Out of Jamaica and Into Trinidad

Okay so even for me this was a short turnaround but it was actually quite nice to come back from Jamaica on Thursday and have three or so days at home before launching off to Trinidad on Sunday/Monday - rather than just being a road warrior for a month at a time like I did last summer. You get to do the laundry, check in with friends and family, and chase around several bouncing balls of work details (and miss quite a few of them - it is only three days after all). But when I was booking this trip the reality was that its really quite difficult to fly from Jamaica to Trinidad without going back to Miami so back to Miami I went last Thursday but not before having one more excellent Jamaican adventure.

Phillip Supersad, potter/drummer extraordinaire and my guide down to Trenchtown last Tuesday had just enough time before my flight to show me his studio in downtown Kingston so we met up at the National Gallery so he could drive so I would not get completely lost one more time on the one way roads. His ceramics studio and drum-making workshop is tucked into a courtyard opposite the big building of the Jamaica Gleaner, the national newspaper, and actually used to be one of the teaching facilities for the Jamaica School of Art before it was all consolidated at the Edna Manley College.

Super's got several kilns (electric, raku, stoneware reduction), a couple of wheels, lots of pots and sculptures in process, and lots of work going on with wood and goatskin for drums in various stages of production. 

But the coolest thing was watching/listening to him play one of his entirely ceramic percussion instruments (see picture below) and I really wish I knew how to load video into this blog because I have about 45 seconds of great sound. When I was at FGCU on Friday I had the opportunity to show it to several faculty members in the School of Music and they were just as impressed as I was. So I'm hoping that we can put together a workshop next year to bring him up to make and play ceramic and skin drums, maybe include the clay whistles and ocarinas, maybe bring in someone like Brian Ransom from Eckerd College who makes lots of ceramic instruments - who knows, we'll see what can be done but it all sounds like a great time.

Sunday evening we - me, Jan Erickson, and Ellen Boliek - piled into Jan's car after Ellen got off work and headed into Miami to the rather dubious but ultimately quite comfortable Comfort Inn and Suites airport park and fly hotel and the next morning were duly transported to MIA to catch our 9:45am flight to Port of Spain, Trinidad. Everything went completely according to plan, landed on time, changed money, got yet another local SIM card for my phone, recovered the bags, picked up the Alamo rental car, and drove approximately one tenth of a mile to the first available 'doubles' stand because I could not in good conscience introduce Jan and Ellen to Trinidad without first eating this national fast food delight (pictures to follow - as Ellen just said we know there will be more doubles). In brief, you take two little circular saffron-infused pancake-y breads, slap them onto a piece of wax paper, dump on a spoonful of curried chickpeas, add chutney made from mango or 'pomme cythere', sauces made from 'chadon beni' and hot peppers, a little pickled cucumber, squish it together and wrap it up by spinning together the corners of the wax paper and for just about 60 US cents you have a perfectly gorgeous, messy, drippy, really tasty snack. Ellen says "hot and spicy and really good", Jan says "yummy".

Well fed, off we went in our nice cream-colored Nissan through the very congested roads from the airport to Tunapuna, a very congested town that merges into St. Augustine, home to the University of the West Indies (and a really good and famous doubles stand for later) and we took the twisty winding road straight up the hill and out of the congestion to the ethereal peace and quiet of the Catholic Church, monastery, and seminary on Mount St. Benedict - and the Pax Guest House.

I stayed here a few times before on my previous trips to Trinidad, its just lovely with old dark furniture, incredible light and breezes through the huge windows, terrific food, and utterly spectacular views out across central Trinidad.

Our 'living room'

Jan and Ellen, my travel buddies and research assistants

So we got checked in and dumped our stuff and walked up the hill until the road ended; the grounds of the guest house and monastery complex are very beautiful, giant trees, gorgeous flowers, little bats zooming around in the gathering dusk. Quite a number of supernaturally fit Trinidadians were jogging their way up the mountain at the end of the day (very impressed) and at the top we watched the sun fall into the sea behind Port of Spain.

Okay so that's my report on local color and now its back to the agenda - going to see potters ! It looks like the clouds are clearing out enough to drive (it rained like crazy last night) so we're headed down the hill to see what we can see.