Christmas Preparations - Day 178

Christmas is well and truely upon us. We have a tree - a potted palm from outside brought in for the season, decorated with flashing fairy lights that extend around the door and over the window. The tree is decorated with sparkly tinsel and home made decorations which involved cardboard, pasta, copious amounts of glue and gold spray paint. Under the tree presents cascade onto the floor - these are regularly fondled and loved but the little people know that none are for them. Santa has been written to - in case he didn't know where we were, and has replied with very wobbly writing as he was so cold from the snow! Our friend Chad has asked Santa for super powers, including x-ray vision, laser beams and the ability to fly, I think this is wonderfully ambitious and has caused lots of discussion. Our wishes were a little more tame and have to be limited to what we can carry in our luggage.

School is now over for the children. We think it has been a great experience for them. Zac recieved an excellent end of term report and scored an A+ overall. Maxi's teachers said they couldn't say much about him as he was never in class but they reported that he was always very busy doing I'm not sure what. Maxi did take his poetry test and was marked 50% - the teacher said "I have never heard Baa Baa Black Sheep quite recited like dat before!" I can imagine many Maxi variations and embellishments in that particular recital.

The Christmas concert was a fantastic achievement, Zac was a fairy light along with the rest of his class and sang and danced with due diligence. Maxi, resplendent in a green shirt and red bow tie, was threatened with licks if he didn't sing and spent much of the time wringing his hands and looking concerned but afterwards he reported that he had done very well so all was OK.

Christmas holidays are just another excuse for us to take more excursions and adventures around the island. We have travelled to the east coast - a long stretch of straight coast-line that is lined with coconut palms for as far as the eye can see, where the sea is warm and the waves gentle. We have (finally) done a hike up the Maryann river in Blanchisseuse where we waded up the river, climbed over lot of fallen bamboo and trees and finally plunged into the cool waters for a swim. It has rained so much here recently that the river was higher than we have ever seen it, and the natural water slides that we have played in before were too fast flowing for all of us so we had to make do with the river pools instead. we have visited the Point-a-Pierre Wildfowl Trust where Zac held a Rainbow Boa and is more determined than ever to have a reptile as a pet.

We have visited Hanuman the monkey god (a 100' high statue), and the Temple-by-the-sea a tiny hindu temple on a walkway that stretches out into the bay and finally to the zoo, a special trip for Maxi which was better than expected as it had many caiman, a huge snake collection and lots of toucans. We have also returned several times to Toco which is beginning to feel like a home from home!

We have a Christmas party planned for Christmas Eve to welcome my Mum who arrives the day before and to thank all our friends for everything. Christmas will be spent partly here and partly in Toco where we shall spend a few days. If all goes well we shall be partying at a friends for New year. So everything is planned and anticipation is high. Maxi asks after Santa every day and each morning we fight to stop him from opening every door on his advent calendar - time goes too fast as it is it seems without wishing it away before we can enjoy it!

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone and may all your New Year resolutions come true. Lots of love xxx

Paramin Parang - Day 172

Imagine a warm dark evening where the air is still, humid and heavy and the skies are wall-papered with stars. A drive in a car with the windows down so the wind whistles around bringing the sounds of frogs and cicadas, the murmur of palm trees, the scent of ylang ylang, mangoes and the sea. The night bristles with thousands of lights as every house is bedecked with millions of flashing and twinkling fairy lights, glowing santas, nodding reindeer and the odd inflatable, illuminated snowmen. We whisk down the highway into town with cars speeding on every side, flashing brake lights, neon under lighting and spinning wheel hubs add to the colourful, garish display.

Down town - Tragarete Road, Ariapita Avenue and Cipriani Boulevard sizzle with life, limers on street corners, doubles and roti vendors, bars belting out music and reeking of Carib and everywhere the glow of fairy lights. We stop for food at Sweet Lime, a pavement restaurant. Sweet cocktails and succulent shrimp and fish, the babble of conversation, sound of laughter, the chink of crockery and the background soca calypso are a suitable start the evening. A short drive to Maraval where dozens of parking touts wave rags and gesticulate wildly entreating us to park in their spot. We walk up a road that rises steadily into the Paramin hills. We stop at the taxi rank - a designated straggly stretch of road that is lined with people - our chances of getting a ride look slim. we wait as a few taxis come and go disgorging people and refilling with scrum-like speed. The taxis are in fact jeeps, old land cruisers in fact, four wheel drives are needed for where we are going. We spot a stray jeep further up the road and run, Martin wards off big men and I slip through and pull him in. The back of the jeep is packed, the two sides lined with passengers, I sit in the middle perched on a huge speaker box which thankfully is only playing quietly. My head is squashed to the ceiling, neck bent giving me a fine view of the floor, my legs are on the lap of the lady next to me. We are all hot and sweaty, faces covered in a fine sheen, everyone carries rags and mops themselves endlessly towipe away the moisture. everyone is talking and laughing. The taxi driver takes a drink of rum - obviously not his first of the day...

We set off and within moments we are driving up an almost vertical narrow road at great speed, the engine strains and whines as it pulls us up and up. From time to time we swerve sharply and stop to let another vee-hee-cle go past, the view from the cloudy plastic windows is a breath-taking sheer drop down the hill. We know jeeps regularly capsize on these hills, we hold our breath and hope for the best. "We reach" says the driver and as the door opens we all fall out to stretch out kinks in spines and necks.

We are in Paramin, home of seasoning - thyme, chive and shaddo-bene and more importantly for us home of parang music. Parang is only played at Christmas and has a distinct spanish flavour. We walk down another vertical incline to the church grounds where hundreds of people have gathered for the biggest parang festival of the year. On the centre stage a band are playing, 16 or so musicians dressed in their finest play quattros, mandolins and chak chaks while singing and dancing. The music dominates everything, the bass makes your ribs vibrate and your ears ring with noise for hours after you have leave. The crowd moves to the beat, singing along to favourites, swigging beer and liming. Around the grounds tents sell enticing foodstuffs, pastelles (fish or chicken wrapped in banana leaves - also a christmas speciality), corn soup and the ubiquitous doubles. Vendors walk in the crowd selling santa hats with flashing lights around the rim - they are doing a roaring trade. The backdrop to these festivites is an enormous, newly built stone church with beautiful stained glass windows (Paramin now has a church but no school which was closed recently after being deemed structurally unsound), a 20 metre high inflatable Carib beer bottle and a view up and down the hills where all the houses scattered clinging to the hillsides are lit yet again with the sparkling lights.


It is Christmas in Trinidad...