Changing Seasons

It's finally raining again in Trinidad! When we arrived last August, it was the middle of the wet season. For the first several months, we saw rain almost every day. Since the dry season began in January, however, we have seen very little rain. In fact, it has been the driest dry season the island has seen in more than 60 years. As a result, the capacity of the reservoirs that supply most of the nation's water has dipped down to about 35% of what it should be. The government has imposed a ban on using hoses for watering lawns or washing cars, and has been encouraging various water conservation measures. In addition, there have been many bush fires burning all over Trinidad. Most days in the past month or two, we have smelled smoke and have often seen it rising on the mountainsides. The air has grown increasingly hazy. At times, there have even been fires along roads where we've been traveling that have made visibility quite low.
In the past few days, however, the pattern has begun to change. We had a couple of days this week when there was a nice rain for significant parts of the day. We haven't smelled smoke in our apartment; and the air has been noticeably clearer. In some parts of the island, there have even been issues with flooding. It's still over a month until the wet season actually begins. It will also take quite a bit more rain to replenish the water supply, stop all the fires and cause the government to ease water restrictions. In the meantime, we are at least enjoying the "April showers" and looking forward to more rain in the next few months.
~Richard

Last week, I mentioned a teacher that was going to take me to get my ears pierced but did not show up. She has not been back at school this week and from what I've heard is not planning on coming back. She taught 3 out of my 8 classes, so this leaves me without a teacher for those 3 classes. However, there are these big tests coming up in a few weeks in one of the other subjects and so we're spending a lot of the extra time preparing for that. Meanwhile, one of my friends from school offered to take me to get my ears pierced, so we went and did that yesterday! We picked up her and another girl at her house and then went to the mall. We stopped at the ear piercing place first and then while my parents did some grocery shopping, the four of us girls walked around the mall. Afterwards, we went back to my friend's house and her mom was cooking us roti!
~Olivia

This week, school has also begun for all four of us. I'm not exactly sure how my parents' school is going, but I can at least tell about Olivia and my school. As Olivia mentioned, we know of 2 teachers who don't seem to be coming back this term. However, this week the attendance of the other teachers has been much better. We hope this continues! We are planning on being at this school for 2 more weeks until Olivia takes a CXC exam (the big test she mentioned) and then just doing some home-school stuff. Tomorrow and Tuesday are the Parents' Days. That's basically parent-teacher conferences, just they call it something different. We had heard a lot of people say they might not come back to PAWI this term, but so far this term has been better than the one before. Hopefully we'll still be able to say that in a few weeks!
~Roxy

It was good to have a week of play with our friends (although we continued at the church also during that time), followed by a more relaxed week without classes. It was also nice this week to get back into the routine of school for all of us. Roxy noted that they only have two more weeks of classes at their school. The same is true for us in our teaching. Classes go through April and then we will need to give and grade finals in the first part of May. Since I am also supervising a thesis, this will probably continue for the rest of the time we are here depending on how quickly the student gets it done.
As we note this part of our assignment winding down and also have a firm date for departure, we find ourselves beginning to feel the pull between our two worlds. On the one hand, we still have work here that we enjoy and are committed to. On the other hand, we are beginning to think ahead to the work in Manhattan that we also enjoy and are committed to. On the one hand, we have been hearing about how particularly glorious spring there is and we wish we could see our daffodils and smell our lilacs. On the other hand, the mangoes here are really beginning to ripen again after several months of being absent from the markets, and mangoes have become one of our very favorite things about Trinidad. On the one hand, dealing with all the car headaches here is getting pretty old. On the other hand, when we go home, we will have to buy a new car since we sold ours to come here, and car lots have never been our favorite place to spend time. There is much beauty and much struggle in the world, and it does not all exist in only one place.
~Barb