadly lost. My legs look like what the plague must have looked like right before you died (don't worry, I included a picture).

But the accommodations is not the only thing that makes it interesting...I am staying with a 62-year-old "retired" women who works at the police station and is super religious and super healthy, although our definitions of healthy aren't quite the same. I was not asked or invited to participate in morning worship with her, I was told when I wake you in the morning, we will worship. End of story, this is not a negotiation. After songs, bible verses and prayer, we partake in the fitness show on the only TV and only channel that is ever on, guess what that channel is, the religious channel. I have also learned that eating in the evening is detrimental to your health, as is eating pretty much anything that did not come straight from her garden or included bran. Eating food from a restaurant was an abomination because you never knew what it was cooked with and walking on the side of the road where there were car fumes will likely kill you immediately. So my desire to eat dinner from Chef's BBQ and run, on roads, flabbergasts her.

I have some other good stories that I will most certainly be sharing, but right now enjoy a few pictures, I'm going to bed!


My legs on day 2, each side looks like this one


The house I'm staying in, real walls, yay


The clinic that I'm working at, you would never guess it is a hospital!


The kids next door to where I am staying, they are so cute! I feel bad for them though, they have a bad home life. You can see the side of their house on the right.


A cool tree in the Botanical Gardens, check out those roots! I sat near here and read today and a 12-year old boy started talking to me...our conversation ended when he asked if I'd show him my boobs...I kid you not!

Naked

So there must be something going on this week because I have had some very strange experiences. I have witnessed 3 sperate people, on 3 sperate occations peeing outside. One was on a main road near the Curepe Junction that I travel daily, he was a homeless guy that hangs out there asking for money, but seems always well dressed. He had a creepy smile on his face, like he was so proud of himself for his public urination.
The second was in my neighborhood! Yes, as I was walking up the hill to get to my house a car pulled over, a man got out and went over to a fense. I was trying to figure out what he was doing, at first thinking he was talking to someone on the other side. But he was strangely looking down, and that's when I realized he was peeing. Our neighborhood has a ton of contruction right now and even I know where to find like 5 portapoties...stopping on the side of the road seems quite unnecessary. And wasn't he going home, or at least to someone's house, that would have a bathroom, INSIDE!
Number three occured today in Port of Spain. This one was on a very busy walking street and I literally was about 2 feet from him when I noticed the puddle forming on the side walk. At least this time someone said something to him...
Which brings me to the next very strange occurence that nobody seemed to comment on. Yesterday I say a naked man walking right along the main pick up spot to get a Maxi Taxi. Yup, stark naked...oh except he was carrying his pants draped over his shoulder, good spot for those. We was just strutting along like no big deal. I was in a Maxi, but I kept looking around to see if anyone else was seeing this, anyone else completely appualled by it. I finally asked the other passengers if they saw that and a couple ladies kinda looked wide-eyed back at me and said "Yeah, that was weird." That at least made me feel like less of a crazy person, that I was the only one who seem disturbed what had just occurred.

I'm not sure if any of these strange occurrences have contributed to my feeling today, but I'm really missing home today. Just one of those days you know...

Bad Day Gone Good

Most days start with the potential to be good…and then something goes terribly wrong. This was not one of those kinds of days. It was the kind of day that when your alarm clock goes off, you are first confused at what the heck that unthinkable noise is and when you figure out where it is coming from, you seriously think about throwing it across the room, hoping it will shatter into a million pieces so you can peacefully go back to sleep. Luckily for my phone, I decided against throwing it. I worked at the Family Development Centre today, which was nice because it got me out of my house, but you know what they had for me to do…transcribe a meeting from tape recorder to the computer. In the 6 hours I worked on it, I only got through about an hour of the meeting, it is safe to say it was tedious, kinda terrible work. The Centre hired another full-time employee so the desk and computer I used to have is now hers, so I’m stuck on the Mac, which I have no idea how to use!

