Happy Republic Day

Today is Republic Day in Trinidad & Tobago--not to be confused with Independence Day, which was celebrated a few weeks ago. Independence Day marks the day in 1962 that the islands gained their independence from Great Britain. Republic Day is the celebration of the day in 1976 when the parliament met for the first time under a new constitution that, among other things, created the office of President to be the head of state. This means that, unlike many other former British colonies like Canada, Australia and Jamaica, Queen Elizabeth is not queen over Trinidad & Tobago. The nation is, however, still a member of the British Commonwealth. In fact, in just two months, the biannual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting will take place in Port of Spain. The prime ministers and leaders of more than 50 countries will all be here, including Queen Elizabeth herself. Many people here are quite proud of the fact that this small country is hosting both the Summit of the Americas (attended by President Obama and many other leaders in April) and the Commonwealth Heads of Government in the same year. Others, however, are concerned about how much it is all costing and the strain that it puts on an infrastructure that is already stretched quite thin.
~Richard

Yes, this is the second holiday this week. The girls had Monday off school for Eid, then 2 days of classes, then today off for Republic Day, then class tomorrow. Since neither of the holidays fell on our teaching days, we still our full class load this week. However, our numbers of students were down. I only had 5 in class last night instead of my usual 8.
As our lives melt into routine here, there is perhaps less interesting to write about. Here are some random thoughts.

• One nice thing about being in Trinidad is that Richard's sense of chivalry seems greater here with him opening my car door more often than at home. However the longer we are here, the less I find him unlocking my side of the car first.
• The ICC tournament is going on here, so we can watch lots of cricket on TV. Why are they running back and forth?
• We prepared our first batch of chana aloo this week to go with the leftover buss up shut that was given to us when we were invited over to our neighbors' for a Trini pumpkin cooking lesson earlier in the week. I'm anticipating roti lessons soon.
• The school lunches here are free to everyone even in private schools. And, the girls report that they are better than the lunches at home - imagine replacing the pizza and processed chicken pieces in various shapes with chicken and rice.

We are so grateful for our time here, but still treasure all of our relationships with you at home. We love you and are thankful for your prayers and e-mails.
~Barb

If you are wondering what the buss up shut that Mommy mentioned is, it is a kind of roti. It apparently comes from the words bust up shirt, see the similarity? Apparently, you eat so much of it , you bust up your shirt, or something.
The other day at school, I mentioned that I play piano, and people were very excited about that. There is a keyboard at the school, and in the morning before classes, we have chapel. During chapel, there is lots of singing, so the principal invited me to play piano during that time and I said I would. So, then, yesterday morning, she had someone carry it up the hill from the office to the classrooms. When I saw it, I asked if there was any sort of sheet music, or if I just was supposed to figure it out by ear. Apparently, I was supposed to figure it out by ear. When I told the principal that I read music, and not play by ear, she seemed surprised, but said she would try to find some sheet music. People were very disappointed that I wasn't playing piano, and seemed to think it was a little strange to read music.
~Olivia

PAWI High School is actually on the campus of WIST, West Indies School of Theology (not where my parents teach, that's WITC, West Indies Theological College) and I think the college is pretty good sized...all of our classes are in one building (which is not used by the college at all) but the Technology classes have to be in the lab, which is in a building where the lab is the only room we use and we're not allowed to be in any others (but people are all the time). The campus is built on a hill, and so the main building is up the hill from the office, the cafe, and the building with the lab. And the basketball court scares me! Because it is on a hill, but the basketball court has to be flat, when the basketball court starts, it is even with the ground around it, but on one side, there's a drop off of about 3 feet! So when people are running really fast near the edge, they have to jump off sometimes and it's scary! Many schools here in Trinidad aren't co-ed, but PAWI is, and EVERY school in T&T has a uniform! Even public schools.
The main building has 5 classrooms--3 on the bottom floor, and 1 on the top that has 2 huge whiteboards in the middle, and so is used as 2 classrooms. You can't get from any one classroom to another without going outside, except the 2 with the big whiteboards in the middle.
~Roxy

