Encore for Lime ;-)

Lime,this is REALLY the dance this year as far as I can tell, the Jumbie (also Road March)



Hear nah Lime, yuh really need to organise a visit soon eh, jes now yuh might forget how to stop a maxi LOL

Saucy WOW

Out of all of them, this HAS TO BE my favourite bicycle wine video, I can watch this one over and over HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!! it shoulda be longer LOL!!!!!!!
Imagine somebody making a living from wining! And she wearing a bicycle helmet too LOL LOL LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Port of Spain webcam

maybe I might see a lil costume Tuesday LOL!

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/Webcam/web2.html


outta body, back to yuhself now!

Cold like a fridge...literally

It eh snow? It snowin'? It have any snow? That is all they ask when you call Trinidad. There is an eerie silence when I say well no, no snow but is -5*C, wind chill around -15, which is close to the same in the freezer compartment. As I write this, it is -16*C wind chill.

Well OK it finally snow a bit now, and sleet too (which actually starts off as snow but melts and freezes again by the time it lands, looks like fine sno-cone by then) Being close to the sea, we also managed some rain in between so now there's also ice.

But way before all that it was already quite cold for a sustained period, hence the name of this post. Trinis tend to have only the "christmas card" notion of snow, and really, how could they have a much different impression? I don't know if I had such preconceptions when I just got here; I think I cleared my mind especially as I started out in Vermont so snow was expected. The reality is that it looks nice when it's falling and a little while thereafter. But then it gets all slushy and brown because we don't live in a christmas card after all.

Nobody seems to think of the cold needed to facilitate and sustain snow when they are asking if there is any snow. Nor does it cross anybody's mind that snow is not the only thing that the sky produces. Or that there are other conditions that affect the "lovely snow" and the whole winter experience, including wind (important one) and sun, yes good old sunshine. I took this picture from my window showing the streetlamp (lamppost in Trini) reflecting off the ICE that formed on the grass during the day today. In spite of the temperature, the sunshine along with a constant wind created this smooth surface. One of the best things to experience in winter is the crisp sunshine that you often get after it has snowed. Everything is bright even with the slush and you don't feel quite so cold even though it is damn freezing. But don't you dare go out without your hat on, anyway your ears will soon remind you something is missing.

So for now it's easy keeping my lunch cool at the office, I just keep it by the window we leave ajar for fresh air. One day I even got ice forming in my water heheh I kid you not. It's like a giant walk-in freezer and we're insulating ourselves inside it instead of the other way round. Frankly I'm getting a bit tired of having to dress all the time for this. But like I said in my previous post, it was a waste being so cold without some snow, so now i'm a placated for the while, moreso since the University had a snow day ;-)

Here's a thought: one of my Swedish friends thought a "heat day" might make more sense than a "snow day". Better not let too many Trinis hear that suggestion honey

till nex time...

don't let globalism fool you...

... I STILL get homesick!

here I am, just out of my International Issues class, thinking in exactly one week it will be Carnival Tuesday las lap in Trinidad, and I will be here, in the cold, in class...

Globalism. Part of 'globalisation'. The increase in exchange and availability of cultural ideas and experiences. Should we say connection between cultures? I think I would like to focus on availability and access part. The proliferation of different types of entertainment media, communications and of course trade has brought about an international trend of culture swapping umm sharing that has in turn made it much easier for those of us "away from home" to get by through having acces to various items: food, music, even communities (e.g. blogs)

One can go to the supermarket and look for the now ever-present "international aisle" for foods from other countries. Personal example: Crix (yes crix) and Matouks Mauby. Also there are many specialty shops popping up all over, be they Mexican, Indian, Caribbean etc where you can get other food items. One can also easily get their favourite radio stations streaming live via the internet, or the daily newspaper, even TV. Ah yes that wonderful thing the internet...ANYthing you want, its on there, I haven't found it yet but soon you may be able to order a chicken roti on the net. In the meantime, there's caribuy, trinifoods, and others, and a ton of places to buy music and other souvenirs like the 3'x5' flag on my wall. And well doh talk about instant messaging and VoIP programs, where would we be without them?!

Still these things provide only a respite. It is only a brief solution to the need for the real thing. Visiting Trinidad Carnival Diary most every day is a constant source of amusement not only because of the sheer numbers of visitors there and their comments written so sweetly in my own tongue, but the sheer excitement they express about their carnival experience and their love for home. Such anticipation and exhilaration at the thought about making the pilgrimage to Trinidad for Carnival, one of the pillars of our culture. I must add that I am quite amused at myself as well for going there i.e. to that blog, just to know whats going on even though I am NOT going home for Carnival. All part of the community thing I mentioned before I suppose.

