day fourteen - what an unnecessarily long day.

soooo…i got up and watched “40 year old virgin” again (because it was just too funny the night before) while i finished taking down my hair, which took a lot longer than i thought it would. my mom is a BEAST for

braiding my hair.. because it was such a struggle for me to even take down. i ended up having to rush and shower and put on my clothes. when i was ready though, i went to the cultural center where we would be presenting so i could rehearse the poems.

i’m sitting outside.. and about 10 minutes later, everyone else arrives. jermaine, a student on the trip, sits next to me. the others go inside the open lobby and begin talking about how they don’t want to go to pitch lake the next day (which is what we're scheduled to do).. and that if we all agreed that we didn't want to go, they thought we wouldn’t have to go. jessica asks everyone if they want to go and they all say “no”… except for me. because, i want to go. i want to see everything i can see here in trinidad and tobago. i don’t know when i’ll be back here, so i want to see it all. i could see it if i came back to the islands some time in the future, but i already paid for the transportation when i paid for this trip… it’s set up for me to go already… so, why wouldn’t i go? and, i trust kenwyn and lavergne. if they put it on the schedule, it must be worth seeing because everything else on the trip so far has been so awesome to me. also, i’m into geology and took a course over it in undergrad. so, I WANT TO GO. “do you want to go to pitch lake?” my answer is "yes."

immediately after my answer, jermaine gets up and goes not 5 feet away from me and says something like “man.. fuck her.. she always trying to be different from the rest of the group” in a hushed tone. so, i thought about not saying nothing for like… a millisecond (lol)… then i was like .. "uh uh". you're not about to talk crap about me when i’m sitting right here. so, i confronted him. i was like “how am i trying to be different by doing what’s on my schedule?” and he goes from where he’s at in the lobby and steps ALL the way in my face… talking about “you’re fake! you’re as fake as your hair was…!”… and i’m “talking shit about everyone behind their back”…  and all this jazz… and you know what it was all over…? my blog! my journal. this little travel blog that you're reading right now! lmao. that’s extra petty. a blog? really? he referred to the day that they left me... now re-read that.. the day that THEY left ME. you know what he didn't like? he didn’t like that i told exactly what happened on my blog. my trip. MY experience. how am i fake for telling EXACTLY what happened? ??? and that’s exactly what i said… i was like “NAME ONE LIE ON THERE… NAME ONE!!!”… could he name one? no. couldn’t name one. couldn’t say anything. couldn’t go from there… and i told everyone that .. i pointed to all of them.. “name one lie? name one lie? name one lie?”. could anyone name one lie i had told? not one. how is it "negative blogging" when i literally recorded what happened? it's bogus.

i’m recording my trip on here… i’m not about to skip anything. this is my personal journal. if you don’t like it, you don’t have to read it. and how is it behind anyone’s back when it’s RIGHT HERE ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB for everybody to read!??  i mean, the entire premise of his argument makes no sense. but we’re living in an illogical world and people get mad when you tell it like it is. the truth hurts. i guess i was supposed to say “i went downstairs and everyone was gone.. and i wasn’t pissed off at all that the people i thought had my back walked right passed my door and left me.” like.. why would i say that when i spent a large part of that day upset..?...  why would i set myself up to remember a huge lie?

this blog is about MY experience.. not your ego.. or for anything else. it’s been plenty of things i coulda said… all kinds of things have played a part in other people’s trips (people getting sick.. people falling…).. but i haven’t even mentioned that on here.. cause it’s not really a part of my experience to be mentioning. but if you do something that influences my experience, it's going to find it's way on this blog. it's as simple as that. i'm not going to edit my memory for you. i need to remember exactly who you were.

and he’s yelling out “you have issues… you have issues!” nigga, what issues? you don’t even know me…? like, … not in a “you don’t know the real me” way… i’m talking LITERALLY … i have never been around him at all in my entire life. the things he knows about me can be found on facebook. and i didn’t have any issues when he was trying to dance all over me in tobago. and that's all i have to POST about that.

and i don’t regret putting up that post at all. cause, like i said, i know i’m in this on my own. i’m glad i found out then rather than later. oh.. and did anyone come to my defense? did social rights activists step up when a dude came up in my face.. yelling in my face.. and pushing me with his body? not a soul. really, if i had some true friends and i thought something in my experience would hurt them, i would consider not posting it. but when i got left that day, that let me know i don’t have that here… so i told it like it was. and i will continue to do so without apprehension.