Eid-al-fitr

Eid Mubarek!(which means "Blessed Feast") That is the greeting that is being heard all across the island today. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan in Islam. Muslims don't make up a particularly large segment of the population of Trinidad, but Charlieville has one of the highest concentrations in the country. We can see two different mosques from our living room, and a third is under construction just up the street. We also hear the call to prayer up to five times every day, although we usually are able to sleep through the first call that comes at about 5:00 am. For the past month, our observant Muslim neighbors have been fasting during daylight hours--nothing to eat or drink between sunrise and sunset. Each night, there have been big gatherings at the mosque where many have gone to break the fast together. Today is a day of feasting and celebration that the fast is all over. We've been hearing quite a number of fireworks as well.
The government of Trinidad & Tobago recognizes the major holidays of a number of religious groups represented here. So tomorrow (Monday) is an official public holiday. All schools, government offices, banks and many other businesses will be closed. One of the interesting aspects of the Eid is that it cannot be officially declared until the moon is sighted on a particular night marking the end of Ramadan. So while it has been known for some time that the feast would be held sometime around now, the government didn't publicly declare that tomorrow would be the holiday until last Monday. The Hindu holiday of Divali is similar. We know that there will be a public holiday sometime around the middle of next month, but will have to wait until a week or two before it occurs to find out the exact day.
~Richard

Happy Eid! Since today is Eid, tomorrow is a public holiday, so we have a long weekend and therefore done some fun things. We had heard that the ministry of health was doing a health fest, and part of it was a 5 kilometer run/walk around the savannah in Port of Spain. Olivia had been a little out of practice running, but still interested, and me and Mommy decided to try the walk. It felt good to walk, and I'm really glad we did it, but there was a little problem. Last year, they had about 2,000 people show up for the walk/run. So they planned for 3,500 this year, thinking that they would end up with extra t-shirts, water, and medals (the things they hand out to the participants). But they think that 10,000 showed up this year!! There were 3 places they were supposed to hand out water (2 stops and the finish line) but by the time me and Mommy got there, there was no water anymore, so we were really thirsty by the time we finished!
~Roxy

As Roxy just explained, there was a health fest yesterday and we decided to go. I joined the 5k run. The registration was from 1:00 to 4:00, and we got there around 3:00 or 3:30 but by that time, there weren't any registration numbers, but they let me run anyways. Around 4:15, we went out into the street and the people in the front were at the starting line. I looked, but in front of me all I could see was people and behind me all I could see was people, so I wasn't sure how far I was from the starting line. We stood around for a while and then all the sudden there was a horn, and I realized it had started. There wasn't any sort of warning. But then it was at least a minute or two before I got to the starting line since there were so many people in front of me and some were walkers, and it was hard to get past people, but then I was able to run. I'm not used to running in this humidity. It was hot, but the humidity was worse than the temperature. They handed out water at a few places, which was nice, but it meant that I had to stop and walk a few times, so I could drink, and I had to carry my water with me which made it heavier. My time wasn't very good, but I haven't run in a while and it was really humid, which made it harder to breathe. Plus there were so many people sometimes it got jammed up, and I stopped to drink water a few times. But I was at least in the top 3500 (out of around 10,000), because I got a medal, and they had planned for 3500 people, so they must have gotten 3500 medals. But the 10,000 also included walkers. It was nice to run again, even though I'm pretty sore today!
~Olivia

Today we visited a 5th out of the 6 Mennonite churches here. It is Sangre Grande Mennonite Church. It has a very different history from all the other Mennonite churches on the island. About 3 or 4 years ago this church was not a part of a denomination. The pastor was good friends with one of the long time Mennonite pastors here. When the pastor of the church was unable to contine in his ministry there, he said that the only person he could imagine being the next pastor was his Mennonite frined. So the Mennonite pastor agreed and the church became Mennonite. It is the largest of the Mennonite churches here with an average attendance of about 55. It is also quite far away from the others. We traveled much farther east today than we have been. It took us about 1 1/4 hours to get there without bad traffic.
The church was very friendly. I was greeted with kisses on the cheek which is not an uncommon greeting here, though that seems to vary. After church we were invited to the pastor's home for lunch.
We came back to the apartment and rested a bit. There isn't much on TV on Sunday afternoons. We could choose from the BBC series on ancient Rome, a sports story show that looks ahead to the Beijing Olympics and the Muslim call in show in which a scholar answers questions about things like what is permissible during Ramadan or how to celebrate Eid properly.
After a rest we decided to go to an Indian festival nearby. It turned out mostly to be vendors selling pretty Indian clothes and jewelery. We were disappointed not to find the food and music we'd hoped. But it was still full of color and style. Tomorrow we may just stay around home on the holiday.
~Barb

