Trinidad, what do you think when you hear that? Beaches, rum, chocolate, oil, steel pan bands and the parang music. Me too. But now that we’ve spent just 2 days here I have a different picture. The people! All colors, shades of brown, all different religions but they are ONE. It doesn’t matter if you are East Indian, Muslim, Catholic or Protestant you are a person and they celebrate you. When any faith has a celebration or festival all participate and honor them. As our guides told us they come from all over the world and have blended to create the Trini. People. When you fall in-love it is no matter who or what lineage the other person is. You marry and live your lives together producing Trini children who will also honor each parents religion or heritage.

The day started with a beautiful sunrise and no rain so we are thankful for that. There are a few black clouds out there but hopefully they just go drifting by. Our tour today was called a Culture Collage

The countryside is beautiful. We were in the North end of the island with high mountains and we went 4 wheeling up some of the steepest and windy roads to the top of the 3rd highest peak on the island. We stopped at a lovely Catholic Church that opened their doors for us to use the facilities for part of our informational talks of the tour. It was a bit rough for some of our older folks and the tour leader admitted that he was told Semester at Sea was coming so he planned the day for the kids! We had fun laughing about it and informed him we are the kids, but just all seniors! What a great lesson to watch our 92-year-old lady struggle into the 4 wheel jeep with out a single complaint and to see the care given her by the guides with out a minute of impatience. While we were in the church the drivers found some wood and made an extra step to help us with getting in and out of the jeeps. The Trini people are truly caring. The photos are on webshots as usual. http://community.webshots.com/user/pins4 The new photos start on page 3. Next stop Dominica, another new island for us.
There is a photo of a farmer walking at the top of a field. The guides told us how they farm on these steep slopes. It takes 2 people, the farmer an his wife. A rope is around the farmer and he goes about his work. Tied to a tree! His wife will help pull him back up the hill at the end of the day, using the rope. Hopefully they do not have a disagreement before she pulls him to safety.

We had lunch in the home of a middle class Trinidadian family with great celebration. What they call a LIME, meaning a get together. We had great food; fun music and they opened their home to us. We went into the living room, dining area and into a wonderful, what we would call an old fashion kitchen. I did spot some Corning ware and T-fal pans but where we might have roosters or strawberries decorating the kitchen she had colorful fish. There were wonderful nick-knacks in the china cabinets and it just reminded me of Jack’s homestead in PA. As we ate our meal they provided a small band with local instruments and we had fun singing along. You cannot imagine the fun singing “Sweet Caroline” or “Downtown” to a Calypso beat!

On the way back to the ship our guide, Wendell, pulled a chocolate pod from a roadside tree and broke it open so we could see what it looks like raw. Of course Jack had to have a seed to suck on. It seems the seeds do not provide the chocolate but the “pulp” which surrounds the seed does. This one was not quite ripe so the “pulp” was more like custard and had a very sweet creamy taste. I tasted that part.

My only disappointment was that we ran out of time so that I could not get to a fabric center to explore the batik fabrics. Hopefully we can come across some on another island.