It's always a search for some kind of connection, something tangible, especially when you know you're in it for the long haul. Its supposed to be snowing tonight but it looks like the weatherman lied to us, I would actually like if it snowed, waste of time being so cold without the white stuff. Think I'll go have some sorrell, can you believe I still have some? Talk about homesick...

Till nex time...

Be the ultimate maco!!

*Maco (pronounced mah-co)- eavesdropper, busybody, a gossip (also a verb)
*Macocious - adjective or adverb describing such a person or behaviour
*"Maco" is also available in whatever other parts of speech you may need

Ok, so they finally got me to join Facebook, which, after really going through the website now, I consider to be the ultimate macoing tool. It is interesting how you can't get too much in depth info on the FAQ or whatever they have unless you REGISTER. Trap trap trap. I must note, however, that they have fairly detailed privacy settings applied to who can see your profile/pictures/ etc. But again, you have to click around and set up everything. Hell, just to register I thought was a bit much.

A bit of background if you are not on it, or have only heard of it: IT IS MACO CENTRAL! So you go and set up your profile listing whatever personal info you want to be posted including a picture, you have the option to join networks which revolve around your school or job or where you live. You can join multiple networks

Maco opportunity #1: even if is not yuh friend, yuh could see all these people around by you who on de same network.

Then you start adding "friends", you can do it by automatically (facebook does it for u) inviting people who are in your email address book. Then you get to see who belongs (macoing) and choose which ones you want to invite. And voila! you build a friend list as these people reply.

Maco opportunity #2: yuh could click on yuh friend profile and see all who dey is friend with. AND click yuh friend friend too, and yuh friend friend friend once dey in a network you in.

Alright so those things may have taken a bit of exploring, let's move on to some built-in stuff, things they put right in front of your face (why its called facebook right?) The first thing you see when you sign in is what they call a "news feed". Its a chronology of happenings on your account AND YOUR FRIENDS' accounts, including their new friends, if they deleted friends, messages everybody wrote on each others' "walls", and what they are doing (if they chose to update that bit)

Maco opportunity #3: dat one was self-explanatory, ah mean..."news feed"? MACO FEED!. An all yuh had to do was sign in.

Moving on... you click on "my profile" and you see the details that pertain only to you i.e. your picture and other personal info, who you "became friends with", and all the stuff people wrote to you, and if you were "tagged" in any pictures that you or others may have in their accounts.

Maco opportunity #4: yuh could see all dat fuh other people too includin all dey messages doh matter if you eh know all de writers. (a nex network trap)

I'll add one more although there's lots of little things that add up, I have 2 in mind but I'll go with the pictures since they can be so damning. I mentioned being "tagged" above. Similar to "labels" I suppose for blogging, you can tag people by attaching their names to a photo you have uploaded. Funny thing is: you can see (via the news feed) when OTHER people (possibly complete strangers)tagged your friends, and see the picture too!

Maco opportunity #5: dat one kinda self-explanatory too. An if somebody tag you in a bad picture, well crapaud smoke yuh pipe.

There are several other ways to maco on this thing, one of which is the "social timeline". Doesn't that just have the ring of a "macoing journal"? I didn't write about it because I must have deactivated it somehow as mine was empty. It lists details you have entered over time about your friends, AND AS PER USUAL, you can also access your friends' or other people on your network.

They say its a good way to "share", to "keep in touch", to see whats going on in your friends' lives, and thats where it starts going downhill: too many prying eyes.

So there you have it! High speed! Efficient! Far-reaching! If you are a maco, facebook is the thing for you! What are you waiting for?! Join now!!!!!

till nex time...

p.s. if you are NOT a maco, and a more private type, make sure you go through and select all the "my friends only" that you can find ;-)

but I digress...

I realise I have strayed a bit from the original focus of this blog which was to compare/describe/comment on my "life in foreign"...
Did I mention that I have class ALL this weekend? i.e. 8-4 saturday AND sunday? Back next week with a more relevant subject...

Nex time...

Creole

FOllowing a comment from Triniobserver, I decided to do a small thing about creole languages. In the Caribbean, we mostly think of creole as the language spoken in Haiti. Personally I think people give it recognition as A LANGUAGE. Well surprise! It's the same with English speakers, we have our own language. Readers can go here for a fairly comprehensive explanation of what is creole, and see that in fact there are many such languages around the world. In summary, creole is a language developed to facilitate communication between speakers of different languages e.g. slaves. Sometimes there is a parent language, in our case English. Things are kept simple so they can understand one another. As subsequent generations come along, the language structures become standardised and voila!