A Day in the Life

Since we have started to establish more of a routine, we thought we'd try to give a sense of what a "typical" day is like for us:

On a regular school morning, Olivia and I will get up at 6:00 in the morning to be all ready to leave for school at 6:45-ish. We eat breakfast, get dressed (in a uniform) and brush teeth before setting out. School starts at 8:00 (or at least says that it does) but with so much traffic going into Port of Spain (the capital city) it takes approximately 1 hour and a quarter. The school we go to is built on a hill, and so you park near the bottom and walk up the hill to the basketball court where they have 'assembly' every morning. In assembly, we all line up by form (there are 6 forms) and say The Lord's Prayer, then sing the national anthem, then say the pledge. Olivia and I have been trying to learn both the pledge and the anthem. We think we have the anthem pretty good, but feel mostly lost on the pledge. The schedule is not the same for every day, we have a 6-day timetable. There is only school Monday through Friday still, but there are 6 different schedules. This last week, we did days 1-5, so tomorrow we will just continue with day 6. There are 8 different 40-minute periods in a day--2 periods, then a 10-minute break, 2 more periods, lunch, 2 periods, 10-minute break, and then the last 2 periods. We will have a range of 4-6 classes (assuming the teachers show up) because about half of them are double or even triple periods. We have yet to see a day where all the teachers show up, and last Friday, one of the teachers left in the middle of a class (for good) to join the police!
~Roxy

Just to add to Roxy's entry, there are now 8 people in my form (3 girls, 5 boys) and 7 people in her form (2 girls and 5 boys). I think she's glad to have another girl in her form. People are very intrigued by my hair being blonde and want to touch it a lot.
It only takes about a half an hour to get back home in the afternoons without all the traffic. But, if it's a night when we're going to WITC, then we'll go there straight from school. It's not too far from the school, so sometimes we'll do some errands or something on the way, but still get to WITC around 3:00 or 4:00. The classes don't start until 5:00. Roxy and I bring clothes to change into from our uniforms and some games or something to occupy us while our parents are teaching. There's a lot of nice open grassy space there, and we don't have any sort of yard at home, so we usually bring a ball and play outside for a while. We also bring supper, but we usually try to be finished eating by 6:30 because it's dark by then, so we go into the library and do homework. The classes end at 8:00, so by the time we get home, which takes a little while, it's about bedtime.
When we aren't going to WITC, we come straight home after school. We do homework and practice instruments sometime after school. Last week, every night that was a non-WITC night, we either got invited to go somewhere or someone stopped by, so we kept pretty busy.
~Olivia

A lot of the day for Richard and I is spent in a combination of preparing for classes or other invitations, and in housework and errands. Housework and errands tend to take more time here than at home. Since we have lots of ants and no dishwasher, any use of dishes must immediately be washed. This lessens the ants somewhat, although around here, no building is ant-free. At least staying on top of things keeps away the big insects. Although the apartment here is much smaller than our home in Manhattan, we keep very busy with it. Laundry must be done almost every day because we only have a washer, not a dryer. In this humidity, most days it is difficult to dry more than one load on the line. Ironing is a much bigger deal here, especially for school uniforms. As for errands, well that is largely an issue of negotiating crazy traffic.
Our classes are going well too. It occurred to us that a load of 3 classes is usually considered a full load of teaching. So, here, like at home, it turns out that we are basically sharing one full time position. My classes grew this week. I gained one new student in my Wed. class and 4 in my Fri. class. I also was asked to present for one of the church small groups. So I explained spiritual direction and did lectio divina with them. That was fun.
~Barb

