I got to . . .

. . . ride in a speedboat on the ocean! Boy I am lucky 🙂

Here’s how that happened.

At the suggestion of the nursery owners I met with a couple of weeks, ago I got in touch with the owner of Peter Richard’s landscaping. Interestingly enough, the owner is named Brendan. He bought the company several years ago and kept the name the name for reputation reasons. The company does landscape work, event rentals, and retail (they have a nursery and sell plants). I’ve been going there one or two days a week to visit some of their projects and learn more of the plants used here.

On Wednesday we were at a site and Brendan got a call about some construction work that was happening at his house “down d islands.” I got to tag along. I know that the house on the island is the big deal, and it was cool to see the house, but the boat ride was by far the coolest. I loved the feeling of bouncing over the waves and the wind blowing my ponytail straight back because we were going so fast.

Not many of these pictures have flat horizons since they were taken from a swiftly moving boat. Brendan’s dad, who was driving the boat, said that if you went 90 miles straight through this channel (called the first boca) you would reach Grenada.

This island is used as a prison. Kevan says they need fences because people try to swim it. The area water to have sharks, but they got fished out.

A view back towards the shore. The mountains you see are part of the Northern Range, which run along the north coast, basically. The central part of Trinidad is actually pretty flat.

One of the least crooked shots. The clear sky makes the water really pretty. These houses are only accessible by boat.

This picture was taken solely to show the garbage in the water. During the boat ride there were a lot of things floating around, especially empty bottles and styrofoam boxes. It’s tempting to post only about the good things, but many things are imperfect here, just like everywhere else.

Caribbean House Tour

I live up the hill from Kevan with his grandmother and grandfather, but I spend most of the time with his grandmother. She is called Apo, which means “grandmother” in a Chinese dialect called Hakka. Apo was born in Jamaica but studied in Hong Kong when she was younger, so she speaks Hakka.

Here’s the front of the house. On the left you can see a piece of the gate where you come in, and on the right is a retaining wall. The whole property is fenced in.

Here you can see the kitchen and dining area. You can see how you come into the kitchen from the car park. Apo let’s me cook and use anything in the kitchen, so that’s great.

The living room is next to the dining room and also leads into the TV room, which is on the right. The bedrooms are down the hallway on the left.

 

This is my room! I tried to get it mostly clean for the picture. The fan is positioned to keep mosquitoes off of me at night, and you can see on the nightstand a little white box that burns mosquito-repelling tablets.

It’s hard to get a picture, but here is an idea of my bathroom anyway. I should put the hair dryer in the closet since it is too hot to use it most of the time.

Finally, this is the yard. I get to swim anytime I want, and it’s also nice to sit out on the porch (if I’m wearing lots of bug spray and the fan is on!).