I was really hoping today that I would find out about some progress for my own research project. I was supposed to meet with the Ministry of Health on Friday, but after about 6 phones calls to my mentor's office, I never found out if the meeting got set up. Today I finally got to talk to him and found out that he hadn’t even delivered the packet of information to the Ministry I had left with him last week. So I was incredibly frustrated about the progress of my research. It was about then I got an email back from my mom, the ever-so-wise, reminding me that whatever research I get done will be an accomplishment and that the real purpose of being here was learning about a new culture, being a “cultural ambassador” for the States, learning about myself and experiencing new things. So being successful is more about what I learn along the way instead of the findings I am able to present at the end. That was something I need to always remember I think, and apply it not just while I’m here. (Thanks mom!) So that helped…and then I got some reply emails that I had sent to people who work for PAHO here in Trinidad and then people who have been a part of successful implementations of National Health Information Systems (which are what I’m researching if you didn’t know that!) in Belize and Switzerland. So I was pretty psyched about that. Then I had to keep transcribing!

Leaving work I was a bit bored and tired, and a bit excited about my new revelations. But by the time I got home, I seemed so much more tired than when I had set out from work. Going for a run now seemed more like a chore than an uplifting part of my day, but I set out anyway, my legs feeling like weights. I started up my usual path, my mind feeling heavy...and then I passed the savannah (it’s just a big open piece of what I imagine was once grass but is now dirt, with a path on the outside to run). There were a few others walking and jogging, but more importantly there was a group playing soccer in the middle. I watched them as I started around the track and one of them motioned to me, asking me if I wanted to come play. I was astounded. I couldn’t believe this group of guys (three probably in their 40s, maybe one in his late 20s and then 2 teenagers and a little kid) was inviting me to come play. One of the teams was a man down, so I joined them and no more than 3 touches later I megged a guy to score a goal. If you know me and my soccer skills, I am usually assisting goals, not scoring them, and to score by megging someone (kicking it through their legs for those soccer illiterates) is pretty much the ultimate way to do it. After that, I was in. They would pass me the ball and joke with me, it was so fun! So my run that had started blah, ended wonderfully…although I’m not sure I’ll ever get my socks clean, they are covered in dirt!

Dinner was next…I cooked some fish that I’m not so sure was still good. I didn’t eat too much of it! But I also cut up and cooked some sweet potato and they were fantastic, so once again bad became good. (And now I’m going to have some dessert and that is going to make good, great!) So I guess I'm saying try to look for the bright side, it is probably there somewhere, and made bad good.

Home

Home is an interesting concept. Some say “home is where the heart is” while others preach “home is where you hang your hat.” But I think there is a lot more to it. I just got back from a week visit back to the States, and it was so wonderful to be “home” for a little while. It got me thinking though, as I re-entered Trinidad, did I feel like I was coming back home? In a way I did, in a way I realized that even just after three short months, there is a part of this place that has become home.

College was different, it was more temporary. Even though I am only here for ten months and was at college for four years, there was something more temporary about it. You changed living arrangements each year, and then you practically moved out at Christmas, so really you changed your address every few months. Being back on SAU’s campus during my visit to the States felt comfortable, but not any more so than sitting at a Starbucks, one I’d never been to, with my best friends from school. So is it the place or is it the people that give the comfort? When I was in Iowa City at Brenton’s place, it wasn’t the uncomfortable futon that made being there so nice-it was the person sitting next to me. So it seems the more important aspect is the individuals that fill a space instead of its location. Home can be a group of people, no matter where they are.

My parents house no doubt felt like home though, there was no question about it. The smells, the sounds, everything was perfectly familiar and easy, warm and cozy. Our dog, Shaggy, sill laid in the same in-the-way spot in the kitchen, Bob and Tom poured out of the radio in the morning and the soap in the bathroom still smelled like Christmas. I think that no matter how old I am, I will always hold a piece of this house as home. The walls hold my high school memories; the kitchen stools are imprinted with countless conversations as my parents became more like friends; the floorboards remember my nervous or excited pacing.

But I think that home can be so many things and exist in different places all at once. It is a calming feeling, a memorable moment, something that you can make your own, put your stamp on. Here in Trinidad I’m more on my own then I ever have been before. My little one-room house is all mine and it too holds all the fear and excitement that has surrounded me. So there is a fraction of home that will always be found in this tiny room. Not because of the people or the smells or the familiarity, but because, as corny as may be, it was a place of self-discovery.