As you may be able to tell from the above posts, I spend a good portion of most days driving to and from school and running any errands that need to be done. While the school is only 10 miles from our apartment, it takes an hour and a quarter to get there each morning. Thankfully, it is usually only a half hour to get back home in the morning and a half hour or less each way in the afternoon.
I've gotten to the point where I can fairly easily find my way to and from the places where we go on a regular basis. Whenever I have to find something new, however, it is often challenging. There are relatively few street signs, and virtually no detailed maps. So far, I've been fortunate in that I haven't gotten completely lost.
~Richard

First Month in Trinidad

Today marks exactly one month since we touched down in Trinidad. With school starting for all of us this past week, we are finally beginning to establish a routine and settle into "normal" life.
We are continuing to make visits to each of the Mennonite churches of Trinidad in an attempt to get to know them all better. This morning we worshiped at Diego Martin Mennonite Church. The worship leader for the morning happened to be one of the students in my philosophy class--the only Mennonite student who is in any of the classes that either Barb or I are teaching. Diego Martin is located just the other side of Port of Spain (the capital city). This is the church that we will probably be spending most of our time attending, especially in the latter part of our term here. Pastor Rawl Gunpath will be on sabbatical starting in January, and we've been asked to help out at the church while he's gone. For now, though, there are still three more churches that we haven't visited. I've also been invited to preach sometime here at the Charlieville church, and am expecting to get similar invitations from at least one or two of the other churches as well.
~Richard

Last night, was the first time the youth group at Carlsen Field Mennonite Church met and Roxy and I were invited to go. There is always lots of singing at those kind of things, so we're starting to get to know some of the songs better, because most of them I didn't know before we came here. When we first got to the youth group, someone gave me a green plum. I've had green plums one other time while we were here, but I thought they were kind of weird. This time, there was a plate of salt, with slices of hot pepper on it. People tend to like really spicy things here. Anyone could just dip their plum in, and someone convinced me to try it. I just barely touched it to the pepper, and it was extremely spicy! I shouldn't be surprised anymore how spicy things here are, but I still am always surprised whenever I taste something really spicy. The rest of the youth group time was fun; we sang, had some devotions and played a game. And I'm getting to know some of the youth here better, too, which is good.
~Olivia

The second day of school seemed much easier than the first for me. For one thing, halfway through the day, they gave me a 'timetable', which is just a class schedule. So that was very useful! One of the reasons that this might turn out to be a better school than some is that they have some art or music type classes, which is not completely a given. And on Friday, I spent 5 out of 8 periods doing a class called VAPA, which is Visual And Performing Arts. I think that 2 of those 5 were actually supposed to be tech ed, but the same teacher does both, and so I guess that she just decided she would rather do VAPA at that point! We're making tea towels soon, so I spent nearly 2 and a half hours embroidering on Friday, and have also been spending a lot of time doing that this weekend for homework!
~Roxy

On Friday I taught the first session of my second class. Yes, here I will be teaching class every Friday evening this semester. This was my Marriage and Family class. About half the students were in my other class and several were in Richard's. Out of 8 students, we had 5 countries represented. I am really enjoying the teaching.
When we look back at our prayer list, it is amazing to see how each of our prayers has been answered. Our water leak was fixed earlier this week, we have renters, our internet is up and running which is really helpful in a variety of ways including preparation for class, the girls have found and started school and our teaching here has begun. It is amazing to know that so many of you have been praying for us. So for this week, let's just let our prayers be thanksgivings.
Barb

First Day of School

In the past 24 hours, all four of us started school!
After weeks of bureaucratic run-around, conflicting accounts of what we needed to do, and just plain waiting, we finally came to the conclusion that the only way that the girls were going to get into school at any time in the foreseeable future would be for us to enroll them in a private school. After calling around to schools in the phone book, we found one with very reasonable tuition that isn't too far away. It's a Pentecostal high school that is about a half hour drive away from here if the traffic is all right. This morning, however, we found that it took us about an hour and a quarter during rush hour. This meant that they arrived a little late for their first day of school. But, in true Trini fashion, that wasn't really a problem. I'll let the girls tell more about their first day below.
Yesterday evening was my first day teaching at West Indies Theological College (WITC). I had nine students in my Intro to Philosophy class, which is considered a rather large class for this school. The class included students from Barbados and Jamaica--and even one American--in addition to the Trinidadians who made up the majority. Although philosophy was not my first choice of classes to teach (and even though I didn't know I'd be teaching it until just over a week ago), I really enjoyed the class. I felt like I had something to contribute to the students. We also had some good lively discussions, which is exactly what I hope for in a philosophy class. I'm sure that I'll be learning a lot more than the students this semester.
~Richard

