Swaha West Branch Seeta Ram Temple, Diego Martin, Trinidad.
This temple, located about two minutes’ drive from my home, has been under construction for the past several years. It was only last week I noticed the spanking new statue (murti) of the Hindu deity Hanuman now adorning the front of the as yet unfinished building.
This one is considerably smaller than its counterpart at the Dattatreya Yoga Centre & Mandir in Freeport, but striking nonetheless.
The power went about an hour ago, so here in the depths of the Diego Martin valley we’re experiencing a rare moment of utter darkness. A fellow Twitter user asked me the other day how much of the southern sky we were able to see from Trinidad. The answer is quite a lot of it, though it occurred me then that, for some odd reason, I rarely look south.
Tonight I did, though. The image below is the view looking south. The one above is looking north-west.
Seen from my home in Diego Martin, Trinidad.
Last night, I took what felt like a million photos of the Alice Yard Space, but few of them pleased me. The one above is not the “obvious” one (that distinction belongs to this photo, which makes it look like a slick exhibition space somewhere in the metropolis), but it’s the one I somehow find most satisfying.
And here’s Alice Yard itself, Sean Leonard’s concept for the space, and the Alice Yard Space blog.
Did I really say I wasn’t going to post any more photos of birds? You’ll have to forgive me. I staked out the starch mango tree for hours to get a decent shot of one of the Palm Tanagers (Thraupis palmarum) who’ve been picking away all morning at the mango in the photo. Well, maybe not for hours, but for a long time.
I hope the birds leave a few mangoes for us this year.
Last bird shot, I promise. (At least for the next few posts).
Since the last Yellow Oriole (Icterus nigrogularis) I photographed was described as “sinister-looking”, I’ve been trying to capture another. I had my chance yesterday, and it just so happened there were a couple of yellowing frangipani leaves in the frame to echo the colour of the creature’s gorgeous plumage.
“Not only every Saturday — we here every day,” said the one with with the long dreadlocks. I came upon this pair yesterday afternoon in Woodford Square, in the middle of downtown Port of Spain, and hung around long enough to see Long Dreadlocks win. “He’s better at winning,” his opponent told me. “I’m really good at losing.”
More photos of the chess game here.
Yeah, I know. All these bird photos. But they’re what’s around me, now that I’m working at home most days.
I caught this Blue Gray Tanager (Thraupis episcopus) around lunch time today. Not too happy with the crowd at the bird feeder, he/she took a piece of papaya off to eat on the fence. He/she wasn’t the cleanest eater, but a Bare-Eyed Thrush swooped in minutes after and cleaned up the bits of fruit left on the chain link.
I’ve been getting a real kick lately out of photographing birds in my garden. Almost every morning I position myself behind the breeze blocks in the laundry room to see who shows up for his/her share of the fruit on the makeshift bird-feeder next to the water tank.
One of the folks at the breakfast table this morning was this Bare-Eyed Thrush (Turdus nudigenis). My growing collection of bird photos is here.
Jonathan and I didn’t end up going bobolee-hunting as planned on Good Friday, but during a drive out to Tamana this afternoon I came across the remains of this Good Friday bobolee hanging on a lampost along the main road in Cumuto. The bobolee is an effigy of Jesus’ disciple Judas Iscariot, and its role in life is to have the crap beaten out of it with a stick, hence the reason this one has only his trousers left. This is both to punish Judas for what he did to poor Jesus and also because bobolees are usually also stand-ins for local miscreants (e.g. politicians). As this bobolee has lost his shirt–and as so many people (still) wear cargo pants–it’s difficult to tell whom he was supposed to represent.
In searching for information about bobolees after I mentioned the word on Twitter, my Twitter contact Coty Rosenblath found this 2006 post by Guanaguanare: the laughing gull. And earlier this week, over at the Rights Action Group T&T blog, the Dread posted her own bobolee pic and put out this call:
This Good Friday we’re inviting all communities to dedicate their bobolee to one of the traitors of our national environment. Take your pick and send us a pic of your portrayal of any of the Judas Iscariots who’ve sold out our country for thirty pieces of aluminum.
UPDATE: And this just in via e-mail from Nikipedia, who’s been travelling in Venezuela: “In Venezuela they burn Judas effigies instead of beating them. We saw a big one being constructed on the outskirts of Santa Elena but we missed the burning.” Next time, we hope.