CanYouFind.Us

and I can’t find food, or cigars.

I guess, to be fair, I’ll go over the positive side of things, and then if you wish to read my complaints-they will be here as well. First off-the weather. Karen was ahead of the curve and set out sunscreen for me before I left. Sadly, I was BEHIND the curve, and forgot to bring it. Day 1 involved a slight sunburn. At this point, we’ve been inside for a large amount of the project, so I haven’t seen much more sun.

I have also managed to try a lot of the local favorite foods. Early on we tried the roti ( a traditional local dish where you scoop curry with pieces of unleavened bread), and then found shark-and-bake at Carnival. Their beer and rum is also ridiculously cheap. I have tried 4 types of Trinidad rum, and one rum from Guyana (avoid that one!) Since I’m not a rum specialist, I can’t comment on them too much, but they have been enjoyable.

We also spent 2 days photographing Carnival. This giant party (fete) is the focus for many of these islanders for the entire year. When the time comes, it’s non-stop for nearly 2 weeks. As it gets closer and closer to Fat Tuesday the events start to increase and 6 days before you are pretty much into the events. Friday night the parties start, and they continue till dawn (trust me, I’ve heard the song that proclaims this very thing). The parades really kick into full effect Monday morning. The masqueraders are fully dressed up, and they hit the streets following their music truck. These trucks are semi truck rigs pulling a full 53 foot trailer-packed with stereo gear. Each one is essentially a mobile-concert center. Some have live DJ’s, and all are insanely loud. Eventually you will see a truck of the steel bands go by. If you are lucky, they have spaced them out enough that the concert truck is starting to fade, and you can hear the amazing music that these bands are playing on their national instrument.

Once Carnival was over, things calmed back down and are back to ‘island style’. We are now getting things ready for the Fifth Summit of the Americas that is rapidly approaching. I’m unsure how much longer my project will be down here, but at times-I’m certainly ready to head home.

Generally speaking, the food here is really starting to ‘grind my gears’. If we stop and eat lunch at the canteen, every single option is chock full of bones. Those of you that have known me for ever, probably remember when I wouldn’t eat ANYTHING that had bones in it. I finally decided that some of the food might actually be worth the work, and stopped letting it be an issue.

However down here, it is an issue. You are given a fish sandwich, and nearly every bite requires you pulling tiny fish bones out of your mouth. I’m thinking their general culinary approach: is chop it, and cook it. I can almost ignore it in the fish, as I know they’d about destroy some of these to get the bones out. However on the chicken, it makes me want to scream. If I am eating the roti, I’ll grab a chunk of chicken and pop it in my mouth…take one bite and you are crunching into a bone. The next piece appears to be bone free, then you start finding all the bone fragments from where they chopped the chicken.

So now for my meals, I’ve turned to going to the local fast food joints. I’m sure ANYbody reading this, knows how little I like fast food chains. For all my complaints about them in the States, it’s even worse here. Long John Silvers serves overcooked and dried out fish and chicken, with soggy fries. Burger King manages to be out of a medium combo, but has the large (I never could get her to explain out they were out of less french fries). If you are a fan of beef-give it up. The burgers are…questionable. Every one I ordered at the hotel, or at Ruby Tuesdays, had the telltale crisp corners of a Sysco frozen burger (and nothing wrong with that-just not worth the prices they want!).  The grocery stores make me cry. Your only options are frozen food (all pork, all seafood, and most chicken comes frozen) or canned. I probably could eat fresh fruits/vegetables, but half of that doesn’t look to be in very good shape. The selection is certainly not what I’m used to from back home. I’ve always known that food is one of my luxuries, and now I realize how much that I have taken that for granted. The prices on the foods here are generally reasonable, but when you only have 2 choices of canned spagehtti sauce-they better be cheap.

Then there is my other luxory-cigars. I managed to bring about 20 of them down here with me. Due to a few very late nights early on, I didn’t get into them very hard. After we moved into our rental house I had a full patio to go outside and enjoy them…but I also had to fight a major mosquito problem. Eventually I found some bug spray, and I’m back in the groove. Then as I started to smoke through my selection, it became clear that cigars weren’t going to be easy to find down here. For 2 weeks we chased every single lead we could find. Someone sent us to a mall, so we’d scour it. Eventually we would find the ‘cigar shop’ and relize it only had tiny machine made ‘quick smoke’ cigars. Then we go to the next mall and find that they do have real cigars, but their prices are sky high, and they only have 3 selections! I did pick up a few sticks there (Monte #2 in case anybody reading this cares) but the prices aren’t what you want to pay if you like to enjoy multiple cigars per week. We are still researching shops, via stateside contacts, so hopefully we will land a shot soon.