Debbie's Glass

My friend Debbie is a very talented artist. These are just a few of her pieces. Her sense of colour and shape is beautiful.

Glass is a challenging medium but also an extremely rewarding one. Colour becomes translucent and vivid. I like glass - stained glass, mosaics, blown glass - I like the idea of controlling a medium that has the potential to be fragile, beautiful, and dangerous. It's no secret that I'm drawn to organic shapes but I also crave an underlying symmetry. Perhaps this is the reason her work appeals to me. Despite the rigidity of the glass, there is a fluidity of shape and colour that makes me happy.
I love the little cups of folly above. Little breakable blooms.

Chutney Garden 2

It was strange having a garden blog with no garden. When I moved out of my house in February, it was sad because the garden as I knew it will never exist again. I am really glad that I documented so much. It will be lovely once we have completed the renovations and I have managed to save a lot. But the fringe benefit was that I got to start all over again with a new space in my rental home. When I arrived here, there was no garden per se but lots of space. The house belongs to my godparents and I knew it well as a child. My godfather grew hybrid hibiscus and it was nice to start developing the space again. Almost all of what I have grown has either come from the old house or has been grown by piece or seed on site.
The fruit trees are an exception. The garden has a lovely cocoa tree which is constantly raided by the squirrels and the parrots, we also have a superb pollock avacado tree, a big julie mango, a sapodilla, a lime, and a soursop tree.



These are just a few of things that were in bloom this morning. I was shooting with the 50mm, 1.8 lens but it really was too bright. Everything is just slightly blown out. But I quite like the boozy feel.

This orchid is on my porch. It is new. I can't help myself when it comes to orchids, but looking after them is a bit like baking. It requres a lot of precision which I do not always have. So when I do have an orchid in bloom, it's a big thing!

Orchids in context

It's not hard to see why I love orchids. Orchids belong to the jungly, over-heated place that identifies where I live and where I come from. As simple as that. They belong to the land that I have claimed as my own. It's the only home that I know intimately. Several of these orchids are are indigenous to Trinidad. The delicate purple one above is Encyclia bractescens.


Above is the famous Oncidium lanceanum or the Cedros bee. If there ever was a poster child for the orchid world to warn against over-collecting from the wild, it would be this orchid. Once commonly found growing on the south-western peninsula of Trinidad, hence the name Cedros bee, it is now, very nearly extinct. Over collecting of this little treasure dates back to WWII when American service-men recognised the value of the plant and thousands were removed from their natural habitat and shipped to America to satisfy a growing orchid market.
The Cedros bee reminds me of our connection to the south American mainland. When I look at it I wonder how it first came to be growing here and I wonder if it crossed from the mainland centuries ago with early Tainos and capybaras. It resonates with history of my island. So if you happen to come across it growing wild somewhere in Trinidad. Enjoy it but don't take it home.


Another beauty that I met in orchid collector Sandy Gibson's garden. Lc. Flertie x Encyclia cordigera. She looks like her name - flirty.

Epidendrum stamgotianum is another frilly, flirty beauty. The true shock of an orchid is that the blooms emerge from the most unassuming, often hostile-looking foliage. The discovery of an orchid in bloom has all the excitement of a newly unwrapped present.
This is the orchid that I think of when I imagine deep, cool rivers in the forest. Zygosepalum labiosum.
And one of my favorites. I have never been able to grow it but it is still found fairly commonly in the wild. The virgin orchid. Caularthron bicornutum. The centre looks like the Virgin Mary. She is perfect with her yellow centre and mauve freckles.

Why We Live Here

Trinidad is a complicated home. But when someone picks up a cuatro on a jetty down the islands and begins to sing old time calypsoes, a very tangible patriotism reminds us of what makes us all Trinidadian.
Thanks to Laughing Gull for the lyrics below. Click on the lyrics to see more of where this came from.

By Lord Funny (1966)

Foreigners always asking me
Why in Trinidad people so happy
What to do, man I have to tell them de truth
Ah say, a man could sleep until 10 o clock
Get up and still he eh late for wuk
------------- walk
He getting transport in front he door.
And is poke a poke, dey going all day
And on pay day still draw a big fat pay
If they like, they could call a big strike.

Chorus:
So ah tell dem, sweet, sweet Trinidad
Fus ah love dis country bad
I doh want to leave at all
Ever since ah small
Look ah bawling, sweet, sweet Trinidad
Brother, fus a feeling glad
When ah dead, please bury me
In de center ah de city.

