Yes, I'm Alive...

Clearly I am the worst blogger in the whole entire world, sorry! It's the thought that counts, right? So, where was I...

The Monday after our weekend in Mayaro was a holiday (Trinidad has a ridiculous number of holidays, it's excellent), so classes didn't start. We just kind of hung out and tried to get ready for classes. Later in the day, we went to Professor Ramchand's house to have pizza, brownies, and lots of fresh fruit from their fruit trees. We also learned how to play cricket, which I am absolutely terrible at, but enjoyed anyways. This is a (very blurry) picture of Prof. Ramchand pitching during cricket. It was pretty intense. We didn't actually play, we just practiced batting and pitching, as well as learning the rules of the game.

So then classes started that week. We have two UWI classes and then two classes with Prof. Ramchand where it is just the Colgate students. The way the UWI classes work is that we have 2 hours of lecture each week, plus 1 hour of tutorial, which is where we can discuss the lectures and readings, ask questions, etc. My two UWI classes are Third World Political Thought and Latin American Government, Politics, and Development. They're both really interesting. I really like my professor for TWPT- he's very passionate and intelligent. My prof for LAGPD is also very intelligent, but she kind of scares me. She was very strict about 'not pandering to lateness' but then proceeds to show up 10 to 15 minutes late for every lecture. She was also pretty intense about the fact that if we want to talk to her, it must be during office hours- not before or after class, not at the gym, not on the street, etc. It's so different from what I'm used to at Colgate- a small, liberal arts college where we frequently run into professors around town and are encouraged to chat with them whenever we see them- that I was a bit caught of guard. My class with Prof. Ramchand are Festivals and Growing Up in Trinidad in Writing, which is a lit course.

So right now, my schedule is like this: tutorial Tuesday morning from 10-11 (I hope, I have to go sign up for that...), class with Ramchand 2-330 Tuesday afternoon. Lecture 9-11 (though it usually doesn't go past 1030) and 11-1 on Thursday morning, and class with Ramchand 2-330 Thursday afternoon, then a tutorial 1-2 on Friday. So I have nothing on Mondays or Wednesdays. As a result, I have a ridiculous amount of free time and need to find something to do with it all. My final is also 100% of my grade in both my classes, so I don't have any work to do other than reading, so I'm a bit lacking in the motivation department. I am going to start volunteering soon, either at an orphanage or at an children's AIDS hospital (or both, which is what I want to do!). I'm SUPER excited for that, I miss my sidekick (like Big Brother/Big Sister), my 3-year-olds at the preschool in Hamilton, and my mentoring group at the middle school in Sherburne-Earlville, so it will be really nice to work with kids again.

I also started taking a dance class with another girl from Colgate, Gabby. It's an African/Bele/Soca class. We've only been to one and I had a lot of fun, but I am absolutely TERRIBLE. I have no sense of rhythm at all, which I already knew but am re-discovering, haha. Gabby, however, is an incredibly good dancer- she's been dancing her whole life, so hopefully she can help me out a bit. All the girls in the Colgate group can dance in general, and have been dedicating a lot of time and patience to helping Laura (the other girl from Maine) and I learn how. It seems like everyone on this island can dance, so hopefully I'll be a bit better by the time I get back!

That's about all that's going on right now- classes, dance, and hanging out. Liming is a big thing in Trinidad- it's just hanging out and chatting, really doing nothing with friends, so we spend a lot of time doing that. Wednesday is a holiday, so we are all going to Maracas Bay, a really pretty beach, for the day. We also saw a parang band on Thursday in class and Merle Hodge, a famous Trini author who teaches at UWI, is going to talk with us about her book Crick Crack, Monkey, on Tuesday. So I will try to update on all those things soon!!

Also, here is a picture of my room. My side is the right side (the messy one, obviously). There is also a sink in the back corner and we each have a closet and a set of drawers with one big counter on top of both and mirror above it.

And this is a picture of St. Benedict's, a monastery just outside of St. Augustine, it's about a 20-30 minute walk from campus. I've only been up there once, when we ran up there early one morning for grubbing, but it's super pretty and I'm going to go back up soon to take pictures, and I want to try to go to mass there one Sunday maybe.

Love and miss you all!

xoxo

Mayaro

Okay, sorry, I'm so behind... this is going to be a vicious cycle until I actually catch up.

So on the Friday we got here, after we went to the bank and Tunapuna, we had an orientation for international students. We showed up late and overdressed (typical Colgate students, though the overdressed was because Averil, our professor's wife, told us to look sharper than how we were dressed, or at least 'try to look decent'). We missed most of the intro, but we saw some cool cultural stuff (calypso, some dancing) and heard a bit of the history of the university. We then got some free food after, met a few other international kids, and left. Friday night was more grubbing.

Me on the beach in Mayaro.

