Expatriates in Trinidad and Tobago

Made in USA

I have been working now and then with expatriate (expat) engineers with many foreign accents in Trinidad and Tobago for several years and the one thing I can say about these mostly male engineers is that they experience Trini culture and women to the fullest. I am not sure how truthful these expats are but most say they are either divorced or single and I suppose that’s why they can safely work away from home with a local woman for so long.

Trinidad Barbecue Chicken

Locals think of expats as those foreigners who build something in Pt. Lisas while shacking up with bar girls in an apartment in Westmoorings. The public even feel expats leave their mark in more places than the Industrial Estates in the form of children who resemble but are forgotten by them. I can’t say for sure about expats leaving their mark in that way in modern Trinidad and Tobago as Trini women are not easy to fool or forget since our girls are educated and look at plenty cable TV. I get the impression expats see local women as one reason for enduring the constant threat of bullet or stab wounds in guarded condos in Westmoorings. Only a few years ago, when there were tonnes of Irish men in Trinidad and Tobago, our country lost some good women through love and migration to these Guinness-drinking, party maniacs. The Irish presence now seems to be down to a trickle.

Local Dasani Water

Expats are not always a bad influence as they are largely responsible for the steak and beer sections in Westmooring’s Hi-Lo and the Trojan and sex-toy section in Westmooring’s SuperPharm. Our local Expats love bottled water because they were taught in Expat School that the locals know as much as US citizens about clean running water. Because they speak with foreign accents, expats are considered by locals to be experts in their field but this typically turns out to be not so and most are just ordinary engineers cloaking their stupidity with foreign accents and local girls in short skirts.

It is a fact we need some foreign staff in Trinidad and Tobago to build aluminum, ammonia, urea, and methanol plants, but we would prefer competent expats rather than ones sent for cosmetic reasons, only sucking up local resources and women.

Hello Money, Money, Money

Dear aka_lol,

You have just been awarded, £750,000,00 GBP in the TOYODA AWARD, send us your info for claims

Names:……..
Address:……
Country:……
Sex/Tel…….

Sincerely,
Tatiana.Deliagina

Soon, very, very soon aka would be saying good bye to all the small and poor people, and hello to the big and better people. My luck has finally changed and it had to do more with saying the right prayer in the right way than getting something from a government contract from an undisclosed contact. My wealth will not be based on raiding casino vaults or the bribing of officials to allow my shipments through. My wealth will not even come from laundering with a grocery or stabbing for a Blackberry. My wealth will come from above via Gmail.

Now that I almost have the wealth I can look for a high-rise apartment in Miami since nobody with any sense and money want to live in this hell-hole, especially if you win a lottery or into big robbery. I now know what it feels like to be rich – independent of this land of Commission of Enquiry. Now that I have some money I could set up a little company and rub the bigwigs’ shoulders. I have to let them know my one-day-old company could build box drain, cut grass and build overpass. This will be just the foreplay before I screw the country. So what if people live in water in a shed. Is it my fault they poor and live to dead?  Well, ok, maybe one day I will give the poor a little thing but only if ah sure God looking.

Portrait of a Puppy

Brownie, through the eyes of a Pentax

Two month-old Brownie looks at the photographer and wonders why a Pentax and not a Nikon or Canon. Though everything is new to Brownie she is already like most of the world and thinks in terms of  Nikon and Canon, not Pentax and only occasionally Olympus and Sony (formerly Minolta). Like most of the planet, Brownie’s mind is shaped by ads, product placement in movies and hearsay, not on the truth about glass , dynamic range or water proof seals.

But for a moment she forgets the commercial world of cameras as she sees  the photographer is using a Pentax smc P-FA 50mm 1:1.4 lens . Brownie is now more interested in what f-stop the lens is set. She is relieved to learn it’s f4.5 so her pose lasting 1/60th of a second, an eternity in a puppy’s life, might not have been wasted.

Is her portrait underexposed, she wonders. Could it have been sharper? Is it JPG or RAW? Why no tripod? She is asking the questions of the innocent but will soon learn photography is like life where there are so many questions and no right answers, only possibilities.

