The last week of Easter Break

Yesterday, one of my teachers was going to take me to get my ears pierced. She has been very disturbed by the fact that my ears are not pierced all year. Most people here just get them pierced when they are babies. So, we were going to just take the day and go to the mall and and then also get my ears pierced while we were there. Then, we got there and called her and it turned out she wasn't coming. Apparently, she still hasn't gotten her salary and so she didn't have money to get there. It is a lot more common here not to drive and just to use public transportation. So, this also means that although school begins again tomorrow, the teachers aren't going back until they get paid, so there seems no point in us going back until there are teachers!
~Olivia

We have decided that we very much like a 2-week break in Spring. The first week, we had guests, and we just kind of played all week. Then this week, we spent a lot of lazy time and also got some work (cleaning) done. We borrowed a really awesome vacuum cleaner from a friend to vacuum our curtains with! And it has a little miniature vacuum in it too! And we washed windows. We have enjoyed our time playing, resting, and (well, we didn't exactly enjoy cleaning, but it was good to get done) cleaning.
~Roxy

One of the tasks we set for ourselves this week was to make some decisions. The first was to figure out when we would leave. While our intention had been to give a year to serve in Trinidad, when we received our visas, they were until July 17. We began looking at plane tickets home for sometime that week. While we would like to stay as long as possible to help with the summer Bible school or other projects in the churches, we found that by leaving on July 13, we could pay a fraction of what it would cost to stay till the end of the week. We considered stewardship of time, money and responsibilities and decided to get the tickets for the 13th of July. We acknowledge that it will be both hard to leave and good to return.
The other decision we had to make was whether or not the girls would return for the final term of school. Since the school is financially struggling, there have often not been teachers there. We were happy to be able to speak to a counselor from Manhattan and be assured that the girls will have the credits they need whether or not they do their final trimester in school or at home. Olivia has been signed up to take the CXC exam in one subject on May 4. So our decision is to return to school until then and finish up at home assuming there are no major changes in the situation. However, after the conversation with the teacher Olivia reported, we will wait and see if the teachers are returning at all this trimester before sending the kids.
In terms of the car, Richard spent most of 2 mornings in and out of various offices getting the insurance paperwork taken care of. Now we wait for the adjuster to come out. We are grateful that we had a spacious week in which to give that time to this ongoing issue. We are also grateful that the car has remained drivable while we wait for the slow wheels of bureaucracy to turn.
~Barbara

One interesting aspect of living in a different country has been getting to know a different political system. Trinidad and Tobago has a parliamentary form of government very similar to that of Great Britain. It has been quite educational for us to compare this system to the one that we have been familiar with in the United States. While both are founded on the same basic democratic principles, the ways in which the government actually works are quite different. A key difference in the two systems was illustrated this past week.
On Friday, the parliament was scheduled to debate a motion of no confidence in Prime Minister Patrick Manning, who has held that post for 12 of the last 18 years. If he had lost the vote, Mr. Manning would have been forced to resign and call for new elections. Given that his party held 26 of the 41 seats in parliament, however, no one really expected him to lose. But the debate could have been quite embarrassing to him as the opposition had the opportunity to highlight the many political scandals that have taken place under his rule.
Ultimately, though, the debate never took place. Instead, Prime Minister Manning announced on Thursday that he was dissolving parliament as of midnight. He now has 30 days in which to set a date for new elections. The election must take place in no more than 90 days, which means that we will still be here to see it. Right now, the political parties are busy choosing the candidates who will run parliament. One particularly interesting aspect of these elections is that, for the first time, one of the major party leaders is a woman. So if her party gains the most seats in parliament, she will become the next Prime Minister. Meanwhile, candidates in the U.S. are jockeying for position in a presidential election that is still more than 2 1/2 years away.
~Richard