Dispatch 3: Hard Work on a Holiday

Thursday morning

Arrived at the greenhouse site this morning at 8:30, after a stop at Sugar's Hardware to look for clamps to hold the roof plastic. Today is a holiday, Corpus Christi, but Sugar's and some other places are open. Along the way we passed a crossroads where a new concrete bridge is in mid-construction, next to the existing iron span. What looked like 75 men milled at the corner, with a couple of gangly, gray-uniformed police. Apparently these men were hoping for work. Unemployment is high here; over 40 percent among young men, I've read. The lack of jobs has contributed to a rise in crime.

At the site, the team quickly kicked into gear: heavy labor this morning. First, smoothing the red-clay sub-floor, (which was wet but not puddled) then laying black plastic over top, then a layer of white gravel over that for good drainage. Wheelbarrow loads of gravel, shoveled, carted, dumped and graded — by 9:30 most were red-faced and drenched with sweat. (Siela: "I knew there was a reason why I got a Ph.D.") Drinking lots of water, and slathering lots of DEET and sunblock. Making good progress, too; even though a downpour halted things for 15 minutes, by 11 the floor was done.

A trio of scrawny puppies keeps us company, shy of attention and keeping to the shade of the old house that fronts the greenhouse. There's a phone here, and with luck and a local phone card, I might be able to send this dispatch from here. That's assuming everything works perfectly, however; and for the first transmission (from a house in town after several other options failed) that wasn't the case.

Mohan brought lunch in the Maxi, and I rode back with him to fetch a piece of equipment. On the way he scouted roadside stands for the ripest gummy shells and silk figs (varieties of banana), and for pineapples for tomorrow's breakfast. We passed small boys selling clutches of crabs, a long funeral procession, and a parade that had stopped traffic for a quarter mile in the opposite direction: a children's brass band followed by 200 singing people in their finest outfits, shading themselves with umbrellas from the midday sun. Two elderly ladies, tired of going on foot, flagged Mohan for a ride. One of them asked me what I was doing there, and I tried to explain about building a greenhouse. "But we already got cocoa in Trinidad," she said. They're trying to improve varieties and get a better yield, Mohan said, and I said something about protecting tender young plants. From hard rain and the brutal sun. She only frowned. "Every-ting every time got to be modern," she said.

Back at the site the team had started assembling the irrigation system, reconfiguring where necessary as they went.