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An Interview with Chennette

Check out  Chennette’s interview on Amazing Trinidad Vacations. Chennett has developed the tasty and unique blog, Lifespan of a Chennette, with recipes, comments, and photographs about mainly local and Caribbean food. Chennette also includes foreign foods she experienced on her frequent travels to far off lands such as Turkey, Barbados and Grenada. According to Chennette she is “a Trini currently living and working in Guyana, with the good fortune of being able to hop around some of the beautiful places in the Caribbean, all the while learning how to use my camera.”

Producing Productivity in Trinidad and Tobago

Productivity – A country’s productivity is usually measured by the country’s GDP per hours worked.

GDP – Measuring GDP is complicated (which is why we leave it to the economists), but at its most basic, the calculation can be done in one of two ways: either by adding up what everyone earned in a year (income approach), or by adding up what everyone spent (expenditure method). Logically, both measures should arrive at roughly the same total. ~ Investopedia

Productivity isn’t everything but in the end it is almost everything. A country’s ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker. ~ Paul Krugman

Short skirts in the workplace has been shown to boost productivity by boosting attendance. ~ aka_lol

Prime Minister Patrick Manning said the country’s productivity has been falling for the last five years and though I didn’t have the figures to prove it I had a gut feeling it was so since everybody I knew was either stuck in traffic or flood during productive times.  The Prime Minister is saying we citizens were being paid more and more over those five years but we produced less and less. I feel a sense of shame because of this. What The Prime Minister didn’t say was people were being paid more and more for one of several reasons –  to avoid starvation due to inflation, to go apartment shopping in Miami or to help win elections. The Prime Minister also said in his speech to launch the Productivity Council that citizens must work harder and come to work on time – the answers are always so simple.

So we need to produce more corn curls, Crix and painted stones (aka GDP) per man per hour.  How we in Trinidad and Tobago achieve more productivity will not be easy since UDECOTT is already spending efficiently and the new helicopters will produce more than just dust in we face. The Parliamentarians are taking the lead and agreed to a much deserved wage freeze but will produce more hot air in return. All these efforts must be commended but I am mostly hoping the 15-man Productivity Council has enough productive members to produce a productive report worth producing at a competitive price.

Venezuela Wins Miss Universe While Other Countries Blog

Stefania Fernandez - Miss Universe 2009

If you see one Miss Venezuela, you have seen a future Miss Universe. I am not saying Venezuelan beauties are superior since I prefer Colombians and Trinis but Venezuela is a country that not only has many nationals now living in Trinidad because of Chavez but Venezuela takes the sport of competitive beauty to a new level. Venezuela is to beauty what Jamaica is to track and field.

Miss Venezuela, Stefania Fernandez, was crowned Miss Universe yesterday and she took over from former Miss Venezuela and 2008 Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza.  That means Miss Venezuela won the Miss Universe Competition two years straight. Naturally, some people said the judges were biased and by Venezuela wining two years in a row it makes the competition more blogable and hence more popular. The popularity of events and celebrities are now being rated by the amount of blog space they occupy rather than those transient TV ratings. By Venezuela winning for two consecutive years it  makes it less likely Miss Venezuela will win in 2010. I am sorry for the next Miss Venezuela.

Gabrielle Walcott Miss Trinidad and Tobago2008 entrant in the Miss World pageant placed as the 2nd runner-up

I didn’t look at the Miss Universe competition because I am protesting Trinidad and Tobago’s inability to send a contestant to the competition this year. This is a serious issue and I think we have a very unpatriotic private sector that mainly makes money from importing items in 40-foot containers then selling these items at a markup. The private sector in Trinidad and Tobago cannot be considered creative or even smart since they don’t understand sponsoring beauty is like sponsoring natural gas – a natural resource.  Maybe the private sector is reeling for the recession or from buying houses in Miami but I still consider most of private sector companies unpatriotic but not all. I am not saying the government should take over the funding of the competition since that would give the competition a political slant locally. We could do without politicizing the one beautiful thing left in the country, beautiful women.

Valene Maharaj - Miss Trinidad and Tobago World 2007 title holder, and Miss World of the Caribbean for 2007

Trinidad and Tobago will do well to remember that Venezuela is obsessed with beauty and understand that natural talent can only get you so far and to go further a competitive beauty must be literally sculpted to perfection. Being born with a good butt or ample bosoms is not enough anymore and you also have to train your body parts to walk on stage without showing nerves. Forget what token  question they ask at the end since looking good trumps intelligence every day.

