Joseph and Nettie Linton in the West Indies Mission

THE CONTRASTS OF LIVING IN TRINIDAD

I thought I would talk about the broad range of the living environments in Trinidad. We are living in a fairly upscale neighborhood but a mile or two away are neighborhoods that we feel uncomfortable driving in. We live in Valsayn which has a small commercial center where the mission office is. There are small cities with commercial centers off the highway and we have found some decent stores for food, household goods, hardware etc.

This is the home of Greeta, Amanda and Nicholos taken by Sister Sanner who is the mission nurse. Even though it is a sheet metal assemblage it is well cared for and appreciated.

A home of the upper class. Many wealthy business people live in Valsayn. It is pleasant to walk through the neighborhood of large homes and beautiful landscaping.

Sweet little home of modesty with lots of character. Might be meager but you can't possibly do without television connected to the world through satellite.

Yes - this is a home. The mother and child are in the yard on the right and there are clothes hanging on the line. There is no roof on it but they do have a television or at least the antenna.

Rows of apartments in Chaguanas. The first one on the right is the home of one of the sweetest families in the Chaguanas branch.

Trinny food ready for a feast on Boxing Day with Sisters Atkins and Daviana. Photo taken by Sister Sanner.

Sister John who has all she needs to be happy.

This is the neighbor's house directly across the street from our apartment. They are Indian and typically they have three wives. The wives are sometimes kept in different houses or they have a very large lot that includes two or more homes with a small temple in the yard for their worship.

The wild and crazy house - one of my favorites - I really want to meet the family that lives here. They are just a block west of our home and every time we walk by it I hope somebody is in the yard so we can talk to them. Maybe they have a personality that matches their home.

This home is a block east of our apartment - interesting modern in pastels - more my kind of house. Many of the houses in the neighborhood are beautifully landscaped and each morning the gardeners and street cleaning crew show up in their orange outfits to prune and sweep.

And here is our humble abode. We live upstairs on the right. It is owned by an Indian landlord whose interests seem to be to do as little as possible on upkeep. He owns over a hundred units in Trinidad. I asked if he would have the inside painted and he angrily said no!. We are now painting it and this weekend we will ask him to replace the carpets - good luck on that one. The mission president suggested we find another home and we have looked at a few. Tonight we made a verbal agreement to rent one that is three complexes east of us and much nicer. Maybe we can talk our kids into visiting us for a few days - there will be plenty of room and it really has a nice kitchen.

Nettie's dresser - we just emptied out the entire bedroom and had it painted and it looks a lot better now. After we move out we will use the apartment for missionary housing during transfer week.

First class shower. I usually shower in cold water which is kept in large black tanks outside. It is pumped into the apartment at fairly low pressure. It's warm enough that the cool water is pleasant.

Toilet - very tight fit - be hard to fall off

that one.

Yes, those are electrical wires in an ugly dirty corner. We've had a hard time trying to clean things up to make it livable. Much of the grime is in corners that need baseboards and painting. The base is painted black and there is a gap between the wall and tile floor. the gap is large and roughly filled with cement - impossible to clean.

A kitchen to die for. Anthony is enjoying our wonderful kitchen in Logan which Nettie dearly misses The white vertical tubes are water filters. It's a three stage system that we put in every apartment in the mission - supposed to remove the little critters that you don't want living inside you.

Stuff from last tenant - and that's after we've taken out loads of garbage so it's looking better than it was. Laura and Matthew wanted to see inside our apartment so this is it - now we can move on to our tour of Trinidad.

Marine Toad

Our resident toad. He lives by the front door and he's big - about the size of my #12 shoe.

We have a couple of lizards that live in our house - perhaps that's a good thing since they eat the insects that also live here. We even had a bat and two birds fly in for a brief visit.