Clicking one of the links regarding Ebonics in the U.S. I found that that situation had some similarity to ours in that some people would like to have Ebonics recgnised as its own language and not just a dialect, where it can be used, similar to the suggestion from Merle Hodge, as a tool in teaching standard english where users can be taught to recognise the equivalents in both languages. But proponents of Ebonics experience the same "fight down" attitudes that we in the Caribbean sustain as we keep telling ourselves we speak broken english, or as Triniobserver put it "a perversion" of english.

I'll say it again: I love my language! so very expressive, full of subtleties, words and expressions drawn together from various other languages. It's part of what makes a Trini a Trini. What do you think?

small milestone :)

Aye I jes realise I actually make it to 50 posts. Never thought it would get tihs far. But now I beginning to have some fun with it. Nice lil distraction blogging...
Thanks to the people that come by and comment. And thanks to all the lurkers for coming by, a comment once in a while would be nice, let me know if I should shake things up a bit hehe. I hope all those that I read keep it up, it's most entertaining, and reminds me that I do have my own blog that maybe I should write in every now and then ;-)

Wha it is yuh say dey?

OK I'm back, I am supposed to be doing homework but here I am. Lime would really appreciate this one:

This post has been long in coming and now that I’ve spent a few weeks at home and truly "gotten back into it" although I have relatives here to talk to, I realise I just LOVE the Trini language. This has also been helped in large part by reading other trini blogs and finding amusement in how people write and express themselves in a way that no other would understand.

I’ve frequently gotten into discussions/arguments with people (sometimes Jamaicans) about the fact that Trinis speak their own language and not just a dialect or broken English as some would like us to believe. Yes most of the WORDS are English, but many are not, and certainly our expressions are not. And yes there is a set structure, which makes it indeed a language of its own; everybody says things in the same format, its not broken English helter skelter like we don’t know the right thing to say.

How many times have we switched from speaking “properly” to speaking “dialect”? Its unfortunate that we have developed this concept of what is proper and what is not as opposed to which language should be used in which situations. I would like to reference a most interesting text written by Merle Hodge, “The Knots in English”, which expounds on the fact that "the majority of us are not English-speaking; we are a Creole-speaking. We have a language of our own and English is another language we have to learn." The text touches on the circumstances around which we grow up and learn to speak and our trouble with learning English. It outlines very specific examples of structure of Trinidad Creole and contrasts it with Jamaican Creole (we all know that we DO NOT talk the same) in a way that you can clearly see how we use certain words, and frame thoughts and sentences. Most enlightening reading about something you take for granted e.g.

"Double Negatives : Creole is one of those languages which uses more than one negative marker at a time...this cannot be done in English.

English - I DON'T want any. NOBODY here smokes any weed.

Trini - I DON'T want NONE. NOBODY here DOESN'T smoke NO weed.

Jamaican - Me NO want NONE. NOBODY here NO smoke NO weed.

In English a negative sentence can only have one negative marker"


Quite an interesting text containing examples, comparisons, and explanations about different parts of sentence structure and how "we" would say things. It is quite comprehensive in its own right but doesn't/cannot get into the intricacies of "nah", "eh heh" and "eh eh" LOL. I wholeheartedly subscribe to one statement from the preface that "it is hoped that Caribbean users [of the text] will gain a greater respect for their mother tongue as a language in its own right."

Till nex time...

Another sign...

just cuz i haven't posted in a long time (and I still haven't unpacked yet) here is another sign courtesy a friend of mine, used as her MSN display name:

"why trinis does put 'beware of the dog' on dey gate when when dey have one scruntin, tired lookin pothound in dey yard?"

hehehe

Till nex time...

Back for the new year

Well it took a long time but here is the picture of the kitchen, this was taken christmas eve (wow the flash make the doors look extreeeemely white boy...) Sorry for those who were looking forward but no ham was on the counter yet hehe We were still obviously in the process of cleaning. Even now there are some small things still to be done but I would say we beat the deadline :-)

For the first time this christmas though there was no traditional breakfast, after working so hard and then wrapping presents in the middle of the night I woke up at...drumrollll.... 1pm. Yes one in the afternoon, it wasnt all that bad, somehow my doing that threw off EVERYone, so there was no christmas breakfast, oh well...

Things have been great otherwise, went to the beach a few times, saw some friends, eating of course, and YES! working out! OH! I just saw shurwayne winchester with live band on a truck in the Croisee, is a good thing I get out of town early cuz it looks to be a big CT105 friday afternoon lime (the truck was heading down the main road to town) The only thing i havent done this holidays is go a fete...yuh believe it?!?! And yuh know why? it too DAMN EXPENSIVE. As a student i certainly can't fete after I pay my own flight here.

