IMMIGRATIONS FIASCO - THE TERMINAL ALL OVER AGAIN

Upon my return to Trinidad on Tuesday, I was refused entry into the country. I had worried that something like this might happen, since the government was slow as Christmas about getting the work permit taken care of. It seems that my work permit finally went through on Friday, while I was in the states, but the person in charge of seeing that my driver was given my work permit to bring to the airport to get me back in dropped the ball..and she is out of the country for Carnival..office is closed. Heck, everything is closed. I was denied entry into the country and treated like a criminal. I was forced into a holding area in the airport, and after being on the verge of a nervous breakdown and showing my ass a couple of times to the immigrations people, I told them I was going to go smoke whether they liked it or not. They smugly told me, nope, you aren't, you can't leave the airport...so what did I do? Yeah, I lit one up right there in the middle of the nonsmoking airport and when they said you can't do that, I said, "Huh? What was that? I don't understand. Oh, can't smoke in here? Is that what you said?" (all the while finishing the smoke). Okay you anti-smoking nazis, you can give me a break on this one. If your ass was stuck in a foreign country and told you were about to be put on a plane back to the states for really no reason at all (except the stupid work permit crap), you might have taken up smoking, trust me. I was taken away from the airport to some kind of "National Security" office where I was detained in an area that looked like a porch with locks and bars on it. I even took out my camera to commemorate the event.
































One of the guards even humored me when I asked him to take a pic of me during my imprisonment. HAHAHA At least I wasn't in a REAL Trini jail. I might have had to fight to defend myself if that were the case. I know, I look like hell. I had cried all my makeup off (no sad tears, pure unadulterated ANGER).... I had had a total of 2 hours of sleep in 2 days (one of those hours was on the plane). I was finally able to negotiate with the head of security that they let me go to my house with a guard staying here tonight to make sure I don't escape.

I will sleep tonight for sure, even with the guard spending the night in my house. Her name is Ali. I will see if she will let me take her picture. More tomorrow..whether it is from Trinidad or the US, I guess we shall see what happens come lunchtime tomorrow.

Those All Important Front-Page Stories...

The front page picture of today's T&T newspaper really says it all. I think it is in the constitution here, if you ever apply for citizenship, you have to have your bump n' grind up to par. :) Today's paper had (yes, I counted) 9 pages of drunk people in various stages of undress, dancing in the streets. No pictures of murder victims covered in sheets today, just lots of happiness. And the headlines are about one of the FIFA VPs (he is from Trinidad) double-dipping on Germany tickets (T&T is in the World Cup playoffs). Seems not only is he a VP in FIFA, but he also owns a travel agency here, and even though most people here couldn't get hold of tickets, somehow he managed to get tons and has been selling Germany packages for a crapload of cash. If you think the US government is corrupt..hahaha....

I think it is a good idea for me to celebrate Carnival at home in the states. ;) After seeing 80-year-old women in bikinis the other day (their Carnival costumes), um...haha Okay, if I put a costume on and stood beside them, maybe I would be sorta hot.

US, here I come. I think I will kiss the ground when I get to Miami, if I can find a clean spot.

Liming in Manzanilla

I saw the most beautiful beach that I have ever seen in my life today, at Manzanilla, on the eastern (Atlantic) coast. It was unbelievable. Here, look at some pictures. Absolutely breathtaking..the pictures don't even do it justice. Here, if you put the two pics below together, you can kinda get a panoramic view. This is where the river runs into the sea.

We originally were going to Grand Riviere to look for a place Eric and the girls and I are staying in May ( http://www.acajoutrinidad.com ), but we ended up stopping here and down the beach from here and just hung out for a few hours (we being me, Quincy, and his friend Kirk, a pan player on a cruise ship). They are hilarious. Kirk is like one of those people on the "Come to Jamaica" commercials you see on TV. Everything is "lovely and beautiful" and he really is too much of a thinker. Every now and then, when Kirk would start waxing philosophical, Quincy would tell him to shut the hell up. People were coming up fishing off the wall. Eric, here is a fishing hole for ya. Anyway, we were listening to soca music and just sitting on the wall watching people stopping to take pictures. Kirk would go dance by the road every now and then. Hilarious. I saw about 5 Portuguese man-o'-wars (or would that be "men-o'-war"..lol). Ugh. Makes me a little nervous about getting stung, because they can kill you if you get a big enough sting. Yikes.

