They don’t call it the rainy season for nothing

After taking a walk through the Botanic Garden and passing the Prime Minister’s residence, it began to sink in: we were actually in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Street vendors selling drinks out of coconuts. Friendly people who laugh every time we ask them to repeat themselves. And more palm trees than this Iowa boy can handle.

Our first full day in the capital city delivered us our first cultural shock: there still are some places in the world where Sunday is considered a day of rest. Since every business was closed, we were forced to continue organizing our investigation and explore when the rain wasn’t pouring from the sky. When Monday came around, we immediately went to buy phones so we could finally start diving in and arranging times to meet with sources and confirm other interviews. To celebrate, we enjoyed a large breakfast at Trini Flavours. The main course: rice and pigs tail….

When we exhausted our list of phone calls to make, we decided to take some time and explore the city. We headed north and walked around a beautiful park where people were exercising by walking, running, or playing cricket. Just beyond the park was the national Botanic Garden where trees ten times as wide as me were scattered. Flowers and bushes of every color and exotic smell filled the garden. A light rain followed us on our walk but could not dampen our spirits, especially when we found a little fruit stand with the most powerful pineapple smell I’ve ever experienced. We ended our adventure with a simple shish kebab dinner on the main strip.

This beautiful park is all the more beautiful when compared to the rest of the industrial city as Trinidad is definitely the breadwinner of the two islands. We have yet to find a beach in Port of Spain, but no trouble finding plenty of boats. The water is filled with barges and other ships that go to and from port throughout the day bringing goods and transporting exports from the island. There is a lot of traffic, but very few people on the streets.

This morning, we conducted our first interview of our project with Wayne Punnette, the Director of Investments for Trinidad and Tobago. Mr. Punnette discussed how the country attracts business investors, both domestic and foreign, and the struggles in passing something as simple a beverage container bill like we have in the U.S. to promote recycling.

The rest of our week will be filled with meeting with environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) here in Trinidad, and we will finish planning our one week trip to Tobago – the tourism island. As time allows, we’ll keep updating the blog with photos and video as it gets edited. For now though, we’ll continue reporting and try to avoid getting too drenched.

--FB