Here are some pictures from the plane, I think they are cool...they are New York, Chicago then Bloomington

True Trini Camping

Things work differently here. Time and efficiency does not work in quite the same way. This has been clear to me from the start, but it is never so apparent as when I am with the university’s hiking club. I enjoy this club thoroughly, the people are nice, the places we visit are beautiful and adventure is always to be had. My trips with the hiking club always end up, when all is finally said and done, positive, yet they are always tinted with frustration and annoyance. Over this Easter Holiday, the hiking club took on a new venture...camping. We were to travel all way to the little village of Matelot, which you get to by travelling all the way up the east coast and then along the north coast for a total 3-hour drive (in this country, a 3 hour drive is so long they have to stop twice to stretch haha!). We were supposed to do an evening hike to get to be able to hang out at a waterfall under the stars, camp on the beach and feast on wonderful food we cooked by the fire. I’ll leave you in suspense to figure out what actually happened.

Let’s begin, well at the beginning. We are scheduled to leave at 7am. Now from my past experience with the club, I know that leaving at 7am means leaving at 8:30am, but this was a special kind of trip so I thought maybe today would be the day we were nearly on time. The bus pulled onto the road at 9:05, so much for that thought. Now here is one of my social commentaries...one thing I love about this is that Trinidadians wait for all. In the States, if you show up for a bus an hour and a half late, you’d be quite lucky to speed and still catch that bus because it left without you! Trinidadians wait as if it were a public policy: No Late Comer Left Behind. It is a very kind, patient thing about the culture, but here is the downside...in the States if you are 10-15 min late, you will have six people calling you trying to figure out where you are, what is going on and how much longer you will be. An hour and a half late here still does not warrant an inquisitive phone call, text or missing persons report. So the rest of us wait, wait without knowledge of when you might arrive, wait without understanding as to why you have been so delayed, wait wanting to bang our heads against the wall in boredom. When you do finally arrive, we leave without so much as an apology, an excuse or a punch to the stomach for making us sit in the sun for an eternity. And since that is how it is in Trinidad, that is how it happened that morning. Our leader was an hour and half late and then it took 30 minutes to load up and ship out. Three and half hours later my van pulls into the village of Matelot, but our van doesn’t know where the campsite is, in fact the van that had made an extra stop and is 15 minutes behind us is the only one that knew where we were supposed to camp. Oh and it was advertised that food would be provided so we brought pretty limited snacks and it is past lunch and we are starving. Note to reader: starvation becomes a reoccurring theme in this story.

We got the camp site set up and hung out in the water/on the beach. Some cooking finally began and at maybe 4:00 we finally got to eat fish stew (included potatoes, regular and sweet, and other root veggies that I can't spell and then of course fish). Wondering if all we had to eat was fish stew? Let me reassure you...we had juice too! Anyway we started a fire that of course needed to rival the neighbors fire, so the macho boys got to work building it way higher than could've been considered safe for this insane dry season! Oh right, that night hike we were going to be on, well our guide just didn't show up, so that was replaced with sitting around the campfire. We did roast marshmallows, but very few of the Trinis knew what smores were!

Around 11pm we found out a boat was coming in with a fresh catch of fish and went to intersect it to have a fish fry. When we got there the fishing boat was pulling fish and sharks (little hammer heads, so cool!) out of their nets so we excitedly waited...45 minutes later the excitement had worn off. We did have a jetty dog to entertain us. He was hanging out with us looking over a ledge down to some pretty serious rocks and waves when all the sudden he jumped up on the ledge and looked over the edge in a really tense way. Rachelle (Canadian exchange student) and I both immediately started trying to talk the dog down, telling him that he had a whole to live and people who loved him. In the end we convinced him and he climbed back down...we thought it was hysterical, but sorry if it is a location joke! The fishermen finally came in and dumped 3 buckets of fish on the ground, we picked ours (3 really big, fat ones and a whole bag of little, skinny ones) and they cleaned and gutted them right there, so cool. We took them back and started up the fryer...some of the little ones without many scales we fried whole, eyes starting up at you and everything, but the big ones we cut up, and that kind was really good. It was probably 2am when we went to bed and I woke up in the morning to, guess what for breakfast...fried fish! Three little pieces of fried fish at 7am was all that was provided for the day...re-enter starvation.