We were just hanging out and suddenly this dark green mini van pulls over (i mean MINI..I don't know what they are, but they are teeny tiny)..anyway, turns out it was one of my students, BATMAN. haha Wow, so cool that he just happened to be coming that way and saw us. :)

He stays near the school during the week with a friend and then drives home on the weekends. Some sort of strange arrangement. I asked him if his "friend" was a girlfriend. He just laughed. We call his little green van the "pimpmobile" since he is always giving some of the girls rides to the taxi stop in it....and that little van will be packed to the gills with chicks. hahaha His wife probably wouldn't be too happy if she saw the grin on his face when he was hauling all those women. haha







Kirk making a fool out of himself out by the road, dancing around. Quincy said he would basically have to be dead to be caught dancing.












Okay, we couldn't get enough pictures of this place. Sure was windy, too.































One road that goes along the east coast...yeah, the only road. It was beautiful. Of course, while you are admiring all the beauty, you notice that there are no 7-11s anywhere in sight...which can only mean one thing...

Here is the view that I had while peeing behind the car. LMAO















Maybe next time we will find Acajou. We still have a while yet before I have to make the reservations. :))

True Stories: Bats, and I might be living in Piarco International Airport as of 02/28

BATS
One of my best students (a 54-year-old man) told us an interesting story today about his pet bat. When he started talking about it, I thought it was actually, like, a real pet. This thing sleeps hanging from the bottom of his dining room table. I asked him if it was messy, he said, "Nah, it is very clean...it just flies out of the house to use the bathroom." When I asked if he let it out, he said, "No, I don't have ceilings in my house, and the roof is open at the ends and he just flies in and out when he pleases, and sometimes his other bat friends come with him."

Okay. No ceiling. I can see that, I mean, after seeing some of the houses I have seen here. But bringing bat friends into the house? I am going to start calling him Batman, I think. Wonder if I can get him to take a picture for me. hmm. If he does, I promise to post it here. Trinidad is supposed to be home to the most varied species of bats and birds of anywhere on earth. I have seen some bats out at night around the golf course, and I have seen some pretty interesting birds, but not in my house.

IMMIGRATIONS FIASCO
Okay, what started out as a short surprise trip home may end up in my not getting back into Trinidad on Feb 28. I keep dreaming about being stuck in a situation like Tom Hanks was in "The Terminal." :)) Had to get up around 4:30 a.m. this morning to get ready to sit in traffic to get into downtown Port-of-Spain to meet with the immigrations people because my stamp ran out over a week ago, and I have been illegal since then. They haven't processed my work permit yet because it is a quite extensive process to get a work permit here if you are a foreigner. The company you are working for or consulting for has to go to incredible lengths to prove that a national couldn't do the job. What makes this even more incredible is that I am actually working for the Ministry of Trade and Industry technically, so one would think the process might be a little easier. NOT. They got approval from the Chief Immigrations Officer to extend my stamp until Feb 28, but they didn't know that I was flying home Carnival weekend and flying back in on Feb 28. So the immigrations officer tells me, okay, we are extending your stamp until Feb 28, but the officers at the airport might not let you back into the country. These are the same people processing my work permit...a fine example of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. They told me to keep a letter with me from the company I am consulting for, and if the immigrations person is in a good mood that day, they may let me come back. I was like, "What??" My return depends on someone's mood... A friend of mine told me to dress provocatively when I fly back and show some skin and maybe they would give me a break. I am thinking they would definitely put me BACK on the plane. ;) Maybe I will cruise through with no problems..no need to worry about it. Quincy (driver, bodyguard, tour guide, and the only friend I have here..lol) told me he would come to the airport anyway if they gave me a problem and announce himself as the company vice president of safety and transportation. haha May be my only option, since all the company big wheels are either playing mas in Carnival or leaving the country that weekend. I have to remain hopeful. haha

Marine Party, Brokeback Mountain (wait, no connection there..)

First things first....

Marine Superbowl Party!

Here are a few pics..one of part of the outside of the sprawling mansion, the pretty staircase, the pretty guys..oh wait, I didn't say that. I didn't do so much as flirt, but my bud Stella did.














Stella with some Marines (can't remember the guy's name on the left, maybe Lee? Then Steve, we called him "Texas". The guy in the red shirt is John. They are all Marines who guard the Embassy here.



Okay, Steve again, the other guy, John, who knows who else, and Tom, the guy in the blue shirt, who is their boss. Can't remember the bartender marine's name, but we called him "Connecticut" all night anyway, since that is where he from and we already had too many names to remember.





On the right, some guys from BP here in Trinidad (and most notably, Southerners!) Alan=Alabama. Can't remember the other guys' names, except we called them losers because they were rooting for the Seahawks.






Please refrain from any cigar jokes or any smoking lectures. My quit date isn't until March 1. I swear, I only wore this color because of the Steelers. ugh.