Then Saturday we left for our trip to Mayaro, a small fishing village on the Eastern coast. We were originally supposed to go to Tobago at the beginning of term (the more touristy island of the country), but the man who usually rents the house to Prof. Ramchand was having it fixed up so we should be going later in the semester. We rented two houses in Mayaro. It was absolutely lovely there- the weather was warm, there was a breeze at our houses, and we had hammocks. We also had a lady who cooked a couple meals for us- dinner on Saturday (vegetarian for Laura, the Ramchands, and I) and late lunch on Sunday (with chicken, but vegetarian options). Both were really good meals, quite spicey- there's a lot of Indian and African influence on the food here, since those are the two main cultures in this country (as well as an increasing Chinese population).


The sun on the beach was ridiculously hot, so the Ramchand's recommended that we didn't go down to the water in the middle of the day. We were very careful about not staying out in the sun too long, and as a result a got a bit tanned but no serious sunburn! Yay! (Also, my hair is getting much blonder just from walking outside everyday.) The water was so warm that it was surprising, since I'm quite used to the numbing Atlantic ocean in Maine- I don't know if I'll be able to swim in it again! Just kidding. It was nice to have warm water, but not quite as refreshing after being out in the sun.



This is a view from a window in one of the houses (we were up a small hill from the beach). At night, you could see the lights on the oil rigs out in the ocean- oil is a big part of the economy here in Trinidad, so much so that Hitler was planning to take the island over during World War II in order to gain access to the oil.

Some of the girls found a coconut on the beach (they were everywhere) and spent a great deal of time trying to crack it open- throwing it, bashing it against a rock, etc. etc. until one girl, Meriden, finally got it open using driftwood that was basically the size of a 2x4. It was pretty excellent, here's a picture of them with the coconut after they got the outer shell off.

From left to right, it's Meriden, Jamille, Starr, and Christine. There are ten of us total (there were 11, but Starr unfortunately had to go home for family reasons).

So we stayed in Mayaro until Sunday night, relaxing, reading for Ramchand's class, and catching up on sleep. I definitely did not want to leave, because it was like a perfect vacation (though just a tad too hot for my taste). But we had to get back to prepare for classes, which were going to start on Tuesday. That will be my next post! For now, I have to shower and go to bed so that I can get up for class in the morning.

Love and miss you all!
xoxo

We Made It...Barely

Hey everyone! Sorry this is all so delayed- I only just got my internet figured out in my room. Our group made it to Trinidad safely on Thursday, August 28th, despite some slight barriers on the way. Most of us met up at the airport in Houston and flew together from Houston to Port of Spain, Trinidad's main city. When we were originally planning for this trip, Professor Ramchand (our Trini prof. who used to teach at Colgate) had told us that we wouldn't need visas to get into T&T. He used to be a member of Trinidad's parliament, so you would think that he would know what he's talking about. But, turns out he was wrong. We got off the plane and ended up having to buy visas in the airport before they would let us out to get our luggage. It was a process, to say the least.

Despite that little obstacle, the travelling was fine. Flying into Port of Spain at night was absolutely beautiful. We could see all of these lights surrounded by the blackness of the water- it was lovely (even if it was the definition of light pollution). We were greeted by Prof. Ramchand, escorted through customs at a fast pace, and picked up by our own personal maxi (a bus-like taxi). They brought us to KFC (which is HUGE here) for some 'familiar American food' then brought us to UWI to check in and get settled. I'm living with a girl named Melissa, who is a sophomore at Colgate. We got settled and went right down to hall orientation, which had been going on as we walked by. Hall orientation is something that is a tradition at UWI, and it's a way to get to know other students, build a support network in the hall, and basically just get people adjusted to university life.

The next day we got up quite early to go to the bank and get our accounts set up- Colgate is putting money into bank accounts for us here for food, etc. Later that day we went to the market, called Tunapuna, to get pillows, cooking/eating utensils, and fans for our rooms. We are living on Milner Hall, in I-Block. A hall isn't a typical dorm, it is made up of multiple blocks, which are more the equivalent of a dorm building. So Milner is made up of 5 blocks- North, South, West, I, and PostGrad. We're all on the same floor together, along with some kids from Dartmouth and then some full-time UWI students.

Everyone is really really nice here- they always say hello as you walk by, hold doors, etc. Although, they use 'good night' as a greeting, not to say that they're going to bed, so that threw me off a bit at first. I'm still getting used to it. A lot of the Trini students make an effort to speak more slowly to us, I think, so that we can understand the accent- or at least I'm assuming they are, because when they speak to each other they speak much faster and it's way harder to understand.

This post is getting super long, so I'm going to stop for now. I'll probably post again later today, or tomorrow, just so that I can talk about the past week and catch up to where I am now.

Love and miss you all!
xoxo