Sunday, November 12, 1995 - Trinidad

Some kind of bug must have bitten me in the rain forest; I'm covered with bites. They don't look like mosquito bites; they look like chigger bites. Maybe they're ant bites. Or termites. Whatever, they itch like crazy. I've been putting Alcolado Glacial and Hydro- cortisone on them. Both stop the itching for a while. Went to Hi Lo and bought some chicken, bread, and oranges. The bus driver scared me half to death by READING while driving at high speed on this curving road. I thought he was going to crash into the rear of a car in front of us, but fortunately he looked up in time. After lunch, we paddled in to try to figure out how to phone the U.S. on these crazy phones. There doesn't seem to be any way to use our calling card. We can't even phone the operator to find out how to make the calls; when I dial the number shown in the phone book for calling the overseas operator, all I get is the message: "Barred call." Ridiculous. The only thing that works is using a prepaid card. I had bought 40 TT's worth of cards, but that's only enough for six minutes. Phoned Steve and left a message on his machine. Reached Kathy, but the card ran out before I was through talking with her. At least, I got most of the information I had phoned for. Roy returned to the boat, but I paddled around. Had a very interesting time. Talked with an English couple who have been here three years. Finally got the scoop on the local language. In addition to English, the people speak a French patois. No wonder we couldn't understand it! It's probably similar to the Creole language in Louisiana. Back in slavery days, there were a lot of French plantation owners here, so the slaves picked up a garbled version of French, and that's been handed down along with the official English. Even well-educated people who speak flawless English use the patois when they're talking to each other. So that explains it.