We got we big oilfields just in the South
We have all kind ah tings to talk about
No regret, you just have to get up and get
And anytime tings a little bad
Man, you have a garden in yuh backyard
And doh doubt, the food almost in yuh mouth
We got women, colour class or creed
Any kind of a woman they you need
You could bet, the sweetest woman you could get.

Chorus:
So ah tell you, sweet, sweet Trinidad
Fus ah love dis country bad
I doh want to leave at all
Ever since ah small
Look ah bawling, sweet, sweet Trinidad
Brother, fus a feeling glad
When ah dead, please bury me
In de center ah de city.

In Trinidad, crime doh pay
No, it cyah happen down here no day
And of course, we got de brilliant Police Force
Dem young fellahs, dey eh want no wuk
Man dey liming and feting ‘round de clock
And yes friend, dey always have money to spend.
Dem beggars, wey de want a house for
When dey could sleep in front ah any store
And if you see the beautiful city!

Chorus:
Sweet, sweet Trinidad
Fus ah love dis country bad
I doh want to leave at all
Ever since ah small
Look ah bawling, sweet, sweet Trinidad
Brother, fus a feeling glad
When ah dead, please bury me
In de center ah de city.

We got steelband music, sweet fuh so
And doh talk about we sweet calypso
Bacchanal when it come to the Carnival
And if you see how de island progressing
Every day is new plans that they making
Sun or rain, men down here---they got brain
Man, if I got to tell you ‘bout here
It going to take me more than a year
As you see, a happiness killin’ we.

Chorus:
So ah tell you, sweet, sweet Trinidad
Fus ah love dis country bad
I doh want to leave at all
Ever since ah small
Look ah bawling, sweet, sweet Trinidad
Brother, fus a feeling glad
When ah dead, please bury me
In de center ah de city.

Chacachacare

Chacachacare is the largest of the small islands that lie off the northwestern coast of Trinidad. It has an interesting history as leper colony. The original Leprosarium was located at Cocorite but with the discovery in the early 20th century that leprosy was, in fact, contagious, the colonial authorities moved to establish an "off-shore" leper colony on the relatively remote island. According to Fr. Anthony de Verteuil's "Western Isles"... In spite of many protests, the Colonial Authorities pressed on with the project. On May 20th 1921, paper no.58 was laid before the legislative council for the removal of the Cocorite Leper Asylum to the island of Chacachacare.
Today the island is eerie and deserted. With the advent of antibiotics to treat Hansen's Disease or Leprosy, the Leprosarium returned its last boatload of patients to the mainland on July 24th 1984. The island has taken back the buildings but many have held on tenaciously with the fretwork panels and staircases still intact.
We used to visit the island very often in the early 1990's and explore to our hearts' content. All the beds remained in the wards and patient records lay in their folders. The entire place had the feel of a deserted city. But it is almost all gone.
Despite the beauty of Chacachacare, it is not hard to imagine the misery suffered by the patients separated from their loved ones and banished for a lifetime. The patient's cemetery has been reclaimed by the forest and is now difficult to find.
The jetty still stands with its galvanised roof now frilly and decorative with age.
The history of the Dominican Nuns in Trinidad is closely linked to the care of lepers in Trinidad. These nuns were the primary caregivers of the lepers dating back to 1868. It was natural that they would move to the island and form the backbone of the small colony.
When we visited last month, we we able to find the small Nun's Cemetery that pays tribute to these selfless women who lived and died on the island. Many of the nuns were originally from France with others coming from Madeira. De Verteuil's "Western Isles" tells us that at the death of a sister it was customary that a steamer went round the bay of Chacachacare with its flag flying at half-mast and when passing in front of Marine Bay, blew its siren three times as a sign of sympathy with the sisters' bereavement


Today the bays are deserted and beautiful. There are many stories about these islands. One of the more popular ones is that the Coast Guard had set up a small security post on Chacachacare in the late 1990's. After a very short period, the officers refused to stay claiming that the island was haunted by the nuns. We can only hope that the ghosts of nuns are an equally strong deterrent to errant smugglers and mischief makers.
On the day that we visited, all the Savonetta trees were in bloom as they usually are in August and the sea was full of the lilac blooms. This is also the time of year that the yellow butterflies make their way from the mainland and can be seen coming across the sea in drifting colonies.
The doctors house is now in ruins.But one can still sense how beautiful it must have been in its heyday.
Dr. Wilfred Urich was one of the first doctors to live permanently on the island, in Rust's Bay. His children lived on the island with him until they were old enough to go to school. In all Dr. Urich spent 16 years on the island.