Mr. Connecticut, keeping everyone's glasses full. Amazingly enough, he was really nice for a bonafide yankee. haha




Okay, enough of that.

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
MOVIE LINE OF THE YEAR: "I WISH I KNEW HOW TO QUIT YOU."

Wow. I just viewed my own personal copy of BM, and yes, I cried. Forget the gay story line..you don't really even think about it (unless maybe you are an extreme homophobe). Really sad story, but a very good one. Amazing. Guys, give it a chance, get over it..it really is a good movie. What is even more amazing is how Heath can play a closet gay cowboy and still be smokin' hot. haha okay, jk.

CHECK THIS OUT....THE SUPER SALOON!

I TOLD YOU THERE WERE NO DUI LAWS HERE! HECK, THEY EVEN HAVE A MITSUBISHI CALLED THE "SUPER SALOON". The locals here don't understand the joke.

This one's on the house (or the car?). HAHA

Okay, guess that is enough for one day. It is almost time for my weekly guilty pleasure, Boston Legal, because Spader and Shatner ROCK! Lock and Load!

miss you. bye.

For My Geographically Challenged Friends...A Primer on Trinidad (and Tobago)

Until I get those pics scanned and on here from the SB party, let us take a minute to review...I have had people ask me (who heard I was going out of the country to work) if I was really going to TIBET to work...another asked me if it was true that I was going to Africa to work. Okay, here, look:

Okay, now that we are clear on where I am...LOL Trinidad is about anywhere from 7 to 12 miles from the crazies in Venezuela (depends on which source you rely on for the info). The weather is very boring, like 85-90 every day and 69-73 every night. Okay, I won't complain, that part could be worse. There is hardly any humidity here. I expected a lot more, but no, dry and breezy. The population here is approximately 40% East Indian descent, 40% African descent, 0.6% Caucasian, and the rest various other races. The total population is only about 1.2 million for T and T, and already this year, there have been approximately 40 murders (as of February 10). Camouflage is illegal here, with longg jail time and something like a 25,000 TT fine (for those of you not familiar with the conversion, that is over 4000 USD.

This is the flag of Trinidad and Tobago. Maybe it will be inspiration for a future (very tiny) tattoo. Depends on how I feel when I leave here for good. Too much red to get another big flag, trust me. Pain has its time and place, but after the Union Jack, um, no more big flags with a lot of red or blue. Then again, maybe I will grow up and not get any more tattoos. :))

QUIT DATE SET

Okay, decided today that I am officially setting March 1 as my quit smoking date. I think I said April 1 before, but I have decided to make it March 1. This will only be the umpteenth millionth time I have tried, but maybe I can make it stick. Just did some serious thinking today, and I have to do it. Gotta make some changes. God, I am going to be nuts for a few days. My students are going to hate me. You may say, hey, just use patches....but I am crazy with patches, too. Time to grow up and be more responsible. ..right?

That will only leave me with a couple of vices that I absolutely REFUSE to give up. ;))

Give Me a Break!

I took my disposable camera in with the SB party pics on it..went to the fancy-looking super duper Fuji One-Hour Photo in the big, nice, modern mall..and guess what, they don't have capabilities to save pics on CD. So now I get to find someone with a scanner here to scan my darn pictures. I even asked at the Fuji place if he knew anywhere that could do that, and he told me that he only knew of one place in the whole country..and when he started trying to tell me how to get there (about 40 miles away), I just said, um, that's okay. Now I gotta figure out how I am going to get them on here.

The SB party was AWESOME. Was nice to see the Steelers win, even if it WAS ugly. I felt like I was in the states for 4 hours. There were people there from Louisiana and Alabama, and, of course, we just referred to each other in conversation as "Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama." Southerners do that. I can't explain it, so don't ask. Stella, in all her 69 years of glory, was flirting with everything there, and I was sitting back smoking a ..um...fine cigar, just because I had never had one of those kinds of cigars (sorry, can't give details here, think we still have issues with a certain country, so I will leave that subject alone). They had a bar, had great food...there were probably about 50 people there, maybe 20 women and 30 men. The Marines actually live in this big, fine mansion, and they work guarding the embassy. Wow, the place was awesome....had a nice courtyard, pretty pool. A Texan Marine made the chili. Everything was great. Looking forward to the next party. I will post the pics as soon as I find some civilization somewhere to get these photos on my puter.

MY GRILL....

