I am definitely getting less tolerant of the small annoyances of traveling, such as the pilot and the flight crew having to be called back to the terminal 10 minutes before our flight was scheduled to take off. Turns out, when they finally arrived an hour and a half later they were delayed for some reason due to bad weather we had experienced 3 hours ago. Really? I was too, but that didn’t cause me to be an hour late to my flight. Well who knows… you expect everything to be better in America but sometimes it’s just not.
Anthony took me to the airport this morning and told me a pretty inspiring story, though I think he was a bit disappointed that I didn’t tip him more than I did. Maybe I should have, looking back on it. He did do quite a bit for me to help me out. Anyways, he said when he was growing up he smoked quite a bit of marijuana. I guess it’s the thing to do here. He lived with his mother and even though they were well off, it sounds as though she made an illegal living somehow. She passed away and he lived in the dumps for a couple years before he tried getting his life back together again. No electricity, no running water, just a fig tree which he planted and ate daily, making different dishes with it, and all the marijuana that he spent the small amount of money which he earned on. So eventually, he turned his life around; he stopped doing drugs, he found something to make a living with (a taxi) and he worked hard at it. He met this woman who he drove from the airport once and she continued to use his services every time she would come to Trinidad. One day she said to him, Anthony, is there anything can I do to make you happy? And he thought about it and said well, what I really want is one of these vans. And she said well I’m sorry, that’s not something I can give you. And he said OK that’s fine! You asked me what would make me happy and I told you. The next day she showed up with $7,000 USD to help him pay for the new taxi, and this was approximately a little less than a third of the cost of the van. See? You never know who you are going to meet. He was the old, wise taxi driver. Those are the guys that you have to hang on to because they know how to treat people right. Well, if there’s nothing else I learned in my travels, haha… it’s how to find the right taxis!
I met with Michael today, a realtor in place of Denise who we usually meet from one of the best realty companies in Trinidad. He was more interested in talking about Trinidad and his family than going through my questions, which was actually alright because most of my questions were answered. We talked about how the minimum wage was equivalent to US $2 per hour and that no one can afford to live on this price, which is the reason why these young kids turn to drugs and violence, and can’t get out of the poor cycle they are in. This seems to be the story of every third world country, doesn’t it? It’s sad but there is so much corruption, so little that people can do to prevent a life of hopelessness. There are few super rich families, a small middle class, and a whole lot of poverty. On the brighter side, Michael’s cousin is the most famous cricket player in Trinidad, and is considered the “Michael Jordan” of the world for it. He told me he has a huge party every year, and if I happen to come again during Carnival, not only will Carnival be a blast, but I’m more than welcome to the party. Sounds good to me! There may be a request for my return to Trinidad in February.
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