Fetes

We have come to adopt some of the Trini terminology into our day to day language. It has taken some practice, but with practice comes perfection :)

Some of our new vocabulary terms include:
Fetes: fetes are large gatherings/parties where tons of people attend and are generally held outside. We haven't yet had the privilege to attend a fete, but it is discussed in most Soca songs (soca is a type of caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago) and is part of everyday conversations.
Party: although a typically used word in North America, it is a particularly important term use in Trinidad and needs to be pronounced in a very specific way (pa-tay).

Diwali, Festival of Lights

The students at school had been preparing for Divali since our arrival cutting out and decorating candles. Considering my lack of exposure to the Hindu culture, this was completely new for me. I learned from the students and the teachers the importance of Divali in Trinidad. Considering the large population of Hindus in Trinidad, this festival is a large celebration.

From what I have come to learn, Diwali means "row of lights" and it is a festival where families come together. The lights are decorated around the home as a way to keep away evil spirits. We also found, to our surprise, their generosity with food! Since this is a five-day festival, we would be given free roti whenever we would end up in a Diwali celebration - this to me was such a remarkable part of the festival celebration and hints to the link of Diwali to community/family gatherings.

 The lights are made our of small clay pots. On our drive into St. James, we first saw people gathering around a common area placing these small clay pots and starting to light them one by one. It was beautiful to see how, gradually, people started to come, take candles and contributed to lighting the candles that would eventually form a specific shape and/or Hindu god. As shown below, children would gather and help to light the candles to form the Aum (Om) sign.

Disregarding the fact that we stood our like sore thumbs, everyone was extremely welcoming and were not the least reluctant to integrating us into their celebration. We were given our own candles, and so we got busy lighting as many candles as we could. There was something truly special about gathering together as a community and having each individual working together towards a common goal.

We were also really fortunate to find a street party celebrating Divali, this is where most of the magic happened! They closed up a small street and had rows of Hindu gods statues formed by the candle lights. 

Students at Immortelle

It appears that our favourite time of the day is PLAY time! This occurs during break time where the students are able to spend some time out of their classroom and join students from other class rooms. We get to see some of them jump, dance, run and many are very eager to get us to join them. This also provides us with a great opportunity to meet students that are not on our caseload so that they can get to know us and we can get to know a little about them.

At first, break time can seem rather chaotic, every student engages in their own form of play ranging from running and jumping to sitting far removed from other kids and keeping to themselves. It is rather fascinating to see how how the students vary with regards to their interests and preferences during play, their sensory seeking behaviours, their social interactions with us and with other students, their modes and level of communication etc. Thus far, I must say that this is the place and time of the day is where most of my learning occurs and where it becomes crystal clear how each student attending this school is unique and it is our privilege and challenge is to regard them as such.

We have already become so attached to the students at Immortelle! They always find ways to make us feel welcome, to shower us with hugs, smiles, handshakes and to show us funky new dance moves.

Maracas Beach

We finally reached Maracas beach!

Students end class at 2:30 in the weekdays, so we had thought it would be easy to drive to the beach after classes during the week. Unfortunately, this didn't end up being the case. We usually ended up driving around the city doing errands, trying to find banks that dispensed american dollars to pay our apartment rent, doing groceries etc. On Thursday, we left the school at around 3 o'clock and begun our drive to Maraca's Bay, which is 30-40 minutes north of Port of Spain. It was a beautiful drive up, the scenery was gorgeous, but slightly dangerous as local drivers have no fear in flying through the various curves.

Since it was a weekday, the beach was pretty isolated, which allowed us to settle our belongings and quickly rush into the water !!! Something that is noteworthy, is that it gets dark pretty early in Port of Spain. At around 5:30-6pm it starts getting dark, so we were eager to start heading back before dark, which only gave us about an hour to enjoy the beach.

We could not leave the beach without trying the famous Shark and Bake - which is said to be the typical plate to eat at the beach, and everyone we spoke to in Port of Spain insisted we have shark and bake at a place called "Richards" - which was not hard to find as it was the first food place you see when you enter Maraca's beach.

Immortelle School and Pre-Vocational Centre

For the past couple of months, we had been hearing from students that completed their placements in Trinidad in past years and members in the Trinidad Working group at UofT what the Immortelle school was like and some of the types of diagnoses we would encounter, but it was still difficult to form a clear picture of what to expect.
Having spent a week at the school and pre-vocational centre so far, it's fair to say that it has surpassed our expectations. This is the first year that the pre-vocational centre and the immortelle school have joined and are located in the same centre, which has made it really easy for us to juggle our time between the two.

 The Immortelle school is designed specifically for children with disabilities ranging from 4-33 years old, most of which are on the autism spectrum, have learning disabilities and very few of them have physical disabilities and several have unidentified diagnoses. We have had the opportunity to really get to know some of the students and are greeted every morning with beautiful smiles and enthusiastic greetings!

The pre-vocational centre is geared towards older students with a varied range in ages and functional abilities. The centre has classes in arts and crafts, culinary, computers, spa and current affairs/finance. We have spend some time in each of the classes already and are eager to make recommendations to the teachers to make sure that each student is getting most of each of the classes and the lessons taught are best fit for each of the student's preferences and abilities.

This is where we will be spending most of our time for the next six weeks. It has only been a week of mostly observation and determining where we can best allocate our time and we are hoping that by this week we will have a more established routine!

Settling in Trinidad

Welcome to our blog! 

Our hope is to use this blog as a way for us to document our experiences in Trinidad, where we will be staying for the next 2 months, and to share all of our experiences with you! 

Make sure you visit our blog as we will try to share all the cultural lessons that come our way and to learn of the places, foods, music and nature that we experience in our time in Trinidad.

So far, we have heard ALL about doubles, roti and shark and bake - none of which we have had the chance of eating yet! We are waiting for the chance to hit the beach, specifically Maracas beach - which is located on the north side of the island - as it highly recommended as the best place to eat shark and bake, we'll keep you posted! 

We have been privileged enough to have a car to get around the city, which Ava has taken the courage to drive so far. The Queen's Park Savannah (a.k.a. the Savannah) has been our main site of orientation. If we're not sure where we are or how to reach a key site of destination, "let's go back to the Savannah and we'll go from there." We have found some delicious tropical juices on the Savannah and many people enjoy and take the opportunity to get some exercise by jogging around the Savannah - which, I must say, would take a good 45 min jog to get around and with the humidity and excessive heat, it would probably take us a good 2 hours. 

We are also very lucky in that we are close to the Immortel School and Pre-Vocational Centre as well as to the supermarket, Hi Lo. 

View from the entrance

Our kitchen

                                                                 

Dining room 

Liming (chilling) area

We have already taken advantage of the amazing kitchen space to start making our breakfasts, lunches and dinners - which Ilyse has taken great initiative! That's right, Ilyse DOES cook, for all of those who thought otherwise!

Mariana's Room

It didn't take very long for us to call this apartment our new, loving home :)