so, after all this… jermaine decides that he was done (maybe he heard himself not making sense). so, i got back to trying to read over my poems. after a while, a woman told us that our presentation will take place in a room in the back of the center. we get there and there are two people there getting music ready. i start chatting with the guy that’s there.. and music is playing.. and he asks me if i had learned the “heel-toe.” i wasn’t sure if we had learned it or not… but i ran across the dance in my research at the library. so, he gets up and he teaches me the “merengue" … and the “heel-toe”. i got the first dance.. however that heel-toe was hard to do. lol. but it was just what i needed to chill out. it was perfect. i can’t thank that man enough. i’m pretty sure he was a blessing (when i checked my phone later, my friend liz had sent me a message out of the blue saying that she was praying that my day was blessed. i love you mama bear!).

so.. our audience of professors and social coordinators arrived… and we put on our little fruity presentation. it was okay. then, they asked us all these random questions.. you know.. “what was your favorite experience..?” blah blah blah… and we gave our answers. blah blah blah. it was interesting to see people’s “i want to go back home and tell everybody i got wasted!” statements turn into “well.. i’m going to take back with me that we are all more similar than we are different..” and all that jazz (and I’M supposed to be the fake one? lol). then, we got to eat some delicious food. like, why is everything here so delicious?! it was curry chicken.. rice… macaroni and cheese… and some green stuff that i’ve eaten so much here but i can never remember the name.. i think it’s called “callaloo”.

after eating, i went back to the room… chilled a bit and then left to go to the opening day of the emancipation day celebration. here in trinidad, they celebrate the ending of slavery in the west indies on the british islands. at the festival, there were lots of booths of food and handmade crafts, clothes and shoes. we made our way to the stage and sat down. while we waited for the show to start, kenwyn introduced us to khurma, these crunchy lightly sweetened sticks. they were like everything else here… DELICIOUS. i had to buy my own bag (3TT$). 

the show began with a few words from some of the people on the committee and there were drums and people dancing on stilts. there was lots of color and everyone, even most of the people in the crowd, were dressed in african-inspired clothing. it was something to see. i’ve never been around that many people from the diaspora who are consciously invoking africa. guess who was the first band to play? dayo bejide trio, the band from the memorial service the day before! they were even better than the day before. 

next was len “boogsie” sharpe. he played the steel pan and he was amazing!  lavergne said he is renowned all over trinidad and tobago for being so good on the steel pan. after having tried to play the steel pan, i had such a deep respect for him because playing the steel pan is extremely difficult. it's so much more difficult than it looks. and, he was going so fast and tapping the notes just right. he was also moving at the same time too. i was really impressed.

 last, but not least was "the dynamic something positive african caribbean performance arts company." they were from brooklyn, new york, but their performance was african inspired. it was dynamic.. funny.. sad... just all around incredible. it was so entertaining. i could have watched them for hours.

after their show, there was an intermission so we decided that we’d walk around and wait for the bus to come pick us up. i went to the bathroom (no toilet paper -_-) and when i got back out, apparently they had found or ran into the lead singer from dayo bejide trio. he was really nice. he decided to just “lime” with us for a while. he couldn’t believe that there were more kfcs in trinidad/tobago than in kentucky.. lol. everyone kind of insisted that we were in this groupie-type of situation or something with him. he was cute, but i have an even cuter sweetheart at home already who has completely stolen my heart. i’d be an idiot to go down any path that doesn’t have david at the end of it. what i really wish was that one of my friends was there… (kristen… you know you love accents! and, he played the guitar!). i’ll try to hook him up with kristen before dr.turley steals him. lol.

after strolling around a bit, we left and headed home. the other students pleaded their “not going to pitch lake” case to lavergne and kenwyn who were easily able to persuade them into going. after all that drama earlier... it took lavergne and kenwyn like two minutes to persuade them. after ALLLLLLL that.......[shake my head]. 

day thirteen - emancipation via red wine

so, i got up and went to take my shower like usual. i don't think i've discussed this before, but the downstairs is open... so, the windows can't actually be shut. therefore, insects and things just fly in and then come upstairs. because of this, i keep my room door absolutely closed, but i can't control what goes on with the bathroom door and the shower door. every morning i go to take a shower, there's at least 2 insects (usually mosquitoes and moths) in the shower. and, the longer we've been here, the more there are. well... i went to shower this day... and i killed like 4 mosquitoes.. but there were even more left and like 2 or 3 moths. i just couldn't deal with it this morning. so, i just washed up in the sink in my bedroom. (i found out days later that the window in the shower room has been open ever so slightly for all these days.)

dr.regis was our lecturer again, and he talked about emancipation day and race/ethnicity. one of the reasons we're here in trinidad is to experience emancipation day, one of the few (if not only) events celebrating the freeing of the slaves in the world. dr. regis explained that the reason this day exists in trinidad/tobago and not anywhere else is because trinidad/tobago wasn't the usual slave society. 1, they had the fewer years of slavery because the island hadn't been really settled as early as other places were (remember, there was no gold here so, the settlement was slow). 2, because britain kept sending captured slave ships to trinidad/tobago and because of the american war of 1812 blacks who came to settle here, trinidad/tobago had a large free black population. 3, trinidad was kind of the "wild west" of its time... people would go there to let their hair down, and it was a really lawless place. because of all of these points, the blacks who lived here didn't have their black consciousness beat out of them and were able to retain a sense of african heritage. so, every august 1, emancipation day, the day slavery was abolished in the caribbean british islands, is celebrated. however, dr. regis stressed that emancipation is not physical... it's emancipation of the mind. and as far as he's concerned, the blacks of trinidad/tobago (and around the world for that matter) have not yet been freed.