The school scheduled us so that Richard and I could be teaching a cless at the same time. In fact we teach in classrooms right next door to each other. Our classes run from 5:00-8:00 each Wednesday and then I have another on Friday evenings at that same time. We bring the girls with us and they spend some time just outside our rooms in the courtyard that all the rooms open to enjoying green space. There is no green space around our apartment, but the campus is really lovely, nestled in the mountains. Then, when it starts to get dark around 6:30, they spend the remainder of the evening in the library. They brought a DVD last night with the laptop.
The class I taught last night was Social Work Theory and Practice 2. The hardest thing about teaching it is that it is the second class in a series of 3. It is hard to get clear information about how far they went in the first section. So I spent last night getting to know my students and doing some assessment about what they had learned so far. My students are from Trinidad, Barbados and Guyana. I had 7 students. It was a good class. Everyone was very participatory in the discussion, which I loved. It is fun to dip my feet in the social work world again.
~Barb

Today was the first day of school for me. The school actually started on Tuesday, but there were other people coming in today. They said everyone should be there by Monday, so I don't think starting today really puts me behind. I think there are mainly 4 people in my form, at least today there were. More will probably come later. I got put into the business type classes mainly, which I'm not exactly sure why, but the business teacher is good, so I don't really mind. So, there were 2 boys and 2 girls including me. There were a few other people who were only in one of my classes, but those 4 people were in all of my classes. I'm still a little bit confused about what classes I'm suppposed to be taking. The classes the principal gave me don't completely match up with the classes that my form teacher gave me, so I mostly followed the other people in my class. I think in Trinidad, people tend to have a particular group of students they stay with, but different teachers instead of different students in each class, although there was a little of that too. Oh well. I'll figure it out after a while. But, I think it should be a good school if it's not too boring. It's very small, too.
~Olivia

Today I also started school at the same high school Olivia did. The name of it is PAWI (for Pentacostal Assemblies of the West Indies), and it is on the campus of a university that is called WIST-for West Indies School of Theology. (I think they pronounce PAWI sort of like pow-ee, but I can't be sure, because they seem to pronounce everything a little different than we do anyways!) I am in what they call form one here, and my class is me and 4 other boys. The boys are all 14, though. We had heard that there were going to be 10 people in my class, though, and we had also heard that school doesn't really start until Monday, so there may be more kids in my class by then! I was extremely confused all day, because they gave me no schedule, and in the afternoon none of my teachers showed up! So in the morning I had two long classes, but in the afternoon I just had one extremely long and fairly boring free time! It was interesting in math (which they call "mats"), because they seem to learn things in a different order than I did! There are some things that they were doing that didn't seem brand-new, but still stuff that they might have learned at the end of last year, but that I had done for much longer! But there were other things that seemed fairly new to them that were fairly new to me, too! It will be interesting to see how things are similar and how they're different! I hope that all my teachers are there tomorrow, though!
~Roxy

