Home again, home again

Well I arrived back in Trinidad at 12:35 AM on August 30, 2008.

The three-and-a-half-hours Spirit Airline flight out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida was smooth and uneventful. I cleared immigration and customs in less than 30 minutes and walked outside the arrival terminal to wait for a ride home from my brother-in-law.

I had just walked outside and about to light a cigarette when I heard a voice behind me, “You need a taxi?”

As I turned to say I was waiting for my brother-in-law, I saw a smiling Bharose, who had just arrived and parked across the street as I was walking out the building. In the parked car was my niece Daniella, also my god-daughter.

I was glad that there was no large welcoming party. In twenty minutes I was knocking on the front door, then waited for my sleeping mother to open the door.

We hugged, then chatted briefly. My mother went back to bed and I went to get a beer, but at 2:00 AM just about everything was closed. I purchased one beer at the only open bar, lit a cigarette and left the premises with drink in hand.

I awoke at 7:30 AM had breakfast, went to the corner store and purchased two daily newspapers. My mother and I each read one, then I left to purchase a new cell phone, since I had misplaced my Trinidad cell phone in Ft. Lauderdale.

The Digicel phone dealer nearest to me was closed at 10:30 AM, and I was not even sure if that location was permanently closed. So I went a little out of my way to purchase a new phone in Curepe, a little hub of activity a few miles west of me.

I departed the Digicle store with a cheap Chinese-made Coral 300 phone that set me back TT $180.00 or about US $30.00. While I had a cold beer across the street at a local watering hole known as Bobby’s, I entered some phone numbers from my Ft. Lauderdale phone into the new Trinidad phone.

I made a few calls informing people of my new phone number, then headed back home. Before I got home I stopped to buy a pair of cheap sports sandals, drank a few more beers and bought a pack of $16.00 cigarettes.

I walked up the Eastern Main Road in Tunapuna, the town that I now call home, in the hot midday sun. Along the way I met and talked to several people that I knew and visited with a few others. In the supermarket, a local craftsman wanted to know if I brought back any tools for sale.

Returning home, I immediately took a shower and changed. Then I ate a couple tuna fish sandwiches that my mother had prepared, laid on the bed in front of the fan, watch some television and still exhausted from the walk home, I fell asleep.

Later on, and after work, my sister came by to visit with my mother and I.

After my sister left, I went back to sleep and awoke in the early evening. After awhile, I walked over to my local bar looking for Mikey, a friend and the resident deejay. But he was no there. Angie, the owner spotted me the instant that I walked through the door and shouted out my name from behind the bar.

I was informed that I had just missed Mikey and that he had moved out of the area. I deducted the he was no longer the house DJ, as Angie changed the music when needed. I ordered a bottle of club soda, sat down for a while and spoke to a few of the bar fixtures — customers — before coming back home and going back to sleep.

On Sunday, I spent several hours reading the weekend newspapers. Since this was Trinidad’s 46th Independence Day, most businesses were closed and the normal noises and trafiic were nonexistence today.

Stay tuned, since life here in Trinidad is different. The society is wildy violent now and greed permeate the entire county. It will be a wild ride.