"what are we celebrating?"

he explained that blacks in trinidad/tobago are discriminated against ("a subtle discrimination") and are marginalized economically and socially, which was really interesting considering this is the same guy who was talking about how great of a mixture it is here. he explained that the space is shared but the coming together doesn't necessarily happen. a lot, if not all, of the things he talked about sounded exactly like america. black living conditions and schools are generally worse... and it's created a "culture of poverty" where you don't think about 20 years ahead. you're hopeless.. and it's all about instant gratification.

"we might claim to be poor... but somewhere you thought 'i want to be here or there in 2020'... in the culture of poverty, there is no 2020."

 everyone is waiting for a messiah... and guess where they are looking to? they're looking towards the united states because we... are known for messiahs (mlk, malcom x...).

"the west indies look up to blacks in america. you have a lot more that we do not have. and we wonder why you don't do more."

i basically heard this exact same thing in south africa. i'm starting to think that black americans are like ... role models for blacks in the diaspora.. but there's this underlying idea that we're lazy, gangster/sexualized (from rap music/videos) or something... no one ever seems to realize that we're going through the same things in the U.S. that they are in their own countries.

so.. even though there's this mixture of people on the island... and there's brown everywhere, there are these unconscious boundaries. so, dr. regis has beef, and rightfully so, with emancipation day.

it's a beautiful spectacle, but what happens the day after?

after the lecture, i decided i needed to go to the library before it started storming. i told shannon that i was leaving and would be back around/before 4:30pm so we could get our group presentation together. just when i was about 3/4s the way through, the rain came.. and it came hard. i got really dripping wet, but luckily the library wasn't cold. now, this library has so many ridiculous rules. you can't bring a book-bag inside and because we aren't really students here, you can't check out a book. to get pages copied and printed from a book, you have to buy a copying card for 20 TT$ and then pay like .25 TTcents for each page copied. so basically, your best bet is to bring a notebook and a pencil and copy everything down by hand! i tried to find a particular book that dr. charleston thomas told me to look up, but i couldn't find it on the shelves. i think it was in the special collections area, but when i went there, there were so many rules on the door... i was just like "fuck it." i got scared. lol. i didn't want to be in there looking dumb. so, i just went to the very small section about tobago history and basically took all the books. most of the books were written from a eurocentric point-of-view with very little information about the lives of the slaves. i got a lot of information from a big manuscript looking book from some committee. most of the stuff i got out of it were written by a j.d. elder, who i later found out was co-founder of the tobago heritage festival. perfect.

after my hand started cramping up, i decided to go grab my first legitimate meal in a while. for the past couple of days, i had only been eating peanut butter on bread or peanut butter on a spoon. i was cool though, which bothers me a little bit. i don't want to get too familiar with poverty, you feel me? i headed to the campus subway, hoping for a deal. i got the foot-long tuna sub (39TT$) with the intention of making it into 2 meals. the worker at the subway was kind of making things difficult for me though. at first, i could understand what she was saying, and i think i'm pretty good with understanding the accent here, but then she would start talking very low and very fast. also, i think she kept my money because she only charged me, on the receipt, 1TT$ and that was for my honey oat bread. anyway, i headed back to the dorm room. upon arrival, i asked shannon if everyone was ready to work on our group presentation... ... ........ apparently they had already decided on an idea. they decided on poems that described each day of our trip.. ....... ...... and, my days were chosen for me as well...... .. ... ...  [sarcasm] great [sarcasm].

not that i was surprised that they wouldn't wait an hour or two for me to get back from the library... no, the surprise was in what they chose. poems....? the presentation is supposed to reflect what we had learned. and.. they came up with poems about each day we were there. to me... the idea didn't reflect what we had learned at all. those poems could have been done by anyone who could read our schedule... sure, they had little personal experiences in them, but i thought the assignment was about also reflecting what we had learned. not telling what we had learned but reflecting it. doing poems was just a super lame idea to me. i would have rather done some of the dance moves we had learned and/or song we had learned... and maybe a rapso. or even a skit. there were like so many better things we could have done really.... the poems idea seemed to be like two steps above a power point presentation on the lame scale. we had seen some of the presentations from the past... and those were lame. and, our social coordinators and professors had told us about some of the best ones. we had all bragged that we were gonna do such a great job.. so i still have no idea where that promising foundation turned into doing poems. not even spoken word, which has rhythm... or something with some kind of movement... just poems. and each person did their own days separately... so, we didn't even work on it as a group. but, i didn't even complain... they seemed set on it... poems were written out already... so i just went with it, understanding that this is precisely why i hate group projects.. because other people get to impact my grades. ugh! and, i need all the A's i can get.