I bought the only grill I could find around here. I don't know where they are hiding all the stuff I actually want. Anyway, it is charcoal..sure do miss my gas grill; however, I am very appreciative that I have this one. I have looked everywhere for starter fluid, and the grocery stores here don't sell charcoal OR fluid. Anyway, I asked Quincy where the heck is the starter fluid. He said "WHAT?..you mean gasoline?" I said, "NO, you do NOT use gasoline to start up a grill!" He said, "Um, yes, dat is what you do. You take about a cup of gasoline and pour it on de fire and de coals start right up!" I asked him if he was serious, and he asked me what the hell starter fluid was. He had never in his 31 years heard of such a thing. Gasoline. Jesus. BOOM! Think I will stick to paper and carboard and matches and trying to get the charcoal going for an hour.

Monday sucked. Went to work, we got home, I realized I left my purse in my office. Got all the way back out to Caroni and my office door had been locked after I left. I couldn't get in and get my purse. No one had keys. No backup plan in case someone did something really stupid like I did in locking my purse in the office. The IT guy comes along and says no problem, and he pops the doorknob off...and tells me he loves to do that. Okay. That is comforting. I got my purse, we went all the way back home, and I found that the neighbor's cat had slipped in my house apparently in the morning while we were loading my stuff in the car to go to work. She turned over my garbage and tore it up, and she crapped THREE TIMES in my shower. I spent forever cleaning up. The next morning, I was looking for something in my closet and looked in my favorite suitcase to find that she had peed all in it. So there goes my favorite suitcase. My neighbor, who apparently claims the cat but does not take care of it, thought it was hilarious. I did not find anything funny at all.

Thanks for all of you who stay in touch with me. It is nice to hear from friends (and, of course, my lovely family). I love y'all. Paradise ain't much fun when you are alone. :)

oh, and if you are looking for the infamous muhammad cartoons, here is a link:
http://face-of-muhammed.blogspot.com/

Maracas Bay

YEAAAHHH....I went to the beach today up at Maracas Bay, on the northern coast of Trinidad. It was just a little cloudy, so you can't really tell how pretty the water is by these pictures.

They have lifeguards here supposedly. I only saw the building, though, didn't see any Baywatch kinda people. Maybe they were taking a nap or something. lol





Everything is so GREEN here. The drive to Maracas was really pretty, you have to drive up through the mountains, through the rainforest. I wish I had gotten Quincy to stop on the road up here, but the mountain roads were like the narrowest I have ever seen in my life, and there was a car riding us all the way up and if we had suddenly stopped, well, I wouldn't be here posting about it probably. Maybe next time I will get rainforest pics.

I think the next beach I want to go to is on the Atlantic side at Toco. Here is a lookout thing or whatever at Maracas.

This is the parking lot at the beach, you can see the mountains and rainforest here. When we drove through the rainforest it was probably 15 degrees cooler than normal...it felt awesome.

This camera is a fine example of 'you get what you pay for'. LOL I bought a cheap one to bring along because I figured if I bought a good one, it would only get stolen. I took more pictures on a disposable camera too, so if there are any decent ones on there (will get them developed Monday) then I will post them.

Miss everybody! :) Love ya! :))

SUPERBOWL PARTY INVITE, COURTESY OF THE GOOD OL' US MARINES!

OMG!

You may laugh at me, but NOT ONLY did the embassy answer my email, I got an invite for a Superbowl party with the MARINES! A coworker is going along....we will be around AMERICANS for a few hours. Oh wow, this is BIG. IN-FREAKIN-CREDIBLE. Just when I thought I had no chance of seeing the Steelers whoop up on Seattle, a miracle has occurred.

A great ending to an otherwise generally crappy day. Oh yeah, the grocery store special ordered sour cream for me and it came in today. I guess I should be happy, I can make some Mexican food now. No point in making Mexican food without sour cream. For me, that would be equally as bad as making Mexican food without cheese.

My good friend Dave made an interesting point today, how come there is NO CHEESE in Chinese food? Okay, cream cheese in wontons does NOT COUNT.

Okay, you MUST see this website for some funny rejected state slogan T-shirts. http://campkitsch.com/sitebody/designs/state/states.htm

Among my favorites:
Mississippi: We're lucky we can spell it...or Come Feel Better About Your Own State!
Maryland: If you can dream it, we can tax it!
Virginia: Please Don't Confuse us with West Virginia!
Connecticut: Land of the Stuffy White People.
Louisiana: We're not all drunk Cajun wackos, but that's our tourism campaign!
Utah: Our Jesus is better than your Jesus!

Speaking of Jesus, you gotta love this:










God, please don't strike me down. hehe (and thanks again, Dave, for providing me with some much-needed humor...let's just hope the strike doesn't take you out, too. ;))