The White House, Charlotteville, Tobago

Jacquie’s Triathlon

stevesalfield — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 23:26:03 +0000

Jacquie does her triathlon most days here in Charlotteville, Tobago.
That consists of cycling, swimming and rumming ….. yes rumming – all in moderation of course.
It’s such a friendly place. There’s always a small bar to go to and have a chat, that’s a lime, with locals and visitors.

Swimming in Charlotteville, Tobago

stevesalfield — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 23:22:33 +0000

Nearly every day I swim at the Charlotteville village beach near the Beach Bar. It’s a short walk from the White House and so easy to pop down for a quick few laps. The lifeguards are very helpful. I need to go into the water using sticks, and they take the sticks back to my bench and bring them back when I want to get out of the water. The swimming at Pirates’ Bay is wonderful. The water is usually crystal clear and the scenery is beautiful. The snorkelling at Pirates’ Bay is wonderful too.

Wildlife in Charlotteville, Tobago

stevesalfield — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 22:45:56 +0000

The White House Garden is a good place to start watching wildlife, surrounded by forest and bamboos as we are. Keen birdwatchers have spotted around 50 kinds of birds in and from the garden and quite a few more around the village and the beaches. There are noisy cocricots, colourful motmots and parrots, beautiful barred antshrikes and blue tanagers and many more. Over the bay we can see Frigate birds also called Man-o-War birds, pelicans, and laughing gulls. A couple of days ago we watched an iguana in a tree in the garden for an hour or two. Red squirrels also frequent the trees. There are small green tree frogs, stick insects, fire flies at night, striking butterflies and so much more. The other day we went snorkelling from Curtis’s boat out at the edge of Man-o-War Bay at a place called Landslide. The visibility wasn’t at its best as we’ve had quite a bit of rain, but we could see beautiful corals and many wonderful fishes. We didn’t see any turtles but sometimes one does. Entomologists are in their element and a couple of Americans are in the village now studying Dragonflies and Damsel flies. Rarely we are lucky enough to see a small snake but fortunately there aren’t any poisonous snakes in Tobago. Let’s hope Charlotteville’s biodiversity is conserved.

Fast food Charlotteville style

stevesalfield — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:09:42 +0000

Each morning at around 11 am you can buy a delicious “Double” from Suku down near the fish market. A double is made from curried chick peas wrapped in a naan bread.

Most days at Jabba’s shop there are excellent rotis for lunch. On Fridays Lyda makes delicious “Buss up shut”. That’s an open roti with delicious fillings and sweet mango. The bread of the roti is torn like a bust up shirt – “buss up shut”.

There are lovely ice creams here and there, and many other snacks around – fish and chips, pizza, coconut cakes, banana bread from Claudia, various sweets from Patsy, bread from Kosa.

There’s no Macdonalds, no Kentucky, no Costa.

Politics

stevesalfield — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:59:14 +0000

After initial optimism that things would perhaps be better with the new Peoples Partnership coalition government, disillusion seems to now be setting in. Many were glad to have a change of government after many years of the PNM and the coalition commanded much popular goodwill initially. Now many government workers say they haven’t received their pay on time and police are considering industrial action in support of a pay claim.

Weather

stevesalfield — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:38:52 +0000

Although this is normally the dry season we are having a lot of rain at present. Of course it’s still warm and we get plenty of sunny spells.

Calypso tent

stevesalfield — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:32:28 +0000

Sunday night the Bachanaal Calypso tent visited Charlotteville. Squezy, one of our local calypsonians and many others from around Tobago strutted their stuff and sang their new songs. The band was good with a horn section of sax, trumpet and trombone and the 3 backing singers were excellent. There was a brilliant warm and friendly vibe as usual for this place.

Tropical storm Tomas

stevesalfield — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 23:19:26 +0000

The storm hit Charlotteville in the early hours of Sunday 31st October. I have never known such heavy rain anywhere in the world but there was little wind. The rain continued for about 5 or 6 hours. The small stream by the White House became a frightening surging torrent. The road by the house was a river flowing over the bridge. Afterwards groups of people quietly walked the village to see the damage and who needed help. We could see landslides all around. Thankfully no one in Charlotteville was seriously injured but some houses were severely damaged with mud flowing through them. The village roads were covered in inches of mud and some were impassable by cars. We went down to the village centre and there was a party going on, a celebration that we had survived and life goes on. What spirit. Next day the big cleanup began. Meanwhile Tomas proceeded north, became a full blown hurricane and caused severe destruction in some of the islands. For instance St Lucia lost most of its banana crop.

First female prime minister for Trinidad and Tobago

stevesalfield — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:25:39 +0000

Following the recent general election, the new Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago is Kamla Persad-Bissessar, sworn in on May 26, 2010. The leader of the United National Congress (UNC), she is the country’s first female prime minister. She leads the People’s Partnership which is a coalition of five parties.

The previous government led by Patrick Manning of the People’s National Movement (PNM) had been in power for 13 of the last 17 years.

Fresh fruit and vegetables

stevesalfield — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:12:33 +0000

Horace, one of our neighbours often brings fresh fruit and vegetables for sale from his garden.

Delicious.