With every generation the beauty of a nation increases as more and more beautiful people are linking up via Internet Chat rooms and Carnivals bands. Surely there will come a time when human beauty will be saturated and perfection would have been reached. I think we are far from that time since less attractive people are still mating with each other due to the abundance of cheap beer and poor lighting at fetes.

Time Traveler’s Wife – A Male Butt Movie

Some might say Time Traveler’s Wife is a Chick Flick since is contains more male nudity than any movie in my recent memory. The reason for the mostly backside male nudity has to do with the fact that people can travel back and forth in time but not their clothes. This quirk makes it embarrassing for the time traveler when he arrives at some random destination at some random time; usually near a clothes store. For this reason I don’t recommend women pick up time travel even as a hobby since women are fussier about clothes than men.

Time travel at random and unpredictable times makes for a mushy love story with some blood and minor sex scenes. Time Travelers Wife (formerly a book) is also a movie containing good looking actresses and actors, Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. Beauty had to be an important part of this movie because love stories with ugly people are on their way out since there is too much ugliness in the world and on the streets as it is. It’s hard to say if the Time Traveler’s wife is a tear-jerker but at Movietowne the lights went on later than normal at the end  so I couldn’t say for sure. I heard some coughing  but that might be mostly people trying to finish their popcorn.

Yes, I would recommend you go see Time Travelers Wife if you are a guy with the need to impress a chick and she will be impressed if she goes with you. You will not only impress her it will give her a famous butt she can compare your sorry butt to. Rachel McAdams‘s butt wasn’t too bad either.

Trinidad Plum

Trinidad Plum

I don’t know if the common Trinidad plum is Spondias radlkoferi, Carissa macrocarpa or Spondias Purpurea but is doesn’t matter since nobody cares. The common plum in Trinidad and Tobago bears around July and August which caused that time of the year to be called plum season. These common plums come in two varieties, sour and not so sour when green, but when ripe they could get worms. The common plums can be eaten as is but in Trinidad and Tobago they are often eaten  with a bit of salt and a couple bird peppers or even pepper sauce if you live in the city. The more adventurous are likely to make plum chow which is made with plum, salt, plenty pepper, and a bit of water to coat everything. The plum is sliced so help absorb the seasoned mixture. People have been known to shed tears and use foul language when the chow’s hotness (Scoville Heat Scale) exceeds the person’s tolerance for hotness.

There is a bigger and juicer plum in Trinidad and Tobago called Governor plum but these are hardly ever seen in public or ever admit to being wrong. I think Governor plum is highly overrated and mostly a cosmetic plum drawing a big salary.

Testing for Sex

Why would it take weeks to determine if Caster Semenya, winner of the women’s 800 meter race at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, is a man or a woman? Did someone see something that cannot be identified without a microscope and a scientist? Is looking a thing of the past? Would there be sex test kits in pharmacies soon?  This might just be the tip of the iceberg and maybe we should have  all Miss Universe and Miss World contestants tested for sex, including all past winners. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that the woman you had a crush on all those years was really a pretty man with shaved legs.

Wise Men over the years have said if she talks like a woman, looks like a woman, cleans house like a woman, drives like a woman, have headaches like a woman and nags like a woman then she must be a woman. Why is 18-yerar-old Caster Semenya being tested for woman but Usain Bolt not being tested for man? Is Usain Bolt even human? Do the test IAAF maybe Bolt is from Uranus and not Jamaica. How can The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) test one athlete for sex but not the others? If Caster Semenya came last would the IAAF still be testing and the Americans still complaining? Time will tell if Caster is really a woman but if she is not then very soon children will have something like this on their birth certificates “Female, pending outcome of test and results of race.”

Hurricane Names for 2009 – Including Hurricane Bill

2009 Hurricane Names

By the time you read this blog post, if you ever read it, Hurricane Bill might be a category 4 or 5, which means your house, land, car, Julie mango tree, and love life would be in serious danger if hit by such a hurricane. The good news is that Bill is not going to seriously affect any land masses or insurance companies. Update 19th August, 2009 @601 p.m – Bill is now a categoery 4 and may affect Bermuda, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.

• Hurricane Bill Coastal Watches/Warnings and 5-Day Track Forecast Cone

I did some research using Google, not Bing, and came up with a list of Hurricane/Storm names to be used in 2009. As usual, the names may offend some while numbing others into sleepy indifference. I doubt my name will ever be used for a Hurricane since Hurricane Aka sounds placid and even good looking. I list the names for the season below along with comments frivolous comments.