Youth camp and Independance Day

Youth Camp
Last Thursday afternoon, Olivia and I set out for Youth Camp. It is the only camp the Mennonite Churches offer all summer, and anyone from the ages of 12-25 may attend. We arrived in time for supper (which in this case means before 8:00) on Thursday, and stayed until Sunday mid-afternoon. There were 27 campers-12 girls and 15 boys. All the girls slept in one big (air-conditioned) room-including cooks and counselors. The same was true for the boys, except they had a different room from the girls. One of my favorite parts of Camp was Friday afternoon when we did games and swimming. In games, we started with an interesting version of football where there were 4 teams all playing at once in a tiny little area that didn't even have grass-it was just concrete! It was kind of strange also because I am not used to calling it football-I'm used to saying soccer instead! About halfway through it started pouring down rain, but we kept on playing just like nothing was happening! It was actually very fun to play in the rain! Then we played a game they called elephant trunk that I think was supposed to get us a little bit wet to cool us off, but we were all already soaking! Then lastly, we played cricket which was very interesting, because Olivia and I had never ever played cricket and had no idea how to! We told this to the people in charge and asked them if we should just watch for this reason, and they told us that we could watch the first 2 teams play and then when our 2 teams played, we could play with them then. We enjoyed playing, but both agreed that watching was still more fun. It was funny to watch when they hit the ball because there seemed to be no out-of-bounds, even if they hit it backwards, and it was really funny to watch the two people run back and forth between the two different spots! After all that, we went swimming, but it seemed to have almost no point because everybody was drenched anyways! But it had cleared off by that point and so the pool was very enjoyable anyways.
~Roxy

I thought one of the most interesting parts of Youth Camp was Saturday night. I had heard there was going to be a banquet then but I had no idea it was going to be a big fancy thing. Roxy and I hadn't brought any nice clothes because no one told us to, and we're used to going to Camp Mennoscah where they say specifically not to bring nice clothes because there will be no dress occassions. So, what happened was that the guys were supposed to ask the girls to go with them to the banquet. Everyone dressed up, except Roxy and I. Roxy did my hair so it looked pretty, though. And hers too. So, we all went out and met the guys under a little gazebo type area. When our guy came, they would escort us into the place where we had our meals. Everyone was there taking pictures and there was music in the background. After the meal, there was a slide show of pictures first from last year and then ones from this year at youth camp. Then we went for dessert. The funny part was that Roxy and I both got asked in the pool. After Roxy got asked, she said okay, but then had to go ask someone what his name was. I knew my date a little better than she knew hers. For one thing, his sister who was 7, really wanted me to go with him and had been making that clear to me over the course of the day. Plus I had gone to his youth group earlier. Some of the other highlights of the camp were: getting to meet other youth here, learning some new songs, and the talent show we had on the last day where I got the part of the gunman.
~Olivia

Happy Independance Day! That's what today is in Trinidad. So everyone has the day off. Tonight we are planning to go to the capital city and watch the fireworks. We made brownies today so we would have snacks to take. Luckily someone left a cookbook here. Richard and I spent part of the time at the youth camp. Richard was asked to preach there on Sunday morning. Part of the time we were at home. We've been trying to prepare for the clesses we will be teaching. Our understanding is that classes begin at the college on Wednesday. So far no word on what days or times we will be teaching. We'll call again tomorrow.
~Barb

Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us. We are very happy to say that our prayers for our house in Kansas to be rented have been answered! A family will be moving in this week. We also have our own high speed Internet access in our apartment now. We've had to make a few calls to get everyone set up right, but as of this afternoon, it seems to be functioning as it should.
The other prayer issues mentioned in our last post continue to be concerns. We had been told that the water line would be repaired by the end of last week, but it hasn't. Since today is a holiday, we hope to have it fixed in the next day or two.
School for the girls also continues to be a major concern. Classes start tomorrow, but they still haven't been accepted by the Ministry of Education to attend a government supported school. We are looking at some private school options as well right now. We hadn't budgeted for those costs, but with our house rented we would hopefully have finances available to cover such costs. We pray that we might hear from the Education Ministry soon and be able to make good choices for the girls.
~Richard

Last Sunday, Maracas Beach, WITC & FAQ

August 26, 2009
On Sunday, we visited Carlsen Field Mennonite Church, the 2nd church we've visited. There were lots of youth there. It's a pretty new church, so there were only a little over 20 people there, and probably about half of them were youth. It was also youth Sunday, (they lead the service once a month) so that was kind of cool. We went to Sunday School there, too. Afterward, we went to a neighbor's house for lunch. There were lots of cute puppies there, and a little baby, too. Plus they had good food! Then Roxy and I went to the youth group at Hope Mennonite Church. We wanted to get to know some of the other kids here, because we're planning to go to youth camp with them. While we were there, we sang, Roxy got wrapped up in toilet paper, we had a bible study time, and we played what I've heard called wink'em, but they didn't mention the name of it. We had supper at Babes and Ramesh's house with the work team. Avi, their son, showed us the art he does, the airbrush. That was the last night the work team was here.
~Olivia