i went into my room, and i MURDERED THAT TUNA SUB. i killed it. practically ate it in one bite. i wanted to eat the rest, but i reluctantly put it in the refrigerator for the next day. while i was sitting there trying to figure out how to make up 3 poems that weren't corny, treena knocked on the door and gave me the cellular phone. it was dr. turley; she was having problems connecting to the internet and wanted me to help her. i tried to talk her through it over the phone, but that wasn't really working out. so, i told her i'd come to her place and fix it. it turns out, she wasn't at her apartment at all. she was actually on campus at dr.talley's trinidadian memorial service she was having for her husband. i hadn't even heard about it, but apparently, not only should i have known about it, i was expected to be there too. but, turley didn't know what time the event was going to start. so, just in case, i tossed a dress and black high heels in my bag and headed to campus to find dr. turley. the event was going to take place in some lounge that practically no one knew about. dr. turley was there and had no idea where she was, so i had to ask like 8 or 9 people where to go. i would walk a couple of feet, and then ask the next person who walked passed me. they gave me conflicting information... and/or told me to "ask dat person ova dere." finally, i found someone who "thought" it was around the corner. i followed a group of people, and luckily they walked right past the place.

when i got there, i wasn't able to get turley's laptop connected to the internet (she wanted to get skype working so people who weren't there could still be a part of the memorial service), but she told me that the service would begin in thirty minutes. i was so glad i brought a change of clothes! after i changed in a random room nearby, i sat down with turley and the other guests that were there and had a really great time. they were all interesting older women... they reminded me of how i want to be when i get older...  really saucy (bold, intelligent, and foxy). they were all really sweet to me too, and i enjoyed their company. it was so refreshing.

i never got the chance to meet the late dr. talley, but, as i said before on my tumblr, this is the first time in my life... that someone has died... and i felt like i missed out. when people talk about him, they just say the most amazing things. and, you can tell by the things he did during his life that he was the real deal. just like his other memorial in louisville, there was great music, food, and drinks. and i indulged because from everything people have said of dr. talley, that's what he would have wanted me to do.

i was first in the food line because all the ladies at the table were like "you're a student, we know you're hungry!" lol. the lady who was serving gave me so much food too. i wish i had known about the memorial service, because i wouldn't have bought that subway earlier. i had chicken, ?calaloo?, ?some kinda chick peas?... ?some kinda starchy potato-like stuff?.. and a salad. my technique for eating in trinidad is JUST EAT IT! lol. because, all the food is so delicious. people usually come back around and tell me what it is i'm eating, but by the the time they do that, i've already eaten it and decided it's delicious... so, i kind of 1/2 pay attention and later forget what they said. lol. my "eat now, question later" approach has gotten me in trouble a few times though because sometimes things are really spicy and before i can be warned, it's already burning my mouth up.

"dayo bejide trio" is the group that performed, and they were awesome. i even got to chat with a couple of the group members after the service, and they were really nice. to be perfectly honest, i had had enough wine to be feeling MIGHTY good.... not intoxicated...but highly relaxed by the end of the service. i decided to take down my braids...(i borrowed a pair of scissors from a random trini girl in our dorm) and i was in the perfect mood to write those corny little poems. i "practiced" the presentation with the rest of the group, and then stayed up until 3am taking down my hair and watching "40 year old virgin" and "juno." 

day twelve - a day of little india.

today's lecture was on hosay and ramleela and was taught by dr. regis's assistant, debbie. lots of information, so, feel free to skip it. but if you do, you're going to miss out on something i bet you didn't know (cause i didn't know any of this).
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hosay and ramleela are two celebratory memorials within the indian community that take place around the same time of the year (september, october, & november) here in trinidad and tobago. there is a large indian (people from india) community here in trinidad. they make up about 45% of the total population and that number is still growing. i know what you're thinking... how did people from india find their way to the caribbean?

ok. so, when christopher columbus arrived, there were only natives here. they were the peaceful arawaks. they mostly all died from disease, and i found out that a lot of them committed suicide (by jumping off a cliff) because they would rather be dead than be slaves. so, the spanish brought in slaves from africa to do the work. after slavery ended, the black people didn't want to work the land anymore (and who could blame them?) and if they did, they would charge really high wages. so, the government brought in immigrants from india under an "indentured servant" system. so, what that means is a person would come here from india and would have to work a certain amount of years (like 7 years) for a certain planter as repayment for the trip here and for clothing, food, housing, etc. so.... it's basically slavery but with a time limit. however, some indians got tricked into coming here and sometimes got tricked into working for longer than their contract was supposed to be for. anyways, they came... and they stayed. and they celebrate hosay and ramleela.

