Posts tagged “trinidad”

At 17, I anonymously published a coming-out article in a Trinidad newspaper that unexpectedly filled my inbox with hundreds of emails from closeted locals, sparking a mailing list and real-world community. Ten years later, I'm sharing the original piece, cringe-worthy condescension and all.

I mapped Trinidad against San Francisco and the Bay Area: they're roughly the same size, meaning my daily commute to Sunnyvale crosses most of my home country. Also, I'm now 243 miles closer to Trinidad than when I lived in London.

My Trinidadian number can send but not receive international texts. Use my UK number instead. Also, still hot and sunny.

Lost to England, but we had them worried for 82 minutes.

I love London but Trinidad is home in a way Britain never quite will be. I daydream about returning, fixing the country's mess, raising kids in sunshine with room to roam. But I'm not ready yet, and being gay there is literally illegal. For now: undecided.

Trinidad's PM Manning claims to know who's behind four bombings but admits he has no courtroom-worthy evidence. That's not knowing anything. Don't grandstand about "Mr Big" when you can't back it up. Embarrassing.

After five years in the UK, I thought I'd blended in well enough. Then I asked a colleague to use a "common letter" instead of a capital, and discovered that apparently only Trinidad still uses that term for lowercase letters. Makes me wonder what other oddities I've been casually deploying for years.

My brothers and I surprised our dad at his 60th birthday party by performing an extempo calypso covering his life, carrying on a family tradition he started. Here are the lyrics, in case you asked for them. You'll need to be Trinidadian to get most of the jokes.

My dad and I drove to the Mayaro coast on Trinidad's east side. I learned about coconuts floating ashore from a shipwreck, saw mangroves, and discovered that Crix crackers are beloved by Trinis despite being genuinely terrible. Also: chaotic maxi taxis and my dad's obscene BMW.

Photos from the tiny islands off Trinidad's northwest tip, where I spent much of my childhood. Highlights include a former leprosy colony now swallowed by forest, Venezuela visible across the water, and swimming in bizarrely vivid green water. I also tried to improve my composition. Mostly failed.

Visited the Asa Wright Nature Centre with my mom today, which was pleasant but slightly wasted on two locals who already knew everything our guide was telling the tourists. I also took some photos of Trinidad's stunning, relentless jungle. Fruit grows everywhere here without anyone even trying.

I've helped another Trinidadian school friend, Colin, start a blog. Three days in and he's already covering all the bases. Meanwhile, I'm barely blogging myself lately. Still alive, just swamped.

The Trini blogosphere just exploded for me thanks to Jonathan Ali, who led me to a whole network of local bloggers. With a recent Guardian article on blogging, maybe we'll soon have enough of us to overthrow the government through sheer intellectual arrogance.

This blog is turning into a superset of my other two. Highlights: a Hand Puppet Movie Theatre parody of Lord of the Rings where everyone's gay, and BBC Radio 1 Xtra broadcasting from Trinidad Carnival, so I can stream it and not totally miss out this year.

I hate winter. I'm distracted by Trinidad's warm webcam, wondering what sufferin' succotash actually means, and questioning why Clinton is still everywhere. The web answers everything except why Bush Sr. and Reagan got more peace and quiet.

I found errors in the BBC's Trinidad profile: their map is wrong and they misidentified Tobago's capital. Also, Sun's Java docs calling a DOM a "garden-variety tree" is idiotic. A tree is a tree, not a data structure.

I attended St. Mary's College in Trinidad and hated every minute of it. Crumbling facilities, Catholic indoctrination, non-Catholic students used as unpaid groundskeepers, a culture of universal mutual hostility, and a teaching staff composed almost entirely of incompetents and burnouts. Sadly, it's still one of the better schools in the country.