Well I now have only six more days in paradise, I have to go make a list of things i need to take back: red mango, chinee prunes.....

Till nex time..

Happy New year to all. Here's to wishing everyone a productive, healthy, and happy 2007!! Hope everything works out the way you would like in whatever you may be pursuing. Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trini Christmas

A la Lime's post Christmas renovation is in full swing at my house, we are having our kitchen re-done (finally) But its SUCH a hassle, right now the function of a kitchen is located in several areas. Fortunately alot more has happened since I took this pic so we're well on the way, I can't wait to pull the ham from the oven and put it on the new counter.
Also had a chance to go shopping, its CRAZY in port of spain but I love it, especially walking down the middle of the road on charlotte street heheh. Didnt so much enjoy paying $4 for a apple J, I could get 45mins at the cybercafe for that! Some of the prices... :-/ Every year I tell myself you can't go around converting $US but then my dad says "a dollar is a dollar" and its true! When you hear some ridiculous number, you eh studyin to divide it by 6, you only saying LAWD LOOK AT MONEY!!
Anyways, I got sorrell on charlotte st. and a great jar for setting some wine I am going to take back for my other foreign friends (non-americans) for our planned "mini christmas in january" when we get back from break.
And guess what?!?!?! I flew american but my boyfriend flew bwee and stole me a blanket!! woohoo!! I welcomed him to the blanket stealing club. I always wanted a bwee blanket for the collection :-) And to besides when I offload the gifts here, I will need some padding for the bottles that i'm taking back hehehe

Till nex time... (this slow internet drivin me up de wall)

I'm leeeeavinnn on a jetplaaane....
pastelle sorrell black cake ponche de creme ham parang homemade wine here i come :-)

Stay safe for Christmas!!

"Mr. gentleman, you is to drink, I is to drive, yuh understand what ah sayin?
but yuh tellin me drink, doh frighten you go drive, and TWO AH WE drinkin!
I am de designated drinker, you is de designated driver!
If yuh know yuh cyah take de pressure, drink, I go drive,
but two ah we is not to be de same ting
because one ah de ting go put de two ah we in TROUBLE!"

-- Sprangalang

As requested: Christmas in NYC

What better way to start it off than with Santa in Macy's windows:

Just turn around, look up, and there's a Christmassy-looking Empire State...

Of course we have the ever-popular giant Christmas ornaments...

With Radio City Music Hall across the street

Snowflakes coming down in the background

And now the one you've been waiting for...

The Rockefella Tree

Its 80something feet tall and from Connecticut. Represent!


Just so you know, these pics took quite a bit of walking through thousands of people in 0*C. They are also unedited since I am still working on my class projects. Enjoy!

Why Wednesday - WHY?!?!?!?!

this post is SOOOO late...cuz I MAD busy and blogger was down for a while during the day:

WHY I HAVE TO LEAVE EVERYTHING FOR LAST MINUTE?!?!?! WHY?!?! I in a mess now to finish 3 projects in a week cuz I ALWAYS leave everything for last minute! But this time I think I reach a new level. PRESSHA!!

I have my own theory on an answer for this week's "why" but it would be funny to get some suggestions heheh

Anyways, thanks for stopping by to all the folks who have been checking out this blog. Sorry I don't post more often, I hope to get more organised after I get through the next 7 days.


till nex time...

a lil update...

Hi, just a few lines to say I'm still alive and haven't abandoned my blog. While I read every morning with my coffee (SOOO enjoying reading all the Trini blogs) I can't find time to write. With end of semester on top of me and final papers to write, plus shopping before I go home (I startin to look like flickin santa claus, it was suppose to be 2 lil gift for my nieces but yuh know how trinis stop when they know somebody travellin, jes so I come a mule) so blogging have to take a side for now. I have a request to post a picture of the Rockefella Xmas Tree so I suppose I will make a trip to NY for that plus some other errands in the city (and maybe a lil club while I'm at it hehe).

Till nex time...

Christmas Kickoff!

Yes yes I'm really getting in the Christmas mood now! Parang on in the car, lights up in my place, and my flight to Trinidad inching ever closer!! Over thanksgiving weekend I went up to Burlington, VT. I was a college freshman there, Its just a lovely place year-round. So they had their tree lighting ceremony and this is it! The tree is at the top of a cobblestone pedestrian mall called Church Street (note the steeple in the background), cozy shops and restaurants and now the tree to cap it off! Christmas is finally getting in full swing here with people decorating, there's wreaths and bows all over. All we need now is to have some ponche de creme over the weekend to relly get in gear!

Till nex time...