Ana – I know a couple Anas and who knows if they can be stormy. But all women go through the phase Depression, Storm, Hurricane, and in just five minutes. Bill – I know a William who is never called Bill or pays it. Brilliant Hurricane name – Kill Bill Claudette – I don’t think I ever knew one even in a novel Danny – I know a Danny and he is the least destructive person I know when not drinking Erika – Nope, no Ericas except for Eric’s daughter but I know a couple mild Erics Fred – Yes, I know one Fred who is German and would take great offence if he only knew. I will let him know. Grace – I know a young Grace and a Grace who is a bit older. Henri – I know one Henry but no Henri Ida – I da think so Joaquin – Nope, not a name I could associate outside of Mr. Pheonix. Who names a baby or a Hurricane Joaquin? A Mexican. Kate – As strange as it may sound, I don’t think I ever knew a Kate Larry – Yes, I knew one Larry from high school but it’s not a popular Trinidad name or ever will be since Larry Gomes stopped making runs. It will never be used for a Hurricane after this year. I was a mistake Mindy – Yes, but she was a cat. A real cat. Nicholas – Everybody in Trinidad and Tobago knows at least two boys and one man called Nicholas. Odette – Sounds Old English and not a name I would call a child. Peter – I know one Peter too many Rose – I know a Rose but an old one.  A bit thorny. Sam – Sam the man and the woman I know Teresa – Yep, know a couple girls called Teresa and it’s a very popular Venezuelan, Colombian ,Miami and Baratarria name. Victor – I am sure I knew a Victor but I am trying to remember who he was. Maybe a sales rep. Wanda – Crap, I know a Wanda but she is hardly a storm. More like a Depression.

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Sugar Prices Go Up

Trinidad Sugar

Too much rain in Brazil, too little rain in India and too much sweet man in Trinidad and Tobago may cause sugar prices to go up all over the world as demand exceeds supply.  The TTMA has already started to look for sympathy saying prices of their products will go up if something isn’t done. I think before manufacturers in Trinidad and Tobago complain about the price of sugar they must look inwardly and understand that chocolate and orange are more than colors.

All this is happening as dairy products and corned beef are starting to come down in price enough to give politicians something to boast about.  It’s not the politicians’ fault that prices go up or come down. It never is.

Charles Chocolates - Trinidad

But the increase in sugar prices might be a blessing in disguise because when people eat too much sugar they become fat and unhealthy, increasing the amount of foreign exchange a country spends on hospital beds, bolts of cloth, and car suspension parts. Manufacturers should use this opportunity to not cry but to help reduce people’s health care demands by developing innovative products containing local products like mangoes, cassava, and shark and bake with a little ole talk.

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Julie Mango – Trinidad

In Trinidad, and to some extent, Tobago, the Julie Mango is considered the Queen of Mangoes for its wonderful flavor and soft flesh which doesn’t leave strings between one’s teeth. Julie Mangoes fetch the highest price among Trinidad Mangoes thus it encourages the most skillful backyard thieves. A Julie Mango tree is short by comparison to say a long mango and starch mango trees making it preferred by the sensible and the people living in small plots of land in sophisticated residential areas around the country. Everybody who wants to create an impression says they have a Julie Mango tree and it bearing and sucking good . Nobody ever says at dinner parties, I have a long mango tree because  long mango is considered unrefined. Eating a Julie Mango at your desk can be challenging if you want to eat it without cutting it into two faces and the seed and not look like a pig  since it’s a very juicy mango.

Some say the Julie Mango got its name from Angelina Jolie and her juicy mangoes but most experts doubt this since the name Julie Mangoes predated the phrase Jolie’s Mangoes.  

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Trinidad Rain

So, yesterday we had another day of strange weather as a tornado landed near Mucarapo Road and close to Eric Mackie, CNC3‘s Weather Man. I did not see any images from Mackie so I assumed he did not have his camera or cell phone with him. It seemed Port of Spain was flooded again and I don’t blame the government for the amount of plastic bottles and Kia Pride motor cars that floated down the Dry River to form a dam near a bridge any beaver would be proud of. I blame the owners.