Packing up the campsite took what seemed like 8 hours. We got most everything cleaned up and in piles and started carrying things back to the van then waited for everyone else to do the same. Who knows what they were doing down there for another hour! I've decided that I can handle waiting, no problem. It is waiting without understanding why that is the killer. Sitting around without any knowledge as to why you are not doing ANYTHING just drives you nuts! Everyone finally came around and we set off on the hike. Up until now the trip had been just fine, there was a beach and a campfire and the fish thing was cool, but it wasn't great. Our ending destination of the hike made it great! It was a wonderful waterfall and natural spring, then we climbed up the waterfall and explored the river, finding some cliffs to jump off of into deep, deep pools. I'm a bit of a heights wuss, which I didn't realize until that moment, so I jumped from a shorter ledge! It was really amazing and beautiful, making everything worth while. We finally left Matlot at 3pm...of course without lunch and starving!


The kids playing in the river when we arrived...they had a huck finn raft and were so cute steering it around the river


Our campsite once we got everything all set up...my tent is the one in the very right front of the picture


Looking out onto the beach from our campsite, it was great to wake up to the waves!


A soccer game on the beach...the guys from our group played some too but they were being pretty hyper-masculine so the girls decided it was best to steer clear!


Our fish stew, looks pretty much like mush! We ate it out of styrofoam cups with sporks, but if you added a squeeze of lemon and some extra seasoning it was really good!


Kaila taking a bite from our whole fried fish at our night fish fry. It was ok, but the larger fish we cut up was good.


The fish all seasoned and ready for the fry the next morning. We had the recipe perfected by then and the breakfast fish tasted real nice!


Anna (from Michigan), me, Kaila (Ontario, Canada), Rachelle (Toronto, Canada)


The waterfall we hiked to, we climbed up the edge and...


Jumped Off! This is me getting ready for the jump, it took me a second!

Alive

Routine is comfortable, there is something calming about even the smallest routine. It is easy, it is known and there are few surprises. Routine does not however make you feel engaged, passionate or alive. Everyone has things that really make them feel alive...I think I've narrowed my list to the following three:
1. A really good laugh, the kind that makes your sides hurt, tears fall and just the thought of it will get you going all over again. An inside joke can help too because it makes you feel connected.
2. Sometimes a good run can do it, but playing soccer will always work. Having the ball at your feet and doing a perfect give and go, or making a slot run towards the goal and hitting a great one-touch shot, doesn't get too much better than that.
3. Trying something or going somewhere new...whether it is learning how to cook something new or figuring out how to get a new place, there is something about discovering you can accomplish something that reminds you how great it is to be alive.

So those are the three things that really do it for me. Think a bit about yours and try to make sure and do at least one of them once a week, or else what's the point? Being with my friends/family/Brenton is also right up there, but it usually leads to one of the three above! Anyway, the reason I'm thinking of this is that today I had the pleasure of doing all three!

1. I guess this isn't a normal kind of inside joke since it is mostly a joke with myself, but my parents are kinda in on it too. There had been a blue car parked on the side of the road, always clogging up traffic on the way to my house, from the time I got here in January until about 2 weeks ago. Everyday this darn blue car wold be sitting there, I was so confused as to why it would NEVER move, what is the point in having a car if it just sits there right? Well about two weeks ago it vanished, gone, just like that. Today it was back and it just made me smile and all seemed right in the world. We'll see if it is back permanently or not!

2. I got to play soccer today!! A friend of a friend got me in touch with one of her friends who plays soccer every Sunday in Port of Spain, I know it is a twisted loop. But I found my way to them and got to play tonight. There were a couple other girls there, which was really nice and they guys weren't crazy macho...they actually passed to us. I was worried since I hadn't played for so long, but it all came back and I surprisingly made some good plays. I can't wait to head back!