hosay is a muslim commemoration of the death of iman hussein and his brother hassan, who were both grandsons of the prophet muhammad ("peace be upon him" [and you're supposed to say that every time you mention him... and i don't want no muslims mad at me). after the death of the prophet muhammad ("peace be upon him"), the selection of his successor (called a "caliph," ruler of the islamic world) created a rift in the muslim community... and i think this is one of the reasons why there is no peace in the middle east today. some muslims believed that caliphs should come from the prophet muhammad's ("peace be upon him") family. those people are called shiites. other muslims believed that the caliphs should be chosen by the elite of the middle east. they are called sunnis. so, hassan stepped down from the position of caliph after just being it for six months. a couple of years later, he was poisoned. after a couple of years, his brother, iman didn't agree with who had been chosen to be the new caliph, a guy named yazid, so he went to damascus to discuss his concerns. yazid issued an order to capture iman if he refused to honor him as the new caliph. so they fought. in the battle of kerbala, iman's party was attacked by yazid's army... they managed to not get captured and to defend themselves for 10 days before all of them were killed (except for the women and children). so, this battle and the deaths of the two brothers is what hosay memorializes. hosay lasts for 10 days in october once a new moon rises, and it begins with fasting (no meat, no grease, no alcohol, and NO SEX) and praying. they build large tadjahs.. which are like floats that look like muslim temples.. to represent the tombs and coffins of the brothers. they also build these two huge half-moons (one red, one green.. to signify the blood shed and the poisoning of the two brothers) which someone carries through the streets during a procession on the 9th night. afterwards, the tadjahs are taken to the sea and thrown away ("drowned"). and by the way, women are generally not allowed to take part in any of this (we can't even go into the yard where stuff is built)... and it's basically because of our periods. lame. -_- there's a lot more details that go into.. so, if it sounds interesting, i hope you google/youtube it! i think when it's celebrated in the middle east, people actually hit themselves in the head with swords.. blood and everything!!!

ramleela is a lot more fun though, and i think the disney version of this story is featured in one of my favorite films "a little princess." ramleela is a hindu reenactment/play. "leela" means story.. so ramleela means literally "ram's story." it is a REALLY LONG STORY.. and each section of the story is performed at night over 10 days. i'll try to make this as brief as possible. so....... the world is supposed to be a perfect balance between good and evil, but there's too much evil. so, the hindu god "vishnu" comes down to earth and is born as rama. rama is the ultimate good guy character. he marries sita, who is also a reincarnation of the hindu goddess "lakshmi." she is the highest ideal of womanhood.. which means pure and !obedient!. rama is supposed to inherit the throne, but one of his father's wives makes his dad banish him so that one of her sons can take the throne. so, rama, sita, and his younger brother, lakshmana, leave the kingdom of ayodhya and go into the forest. so, this nosey ugly chick, surpanakha sees rama, who is supposed to be hot by the way because he's the "ideal man," and she disguises herself into someone who is beautiful and tries to get it on with him, but he isn't having it. somehow, he ends up cutting off her nose. she goes back and tells her brother who just so happens to be ravana, this evil, immortal dude with 10 heads. he gets pissed and goes to kill rama... until he sees sita, who is beauitful. he figures out a way to steal her.... and so the great war begins between rama's army and lanka, the place where ravana is from and where he is hiding sita.

rama's army ends up building a bridge to lanka... and rama is able to shoot an arrow through ravana's only weak spot, his belly button. and so, he's able to kill ravana and get sita back. now... in the disney version, that's where the story ends. but HERE'S THE KICKER (to me anyways), after sita gets back, ravana makes her do something, i can't remember what, to prove that she was faithful to him the entire time she was gone cause she was with ravana for a really long time. i can't remember what it was that she has to do, but it is something ridiculous like engulf herself in flames or something. anyways, she does it and is unharmed so, rama takes her back. soon though, she gets pregnant. but... you know how everyone is!!! she was with ravana for a long time before being saved so they think that it's probably ravana's baby. and rama starts thinking it too... so he sends her away. she has twin boys alone, and when they are old enough, she sends them to rama. rama looks at the little boys and immediately recognizes them as his own. he goes back to sita and is all like "oh baby.. come back to me" and all that jazz... but sita is like "HELL NO, i had to prove myself to you not once... but twice." and immediately after she refuses him, the earth opens up and swallows her. WTF? lol.