On Tuesday, our family went to Maracas Beach. That is the beach that everyone has recommended to us as a really nice beach. There, they sell Bake and Shark. There were a million different stands with different names like Mona's Bake and Shark, Delsie's Bake and Shark, Mom's Bake and Shark...We went to Richard's Bake and Shark. Not just because Daddy's name is Richard, but when the work team went to Maracas, they recommended it to us! The bake is like fry bread, and then they give you a couple pieces of deep-fried shark inside the bake. Then you go through a long line and choose your toppings-they had lots of stuff, from ketchup to coleslaw to some sort of fruit. Even though I really, really, really do not like fish, the shark and bake was actually pretty good.
Then for a couple of hours, we just played in the ocean or on the sand. By the end, though, there was a really big undertow. It was a little bit scary, but the beach was still really fun. But the worst part was getting there! We had to go over a mountain since it is on the north coast of Trinidad, and there were a lot of switchbacks and up and down, and there wasn't always a fence thing on the side of the road! But playing at the beach made it all worth it.
~Roxy

On the morning of the day we went to the beach, we traveled to WITC where Richard and I will be teaching to learn more about our classes and explore their library. I had learned the day before that in addition to teaching a class on Marriage and Family they also wanted me to teach Theory and Practice of Social Work II. While there we learned that the Homiletics class that Richard was planning on did not have enough students enrolled and so would be canceled. Instead he was assigned to teach Intro to Philosophy. We are still waiting to hear what days we will be teaching and how many students we will have. Richard is also waiting for them to locate a copy of the text. Classes begin next week.

While preparation is requiring a fair bit of flexibility on our part, I am so pleased that the school wants to have us teach. The campus is near the mountains on the north coast. It is beautiful there. There are mango and avocado and almond trees there. I always seem to find a way to mention food.

Prayer requests for this week include getting regular water restored and remembering all those around the world without access to water, finding renters for our house in Manhattan, getting high speed internet at home, finding a school for the girls and that our ministry here can be fruitful.
~Barb

Several people have emailed questions to us. I'll try to answer them as best I can:

• Do you have to share your apartment with all those people for a year? No. The team that was here last week came for ten days to help with Bible school at one of the churches. It's possible that there will be other groups or individuals who come down to Trinidad for short-term assignments who will stay with us temporarily. However, most of the time it is just our family in the apartment.
• Is the lack of water a common thing or do you have to ration your water supply? Running out of water is not common. It is the result of a leak in the water main that supplies the church property. Once that's repaired, we shouldn't have a problem. Until then, we are very grateful that our next door neighbor has allowed us to run a hose from his place to refill the big storage tanks that serve our apartment.
• Is it beginning to feel like home or are you still feeling like you are on vacation? We are gradually adapting to life here in Trinidad. We are busy enough with getting ready for school and other ministry assignments that it certainly isn't "vacation." We are getting more comfortable finding our way around, shopping and completing other daily tasks. But every day also brings new learnings as well.
  
• Has your Manhattan house rented yet? No it hasn't. This continues to be a major prayer item for us, as we planned on having that income to cover our mortgage while we were gone.
• You mention rain a lot suggesting a lot of humidity. How does that compare with humidity you experienced in Kansas? This is the wet season in Trinidad, so it rains almost every day. Usually we only get a fairly small shower in the afternoon, but some days we've had pouring rain that caused flooding in areas. This does indeed make for very high humidity--much higher than we normally experience in Kansas.
• Your phone number looks like a regular US phone number. Can we call it just like regular, or are there international charges? The Caribbean is divided into area codes just like the U.S. & Canada. So you can call us simply by dialing 1 plus the ten digit number. Be aware, however, that international rates will apply.
  
• Did you get enough donations to cover expenses? Thanks to many generous people, our budget for the year is in pretty good shape. We have not yet, however, raised 100% of the support for the entire year. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so through either Virginia Mennonite Missions or Mennonite Mission Network.

It's great to hear from so many of you. I hope this helps explain a bit more about what's happening with us.
~Richard