3. Trinidad, much like Illinois has two parts. North and South. To the Chicago folk, anything south of I-80 is considered Southern Illinois (to us Central Illinois people, we know there are 3 parts because we should never be confused with the Southerners!). But in Trinidad anything south of the Eastern Main Road is South, and no one seems to mind that. I have yet to venture to South (yes they use it as "I live in South" not "I live in the South") and today I set out into the unknown. Two girls from the University came with me, they are both here for the semester from Canada. We found the taxi stand and after some price negotiating got going. It was about 30 min to San Fernando, the biggest town in South, where we found out way to the Brown Maxi. New color, pretty much the same deal. The driver dropped us right at the entrance of Pitch Lake...which was our reason for heading south in the first place. Trinidad is the sole producer of asphalt, which is the refined product of Pitch. There are sulfur lakes inside a huge black pit that you can actually bathe in. They dig up the pitch and take it the next door refinery. A five foot deep hole, probably that wide as well, will fill back up with pitch in about a week. How cool is that! They have never found the bottom and from estimates, the pitch in the lake will last 400 years at current production rates. It amazes me. Here are some picture...although they kinda just look like pictures of a parking lot!







Above is them excavating Pitch, Pitch in solid form and tar form, me in the sulfur water and the three of us in the middle of the lake.

Water Crisis: Day 3

Trinidad is currently experiencing one the worst droughts in recent history, and everyone is really beginning to feel it. Our neighborhood is in day 3 without water delivery, so we are starting to get creative. This is how it is supposed to work...we get water delivered on Mondays and Fridays and during those deliveries our two large water tanks also get filled up. We then use the tanks for water the rest of the week, which has generally worked well. We have a water curfew so at 9pm the water from the tanks is shut off to the house and if you need to brush your teeth or wash dishes after 9, you use water that you've saved back in water bottles for such an occasion. It is amazing how much I've taken available water for granted at home. There is not a second thought that when you turn on the faucet, water will come out. Right now water coming out of the faucet is like striking gold. And I should really not complain because we at least get water delivered sometimes, there are parts of the country that haven't seen water running in their taps for months. They pay for water trucks to deliver water or pay to pump water out of a local steam (this is on top of the water tax they pay for getting no water delivered!).

I haven't gotten to our water crisis part...Thurs morning our tanks went dry, which sucks but no biggie, we'd get water on Friday and use our saved bottles of water. Friday morning, no water. We called the water authority who said we'd get it by noon. Friday afternoon, no water. We called the water authority who said we' have it sometime in the evening. Saturday morning, no water. I only had about half of a big water bottle left on Friday night, but luckily Dr. Logie brought some water from work. We're getting creative today, she is going out to fill some more bottles and then we are going to take a trip to shower at the University tonight. Again, the water authority said they'd be by today, but we haven't seen any sign of them yet. They give you a water number and if someone isn't home with that number ready...you are out of luck. I'm on water duty right now and waiting for the truck is exhausting. Every time I hear a car pass by I run to the door and look out. If it sounds like a big truck, which it seems like everything does, I walk outside to try and find it because missing it would mean another 2 days without water. We really are spoiled at home...

Since it is so dry here the fires have been terrible. The entire hill side near my house is brown and burnt. All you see is dirt and tree stumps. It seems like there is new smoke every day and the fires are creeping closer to the neighborhoods. As more areas burn the chances for mudslides during the rainy season keeps increasing. You just can't win with mother nature!

So here are a few pictures for you...


Not the best picture, but you can see that the land is bare and there are just stumps sticking up. You used to only see green leaves on this hill...


This fire was in an area that I run in quite often, so it is a 2 minute walk from my door. That is a little close for comfort.


Sugar cane! A friend from church gave me a bunch of sugar cane. It looks like bamboo really and you peel off outer part then suck on the inside. It was really good, who would guess it tastes pretty much like eating sugar! I have way more than I could ever eat!


This is Mum eating some of the sugar cane, she grew up in the country so knew how to cut it without slicing up her hands (which I probably would've done!). She said she hasn't had any in years though.


This is me with a few of the girls from the Easter Concert cast after the show on Thursday. It was really great to get to know them a little better, everyone from the group was so nice!