and here's the true kicker... recently proof that the story might be true was discovered. you see... rama's kingdom, ayodhya is india... and ravana's kingdom lanka is the country sri lanka. and recently they found a man-made bridge that connects india to sri lanka... the bridge that rama's army apparently built to get to sri lanka to fight ravana. hindus in india are trying to get it preserved as a historical landmark through the U.N. because the government/private companies want to turn it into a canal for ships (like the panama canal). the government/businesses argue that it isn't the bridge from the story... that it's a geological occurrence and not man-made... i think they're just tryna make money! because, it definitely looks man-made to me.

india and sri lanka have beef though. and there's a whole bunch of racial stuff involved with it too.  people from sri lanka are supposed to be darker than people from india... you know how it is.. the darker you are, the more evil and dumb you're supposed to be. so, when ramleela is performed in trinidad, the evil ravana is made dark. there is racial discrimination here.. but i'll get into that another day. it didn't used to be that way. and it used to be that women couldn't be in the play. they would have young boys with high voices play the female characters. but, now, it's an honor for young village girls to play sita... but if you're chosen to play her, you're supposed to be very virtuous in your real life and for the rest of your life... so, no parties EVER.
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after our lecture, we took a long bus ride to the caribbean indian museum. when we got there though, the damn museum was CLOSED. and, after a day of learning all of that interesting history, i really wanted to see that museum. it's kind of funny now, but at the time, i was thinking, "how you gone schedule us to go to the museum on a day it's not even open?" so.. we went to our next destination, the temple in the sea. years ago, this indian guy wanted to build a temple because i think there weren't any in trinidad at the time. the government wouldn't let him do it because they said all land was owned... or something like that. it was plain discrimination really. so, he was like "... well, no one owns the sea" so, everyday for months, when the tide was low, he would go out with bricks and sand and start filling in the ocean until he got enough land accumulated out in the sea to build a temple on it. it's an amazing story. it reminds me that i can't let other people tell me what i can and cannot do... i just got to figure out how to do it and then do it!!

next, we headed to the hanuman statue. we had no guide, so we really didn't have much information on what was supposed to be going on. i just know that the statue, which is HUGE (apparently 85 feet tall), was built by a guy who said he had a vision/dream that told him to build the statue in trinidad and it's the only such statue outside of india. according to google, hanuman was a great warrior and protected the gods from evil. he represents faith, friendship, strength, and sacrifice.

there was also a temple nearby called the dattatreya mandir. i think it's a place of meditation. 

after this, we were supposed to return home... but all the other students were making a big deal out of kenwyn's birthday, planning to take him out and other things. he talked them down to pizza, and from the beginning, i knew this all excluded me. i don't even know why i walked into the pizza hut with them... i had 148 TT$ total... that’s like $24 in the U.S. that’s U.S. broke. and i had to live on it for 6 days. i knew it was doable, but only if i practiced self-control. so... no pizza. i thought they were going to bring it back to the dorm, but somewhere along the way, going back to the dorm turned into going to the social club on campus. i don't really know what it is because i didn't go inside. i told the driver to go on and take me to campus...because i mean.. what am i going to do? watch people eat? 

and really, the whole group thing is wearing me down. i hate being in groups. i never liked it. (even, when i was in kindergarten... and i was in the "green group," i was like, "you mean i have to go to the reading book module, computer module, play kitchen, AND building blocks with these same kids?!” lol). i find solace in being alone and privacy... a chance to think. in a group, is always "blah blah blah" because have u ever been in a group and it's completely silent..?? it's uncomfortable. so everyone is just talking talking talking all the time. there's no time for me to really look around and take in what's around me. and, i hate group work. anything non-physical a group can do, i'm almost certain i can do better and more efficiently by myself. and then, there's all these politics.. and i have never been a good campaigner. i can only do it for so long before i'm just like "forget it." there's no one else in our classes... no one else on our trips except for our social coordinators and their families... barely anyone else in our dorms... it's just the same group 24.7 doing activity.. after activity.. after activity....from the time i open my door... until the time i close it. it's become an ever so gentle-like nightmare.

day eleven - turtles and rapso.

getting up to catch the ferry back to trinidad at 4am in the morning was about as fun as going to the gynecologist. NOT FUN! at all. zero percent 0%. i was so tired. i got about 3 or 4 hours of sleep. i just wanted to go to sleep. it didn't even matter that everyone was late getting out of their rooms because the bus driver was late too. when we finally got to the ferry station though, i was really happy because the line was not as long as it had been when we were going from trinidad to tobago. it was fast too. remember, last time, i was worried that something would get stolen... so this time, i checked my luggage in. they attached a band to my luggage and then gave me a correlating sticky note on my ticket so i could pick it up when we arrived. afterwards, i sat down for about an hour and, just as the sun was rising, it was time to get on the ferry. goodbye tobago!