I was fortunate to be home and with my camera at around 2:30 pm when the rain started to come in from South to North. I put together an animated GIF showing one and a half minutes of the rain event. No tornados this time.

The Art of Butts – Butt Looking Made Simple

Trinidad Carnival Made Simple

The following is not considered neither sexist nor unentertaining by the author. What?

A woman’s butt can distract a man enough to make him forget what he is doing and who he is with. Both situations can be extremely dangerous. When a man is injured by the love of his life while looking at, or moments after he looked at another woman’s butt, the injury is considered both predictable and life-threatening. Doctors often remark “Butt-looking, I see” when injured men with  the word  PRADA imprinted on their foreheads are carted into the emergency rooms thought the world.  Unfortunately, this injury is likely to reoccur given that, when it comes to butt-gazing, men never learn.

Interrogation Made Simple

The CIA, a progressive interrogation agency, is now experimenting with making suspects talk by briefly showing the suspects a cute, real butt clad in a tight bikini, a sight almost never seen in the suspects’ country. The suspects are then denied a second look until they talk. This technique is likely to generate numerous suspects. The new interrogation program is secretly known as “Show me the butt” and model recruitment is taking unusually long.

Product Placement Made Simple

Product placement experts are now using the potential of the butt to sell almost anything to men. Butt level is the new eye level and products, previously unpopular to men, like chocolates, mushrooms, and insecticide are now placed at butt level to generate sales.  This product placement technique is being lambasted by moralist since they claim it encourages slackness in supermarkets. Sales of Bop and Fish insecticides have recently skyrocketed and are now the insecticides preferred by real men.

Trinidad and Tobago – What a Bloody Mess

When Trinidad and Tobago police raided the new St. Joseph Police Station and found guns, ammo, and drugs stashed away in the ceiling the price of a Blackberry ran through my mind. How would a Police Officer ever be able to afford a Blackberry for his girlfriend, especially if his wife is monitoring his paycheck and the sex is good? Then someone pointed out ceiling contactors sometimes leave their stuff behind and usually can’t remember which ceiling they left their guns and weed.

This latest find by the Police is an attempt to clean up the Service and must be commended. Or should it be? This raid at the St. Joseph Police station may not be what it appears and may be a fight for turf among rival gun-renting police gangs. What this raid does for public confidence in the Service is to destroy confidence even further because for every police gang uncovered Mr. Public feels there are twenty more undiscovered.

I feel sorry for Martin Joseph because the tools he has to work with are as defective as the PM kindness genes. Nobody is safe in Trinidad and Tobago since the agency that is responsible for maintaining law and order is showing the public a face which says we are corrupt to the bone. The Service even tried to hit the PM, according to the PM. Two Chinese nationals working at a Casino in Port of Spain were brutally beaten with a crowbar by a gang of men who will probably never be arrested because crime detection is not part of police culture and all Trinis look the same to the investigators. The bloodied Chinese men were shown on TV and it depicted the future of our country. The public is beginning to feel The space suit men and women seen at various crime scenes on the news as Seven are there for show since they too are, no doubt, part of the illustrious Protect and Serve Gang of Thieves.

I am not being unfair and I expressing typical public outrage and hopelessness over the crime situation. Sure, there are good police officers but do you know who they are? I don’t.  Just as I waited for the Blimp to keep crime at bay, I am and now more that hopeful the interceptor boats and helicopters will protect us in the future. But this will only happen if the Service is run by the Calder Hart. Another apartment in Miami will be a small price to pay to a patriotic CEO who has the ability to love the PM more than Rowley can. Do Mr. Hart and other patriotic businessmen who drain the Country’s foreign exchange to buy their real homes in Miami not know they are helping devalue our dollar? Do they not see this as also a crime?

Hot Trinidad Models – Pepper

The picture above shows a hot, Trinidad model known as pepper.  I am not trying to mislead people or get a laugh but I am only trying to show people a model known as Pepper doesn’t always have to be a hot woman showing off more than her bellybutton in public.

The pepper above is known in Trinidad and Tobago as big pepper but some may call it bell pepper, hot pepper or Scotch bonet pepper. The photo appears in one of my new photo galleries at mayarobeach.com. The small pepper below the big hot pepper is called locally pimento pepper, a pepper which has been know to cross breed with bigger peppers after a few drinks.