Questions, Questions!

The questions are flying! Here are some answers!

We use Trinidad and Tobago currency, or TT dollars. 100 TT is equal to about $17 dollars of US money. Each time we go to the store, we think, wow, that is a lot of money, then, we have to divide it by 6 and realize it isn’t bad. Many of the stores don’t bother with the coins. The quarter looks like a US dime.

We are going to be paying someone to clean the floors, dust, clean the bathroom, each week. A cleaning lady usually earns about 10TT per hour ($1.67 US). The Elders and sisters are paying 20TT per hour because she is saving to go on a mission. We will give her 100 TT and not require her to work 5 hours, just until she completes the tasks. Most of the couples have her iron and wash during the 5 hours, but, I am not ready to give those up.

Grandpa is finally driving, but as little as possible. They drive on the left side of the road, so the steering wheel is on the right side, instead of the left as it is in America. It is very hard to change driving habits and stay in the correct lanes of traffic. The traffic lights last about 5 minutes and many still go through on the red. We saw two traffic lights knocked over in the last two days. We have seen several fender benders and many people have dents in their cars because they are aggressive drivers. Yet, they often stop and let someone in the line of traffic. We have not seen road rage or anything close to it. The Trinis, or Trinidadians, don’t follow the driving rules. Grandpa is studying for the test and has been surprised there were rules on the highway. People very frequently park on the side of the road, it can be either side, facing either way, it doesn’t matter and there are no parking lanes, or room to get off the road. Pedestrians walk down the road as there is no such thing as sidewalks.

Grandpa is in charge of entering all the baptism records, and other reports that go to Church Headquarters as well as to the Mission President. He says it is very hard to read some of the reports because the missionaries are so busy doing baptisms (our mission anticipates doing over 1,500 baptisms in 2008) they don’t seem to have time to write clearly. He is also responsible for the renting and the inspecting of the missionaries apartments. He is able to delegate much of this task so it isn’t too difficult. We spoke to the Mission President today and he suggested that for the second half of our mission we might be asked to serve on the island of Granada. He said there is a beautiful beach within walking distance of the missionary apartment. However, he changes his mind a lot, so we will see what happens as time goes by.

Jack asked if there are unusual things at the market. While we were at the beach, there was a man selling bracelets and necklaces that were made of shark’s teeth. Grandpa almost bought one, but thought it might not look too cool on a missionary.

Yes, they speak English here, it just sounds a little different than we are used to. When someone comes from the south, they sound different from someone from Arizona, so the Trinis sound way different because they started with the English from Great Britton. Then they have slang, just as we do. When people learn to speak English they struggle with the American slang. We are struggling with the Trini slang. We do say “morning, morning” now instead of Good Morning. Here are some others: What da scene – What’s up; Just cool – I’m doing good; for true – for real; ya storyam – you are lying; scene dred – what’s up man; Ideh – I’m doing good; Irie – doing good; Emt – right (correct); alight – how are you; ya dum no- right one! – That’s what I’m talking about; taking a sweat – exercising; mop a drop- trying to get a free ride; she gone out to come back- she went out, but she is coming back soon; he takes she- they are getting married; not te cuts ya- listen to my story; don’t study she- Don’t pay attention to her; mader fader dey home – are your mom and dad home?; go call she- go get her; me de know fad at- I don’t know about that; gaff – sit around talking; just now- means 2 seconds or 2 years or in between. Of course, we haven’t heard all of these, if we had, we didn’t understand it! We have heard ‘just now’ and realized we still didn’t know when Elder Conk was coming back.