before, on the way to tobago, i noticed that the chairs by the window laid back. I WAS DETERMINED TO GET ONE OF THESE SEATS ON THE TRIP BACK TO TRINIDAD. lol. it just so happened that dr.turley wanted a window seat too, so i followed her, and we ended up getting two good seats with plenty of leg room. the only thing i didn't like was that it was FREEZING on this ferry. i could feel the cold air just blowing on me. it was so cold, and i had on a little sun dress. i brought my legs up to my chest and stretched my dress over my knees and down to my ankles... and then i took the scarf off of my head and covered my arms. it wasn't much, but it was enough for me to go to sleep for most of the trip back to trinidad. 

when we arrived in trinidad, i had to go pick up my checked-in luggage. checking in my luggage was pretty much a waste of time. i had to basically hunt down my luggage with the rest of the people who had checked in luggage. they had put all the checked luggage on these tables in a cage-like fenced in area. so, you have all these people... in a cage... trying to find their bags. and it was a waste of time because the guy at the door who was supposed to check and make sure that the people who came in there picked up their luggage and no one else's (by checking the little sticky note).... DIDN'T EVEN REALLY LOOK AT MINE. and i dont think he really looked at anyone else's either. he was too busy chatting. so.. really, anyone could come in there with an old ticket and take someone else's luggage.

when we got on the bus, we were informed that we would have to make-up the old rapso class that we had missed because the professor never showed up. i was not happy about that at all. i was so exhausted. i did not feel like making up something i hadn't actually missed... i had sat in that classroom for almost two hours waiting. but, what was i going to do? i had to go. so... i went back to my dorm room and quickly fell asleep. i'm not really good with naps though (even my kindergarten teachers couldn't wake me up from nap time). i just get so deep into them. so, when i had to wake up for class at 1pm, i was not happy at all. luckily, the lecturer was there and on time.

our lecturer was omari ashby and the lecture was over the old rapso tradition. omari was a rapso poet himself and even had a hit record in trinidad and tobago in the 90s. he explained that rapso is a musical genre that believes in the power of the word and the rhythm of the word. it acknowledges the meanings behind words but also acknowledges that part of a word's meaning is in how you say the word. words have rhythm, vibes, and power. as someone that uses made-up words and phrases on a regular basis, i knew exactly what he meant ("basidy".. lol). rapso is kind of like "spoken word" is in the states, but it has trinidad/tobago at its heart.. so, i wouldn't go too far with comparisons.

the most impressive thing we talked about was the history of it because it has african roots. are you familiar with griots? griots were storytellers, musicians, and general all-around entertainers in west african societies. they also were keepers of oral history and were responsible for passing down the history of the villages. of course, during slavery, the people who captured and sold slaves weren't asking "now, what was your previous occupation?" lol. so, some griots were spread around through the slave trade and some of them found themselves in trinidad/tobago where they split into three characters: pierrot grenade (who would make games with words and had a kind of tongue-and-cheek way of making fun of people who use big words), ?shanquil? (who was a call-and-response leader and carried the chants. they were important during labor movements/emancipation), and the midnight robber (lyrical battler.. instilling fear in others using words to see who was the baddest!). all of this, of course, reminded me of hip-hop.

you know... it still amazes me how connected we all are. during slavery, people literally tried to strip away EVERYTHING the africans had... physically.. mentally.. all of it. i mean, the goal was to have the perfect servant for whatever you wanted.. so, to have a robot. they tried to turn humans into robots for hundreds of years... for generations. in america, we always feel so stripped, and.. don't get me wrong.. african-americans are DEFINITELY americans. we are very american. but we have some african in us too. when i see all these veins connecting black people all over the world.. and see traces of our past in our present, it makes me really happy. i mean, that's why i study this stuff in the first place. one thing made me really sad though... omari stressed that music of struggle was at the forefront of every social movement in trinidad/tobago. where is that music at now?

after class, i headed back to my room to chat online with friends and catch up on my news (amy winehouse's death has weighed really heavy on me, but i've tried not to let it get me down). i think i ended up taking another nap too. but soon, it was time to go see some turtles!!! i was actually excited about this. turtles are the only reptiles i can actually deal with (lol), and i got to spend some time with them when i volunteered at the tennessee aquarium in highschool. they're pretty chill animals. trinidad is one of the few places on earth you can see leatherback sea turtles nesting. nearly 80% of all leatherbacks nest in trinidad, so it's a really special thing to see. we headed to matura beach... the trip there was very long and the road was like most roads here... narrow, winding, and scary. then shannon made a joke that the driver was taking us into a remote area to kill us (i mean we were driving on a dirt road at that point!). i laughed it off... until the driver tried to joke around and turn off ALL THE LIGHTS, including the ones inside the van. it was pitch black. my heart started pounding so hard. i was thinking... "well.. i dunno who ima dive over to get to the door but i hope i don't hurt anyone.. " lol. he turned them back on and started laughing. we all shared an uneasy laugh.

