A blog fuh Lime

House of Lime: Trini Tuesday-Derek Walcott
Dis is a real good blog for anybody to read an I like it as a Trini to see a foreigner talk about my country an give a nice picture of de culture an ting.
To answer yuh question Lime, is because of blogs like dis I find yuh. I think i google some Trini ting and your blog come in de results, I tink it was de one wit de Trini words. Now if somebody google Derek Walcott Love after Love, they might find yuh. Yuh real representin fuh Trinidad. Love dat.

more holidays!!!

Here's to hoping everyone had a great Easter weekend!! no matter what persuasion you may be. That's how it is in Trinidad. It's unfortunate that America doesn't have more national holidays...it's mostly just each group celebrating their own thing. Back home it was a nice 4-day weekend for EVERYONE. Everybody 'celebrates' everything. Its not about imposing your religion or beliefs on anyone, its about everyone appreciating your beliefs. And its probably also about knowing some background since you're getting a day off on someone else's account hehehe. It's awesome! You get to learn about other's customs AND you get the food and the holiday! Trinidadians like to celebrate things. The neighbourhood where I grew up, it was mostly Hindus, some Christians, some Muslims...EVERYBODY has lights up for Christmas! My family and everyone else gets food and sweets from the Hindus at Divali (festival of lights) and we go help with their lamps. I remember we gave our old Xmas tree to one of them! how about that!? AND they would put it up on the porch too! Everybody knew they were Hindu but they were in the holiday spirit, not "celebrating" xmas per se. We have Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Baptist, Indian, African holidays, All public holidays. Like I said, we like to celebrate things. Plus all the 'regular' ones like Independence day and New Year's, O and Carnival! Its funny how Carnival is NOT an official holiday but everyone treats it like one, is two free days to do wha yuh want. A nex free 4-day weekend! I think we have at least one holiday a month:
New Years,
Carnival Monday & Tuesday,
Shouter Baptist Day,
Indian Arrival Day,
Good Friday,
Easter Monday,
Corpus Christi,
Labour Day,
Emancipation Day,
Independence Day,
Republic Day,
Divali,
Eid-ul-Fitr,
Christmas Day,
Boxing Day
Then of course we also find opportunities to take a half day, or leave work early. Or if a holiday falls on a Thursday, its not so surprising when half the office is empty on Friday! Yeah we LOVE our 4-day weekends! People need to chill out over here man! Doh be stress out! Just think... all the free days off... yup... island life is great, we're all (mostly) tolerant and laid back and chill. Just when things get hectic: O! there's a holiday coming up, nice! Definitely need some more of those over here.

Life in "foreign" - maintain your identity!

OK so after much debate, I've decided the easiest thing to pursue here (and undoubtedly the thing that often occupies my thoughts) would be my life and observations on living in the U.S. as a foreigner. Mostly including cultural differences, perceptions, adjusting to life, similarities?...u get the idea. I've been thinking I might end up writing in my dialect, give it a little personality, so that should be funny hehehe. But as a friend pointed out once, Trinidadians tend to revert to "proper" english as more complex expression dictates. I have to agree ;-) On to my first topic!

Its always funny to me to see how people adapt to being here, especially my fellow caribbean people: the way they switch accents, the way they fall in line with "the group". I'm not saying you shouldn't try to fit in but don't lose your identity in the process. It's hard because you inevitably pick up traits, behaviour, expressions, from others you associate with on a regular basis. I have a friend who complains that "nobody seems to think [I am] Trinidadian anymore"...I almost feel that she is leaving out at the beginning of the sentence "Since YOU came along..." I've been here a few years now and I'm proud to say I'm as Trini as I've ever been (I hope hehe), my t's are still solid t's, not the American 'd' sound as yet ;-). Its really not THAT difficult to keep your accent if you want to, or to share about your country if you want to, or to get excited about things going on "back home". And the great thing is, you will find that people get interested, they want to learn about another culture. And eventually they accept it as being part of who you are, includingthe way you express yourself.
Then the other thing is the people who conveniently claim heritage because of whatever advantage they think they get out of it. People! you can't claim nationality if you weren't BORN and raised there. That's just my opinion. And I daresay an opinion shared by many people I've met from other countries as well. "Hi I'm Trinidadian too!" "yeah where are you from?" "Brooklyn, NY" What? Trinidadian parentage. That upsets me. I have been trying to grasp the American habit of doing the same. The way people claim to be Irish, or German, or Italian. I understand that these are major groups that came here and want to keep their heritage alive but still I just don't get it. I somehow don't think the people from Ireland would think you're Irish. Help on that anyone? I would appreciate some solid counseling on that topic.
Ah stoppin' now cuz dis ting gettin' real long. Laterz

ok so this is my first ever post on one of these things, I really only created an account so I could post a comment on someone else's blog! lol I almost couldn't remember my sign-in. I tend to creat these accounts but never follow up on them, i wish there were 26 hours in the day at least. I just read a most intriguing post on House of Lime (i haven't explored yet how to make that a link) inspired by another blog called Jericho I think it was, talking about the whole experience of blogging and what u get out of it, what u hope to achieve through it...really fascinating. So I thought probably the reason why i haven't ever posted here (or the other places I have empty accounts) is that I haven't thought through all that yet...there's things floating around in my head...I think mostly I want to write about my country, or moreso my experiences being in a foreign country...I guess the flip side of House of Lime: Trini Tuesday, in a way ( hope i figured out the link right)
wow. first blog. So I'll be thinking about it and hopefully I'll be back.