If they never arrive, we didn't want you denied our news and glad tidings - so here is this year's letter ...
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Merry Christmas from Trinidad, the southernmost island of the Caribbean. The pace of life is so slow and laid back here that it took us two years to write a Christmas letter, and out of respect for local customs, it will arrive late, and we will blame the rain or the prior government.
Christmas season actually began in late September, as stores began selling sorrel drinks (tastes like cranberry) and radio stations switched formats to the traditional holiday music called parang, which originated centuries ago thanks to visiting musicians from nearby Venezuela. The songs are festive, guitar-strumming jug band serenades, all sung in Spanish by non-Spanish speakers to non-Spanish speakers (the British took Trinidad from Spain in 1797). Curious? Search YouTube for “Lara Brothers” and have a listen. Venezuelans we have met in Trinidad are themselves puzzled by the tradition, as there is no such thing as parang in Venezuela. Imagine Cubans singing English sea shanties, and not understanding a word of it, and only at Christmastime.
Without the sorrel and musical cue, you would have no idea Christmas is a-coming, as Trinidad lacks the traditional four seasons we heretofore took for granted. Located just six degrees north of the equator, our temperatures are steady year-round. Low: 73. High: 94. Sunrise: 6:30. Sunset: 6:30. If you refer to “spring” or “fall”, you get a quizzical reaction, probably very similar to our reaction to the regular use of “fortnightly” in conversation. Trinidad has other seasons: rainy, dry, cricket and carnival.
Carnival season begins the day after Christmas and it’s all-consuming in Trinidad. The actual carnival parades are March 7 & 8 in 2011, the same time as New Orleans Mardi Gras. However, the festivities begin long before that. January and February are chock full of fetes (French word for party) thrown by carnival bands (analogous to Mardi Gras krewes), all-night parties with live music intended to drum up costume sales. This is the costume you will wear on parade day. Unlike New Orleans and Rio, Trinidad’s carnival is a participatory event. Few people come to be spectators, and there are no floats. The costumes are expensive (banks here offer Carnival loans), but they are your all-you-can-drink “ticket” to the all-day parade, giving you permission to march with your band, complete with a sound-system truck, ample security, and of course, access to the “wee wee wagon”, a flat-bed trailer full of port-a-potties. Trinidad carnival is the largest of the Caribbean, and having participated is a big deal to locals. This is a standard conversation with a Trinidadian you’ve just met:
Trinidadian: How long have you been in Trinidad?
You: (your answer does not matter)
Trinidadian: Did (will) you take part in Carnival?
Us: We played Harts.
Trinidadian smiles and has newfound respect for you.
Carnival also brings competitions for soca, pan and calypso artists every year, and you’re not permitted to rely on old favorites, all music must be new each year. The most coveted prize for a soca artist is for his/her song to be chosen as “Road March” the song blasted from each band’s speaker truck as the band parades in front of the judge’s reviewing stand. Bands change their costumes each year too, so you won’t be able to sneak into the parade without buying this year’s model. This year, Carnival will be back on the Savannah (the Trini equivalent of Central Park) – this return is a really big deal but we don’t understand why.
Trinidad voted in a new Prime Minister last spring, er, cricket season. This was indeed an exciting time to be living here. For starters, the election itself came by surprise when the old PM – in a daring move – dissolved parliament and called for elections in six weeks. That’s right, the campaign lasted just six weeks! The two sides wasted no time. The incumbent party – per tradition – got busy paving roads, repairing bridges, opening up public housing (all of the things government is expected to do, that is, but don’t seem to happen otherwise). Meanwhile, the opposition produced scathing political ads for the TV news, featuring some of the island’s most famous calypso artists, disparaging the administration for corrupt construction contracts, rising crime rates, and neglect of the neediest. This was quite a shock to us after serving in the Kingdom of Jordan, where you can be arrested for criticizing the monarch! The gamble turned out poorly for the incumbents, and Trinidad elected its first female Prime Minister. Per the British system, she was sworn in the day after elections. No lame duck administrations here!
Outside of elections, one of our favorite pastimes is watching cricket. No, really! Granted, we don’t have the patience for a full 5-day “test match”, but the cricketing world – adjusting to the shorter attention span of the new millennium – introduced “Twenty20” a version of the game that is played out in just 3½ hours, with players taking greater risks and thus, more action. We’ve been to several matches in Trinidad, and we attended the final Twenty20 World Cup match in Barbados. Our fondness for cricket earns us a measure of respect from Trinidadians, although cricket purists insist that Twenty20 isn’t real cricket.
We have used every one of our leave days this year and have been able to travel to Panama, Barbados, Grenada, Curacao (the world’s newest country), and home to the U.S. We had hoped to travel to St. Lucia but then Hurricane Tomas hit the island hard. We canceled those plans despite the hotel’s reassurance: “we expect to have our running water back soon.” We hope to visit a few more islands although this requires a great deal of patience and faith in a pretty dodgy airline. We highly, highly recommend Panama – monkeys and jungle cruises (like at Disney World but better) are just twenty minutes outside of a real city with good restaurants.
We both got “tenure” this year – which like the academic equivalent means we are now very hard to fire. Dan continues working as the American Citizen Services officer and Duffy is currently the interim press officer. We both have come to loathe weekend phone calls – for Dan they often mean another American drug mule died or was arrested. Duffy’s calls are reporters seeking a quote on the latest brouhaha, and a new brouhaha seems to emerge every fortnight, like clockwork. Although she rarely dispenses quotes, they keep calling. Our jobs do mean that we have been all over the island – it is just 30 miles by 50 miles but roads and traffic make it seem bigger. People rarely move from one town to another and so they speak about other areas as if they were distant lands “I really like South – the people are so hospitable.”
We are spoiled by our apartment’s view of the Gulf of Paria – including Venezuela. We can also see South from here. Postcard-worthy beaches are less than an hour’s drive from our apartment, and Trinidad offers impressive birdwatching. Our favorite way to see birds is to take a swamp boat ride at sunset, and watch flocks of scarlet ibis come home for the night.
Please come visit – we expect to be here until August and then we will move back to DC for two years. Visit us there too. Wishing you the very merriest Christmas.
