my first Sunday School...

Well today was a bit of a more relaxed day. Got up and put my clothes in the washing machine and went down to New Edition to have some food. This is my first time dealing with a clothes line.. we shall see. New Edition place is on the way to my panyard. But it is a restaurant, bar, club and Panyard as well. It is a single pan band that practices there. That is the traditional style where each player has one pan around their neck and they carry it down the street. They had the prelims tomorrow so there were a few people practicing as I was eating. I had some great BBQ chicken, rice, noodles, potato salad and a rum and coke to wash it down. Some players that are in my band, the Buccooneers, are also in this band. People are starting to recognize me a lot when I am walking down the street. Everyone likes to say hello. Anyhow, I decided to walk back to the house and relax for a while and then go to the beach. I went over to the beach by Mt. Irving what I tried to take a different way and go for a run. I actually went down a small street where there were lots of veery big house. Ya know, ones with a service entrance. I could see much but I new the houses were big and the dogs sounded big too. Made me run a little faster. Well, I made it to the beach and swam for a while. Its very nice, the waters warm, and relaxing. Men were fishing as I was leaving and one actually caught a pelican (by accident) but it was kind of funny to see him reeling it in. Don’t worry I don’t think it was badly hurt. I walked back and showered and got ready for Sunday School.

I really didn’t know what to expect to night. I have seen youtube videos of a small band of the Buccooneers playing to a pretty big crowd. I figured, we’ll see. So I walked down passed the panyard and there were all these new stands set up for food, T-shirts, hats and jewelry. And there were a lot of tourists. Turns out Buccoo is the place to be on Sunday. There were also a few small groups of shady lookin people who actually tried to sell me drugs but it wasn’t a big deal. I also realized that I looked like a tourist, I guess there’s no getting around that. When most people find out why I’m here they treat me more like a local. They usually give me the nod of approval. But first are very surprised I play pan. Anyways the band started at 9 and they were really good. Kirth plays with them and it was nice to finally see him play because as the Captain of the big band he doesn’t play. They played for 3 hours straight. The music ranged from calypsos to classical to American pop. They even played Hotel California. There were about 10 players in the band with 3 tenors, a double second, a cello, a bass, drumset and a few percussion players. Great balance. There I met a two girls from New York who were here for the weekend and we talked awhile about how its great here and why they were here. I think they were the first Americans I’ve met here except for the one woman in the band with me. But she actually lives here now. But they were also my and It was nice to see that people are finding out about Tobago and how nice it is from America. Anyway, You meet a lot of people at these things because the band is actually in an outdoor bar. I saw Neills again and he introduced me to his crew who were all also from England. He was pretty drunk and kept saying that he really like me haha. Its not the first time I've been hit on by a gay man, probably wont be the last. haha funny stuff. But his crew were all pleasant and we talked for a while. Then I helped the band tear down when they were done and then I bought Kirth a beer and we all hung out.

Then I saw a girl, tourist, who was getting danced on by two local creeper guys, I saw the look of “Help” in her eyes so I kind of swooped in to get her out of that mess. She was very appreciative. I found out she is German here with a few family and family friends, one who lives here. But we talked for long while and danced a bit. Her English was pretty good. There were a few times she couldn’t find the words but hey, My German sucks. I know about 5 German words; No, wonderful and some lyrics to a Rammstein song (Rammstein is a heavy metal German band) Don’t judge had a metal phase, a loooong time ago. Anyway I eventually went back to the house and fell asleep. There were still a lot of people dance but I was exhausted. I didn’t even stay up to blog last night. Well off to explore.