when we finally got to the beach, we paid (30TT$) and waited for our walk to begin. our guide walked us down to the beach, along with groups of other people, and we followed him up and down the beach keeping our eyes out for any turtles coming to shore. the turtles only nest at night so we had to walk up and down the beach in the dark with only the stars to light our way. it was quite nice actually. i enjoyed myself. the other people in our pack were really annoying though. they were being loud and flashing their flashlights and cellular phones everywhere, which the guide had told us would scare off the turtles. our chances were already slim since the peak season of nesting is in may and june. so, with them making all kinds of racket, it's no surprise that we didn't get a chance to see any turtles nesting.

i did get to see three shooting stars though! and there was a bat harassing us all night... circling around our group. it was so scary. i kept ducking low to the ground so he would get near me. he was attracted to the flash lights. when we thought it was time to leave, our guide went back to where we started and uncovered a bowl full of little baby turtles that had been spotted and caught earlier. THEY WERE RIDICULOUSLY CUTE. i wanted to hold and cuddle one... but once they started going around, i felt so very bad. it's like... this little baby turtle.. first day above the sand... and all these people are holding it.. and passing it around.. poking and prodding at it.. rubbing and kissing it... flashing bright lights in its eyes. and the entire time this is going on, the little cute turtle is waving its little flippers trying to get away. just flapping as hard as it could and getting no where. little kids were dropping them too. it just seemed eerie and a little bit sad. by the time the turtle got around to me, i hadn't shaken the feeling. so, i didn't even touch it at all. all i could think about was "when are you letting them go (traumatized into the ocean)?"

folks were ready to go before the tour was actually completely over, so we left. and, i slept the entire ride back to campus.

day ten - HEAVEN (tobago)

i woke up early the next morning so that i could go on the trip to see the waterfall at argyle falls. the drive there was full of twists and turns (like just about every drive we've taken.. lol), but the views from the bus were beautiful. we drove right along the coast.

when we got to the argyle falls center, i was so happy because we were told that it would be 60 TT$, but we ended up only having to pay 40TT$. :-D our guide was this quirky little black lady who i could tell took a liking to me because she would just take my camera and tell me to do different poses. lol. like, she had me run down some stairs.. lol.  it was kinda weird, but i liked her. she was really sweet. she asked shannon and i what word we would use to described tobago. i said “beautiful..” … shannon said “amazing.” the lady was like, 

“those are nice words.. but the word i would use is ‘heaven.’”

i was blown away by her answer. she was absolutely right. it was heaven or the closest i've ever been to heaven. she took us through the forest telling us the history of the land, which used to be a cocoa plantation. i felt completely in my element. i love being outdoors. i love going on trails. i was already really happy.. and then, i saw the waterfall. it was absolutely gorgeous.

kenwyn’s fiancé, yakira, convinced me to go behind the waterfall with her (remember my “checkered past” with water.. lol). she held my hand and guided me under it. she’s so nice, and i’m glad she was there. i’m glad i went underneath the water fall too because she was right... it was the best view, even with the water splashing into my eyes. and, the water felt so good on my skin. i felt like i was being baptized by nature… and i loved every minute of it. i sat under the waterfall for a long time just thanking God that i was there. i really did. and i said some prayers. it’s something about being in nature… i can get more spiritual in a forest than i ever can at church.

 

after we were done at the falls, we went back into the main lobby and i got a gatorade and some corn bread! yes, stores sell cornbread as a snack. it tasted kind of like when my mom adds extra cornmeal to "jiffy". it was the perfect snack really. lol. WE NEED IT IN THE STATES! 

we headed back to the room and i tried to get some blog posts up. then, shannon and i headed down to the beach. the sun kept ducking behind clouds and a lot of seaweed had come up on shore. so, the beach wasn’t as nice as it had been the day before. i went in the water with all the other people who were splashing about. i looked down in the clear blue water and a school of little fish were just swimming right next to me. i thought fish were afraid of people! i guess not. i was like, “um… not for me.” lol. i like to eat fish not swim with them. so, i just laid down on my towel, listened to the music that someone was blasting, and ate sugar cake (the sugar/coconut mixture that i am pretty sure i’m addicted to). shannon gave me her sweet mangoes, because she didn’t like them. i was really grateful because i liked them… they tasted like sweet potatoes. 

after an hour or so of beach time, we headed back to the room to eat some more church’s chicken. then, we met up with the group to head to a souvenir shop. there was some nice stuff there but i was too poor to buy anything so i just looked around. afterwards, we headed to a restaurant that had really good cake and icecream. although i love icecream, i wasn’t about to spend any money on dessert when i was still full from earlier. i did want a beer though so we went to a little mini-mart to get one. i thought maybe we would lime, but we had to be up by 4am the next morning to catch the ferry back to trinidad. it just seemed kind of foolish to lime and then do all that traveling. so, i headed back to my room to get a couple of hours of rest.