Sometime in 1972 as the Pioneer Royal Ambassador Consultant of the Southern Baptist Brotherhood Commission I was sent to consult with the one and only Royal Ambassador Chapter in Trinidad and Tobago in our relationship with the Southern Baptist missionary there. It was only for a couple of days and there really wasn’t much I could do to help them, though I took some educational materials. It was more of an opportunity for us to feature a “foreign” RA Chapter in a church in this unique island country just 7 miles from Venezuela.
I cannot find my photos and I am sorry that my copy of the two magazine articles are not in good focus, but it is all I have!
I remember staying in the missionary’s house on a hill where we could see Venezuela from his yard and his son got moved out of his room for me to sleep in his bed. The last night I stayed in an airport hotel because of an early flight the next morning.
I remember traveling on a smelly, crowded bus in a country where no one uses deodorant and seeing thousands of Hindu prayer flags in some areas while other communities looked more like Africa. The people were all very friendly and welcoming and I would loved to have stayed longer. The RA work is described in the articles below which also appear in a photo gallery.
This beautiful, tropical but crowded little country made up mostly of people from India & Africa with a small remnant of indigenous people is truly a “foreign” experience for an American and of course if I go back I will make plans to visit one of their bird sanctuaries and photograph birds! 🙂
“Better belly buss than good food waste.”
Trinis love to eat so much that they prefer to stuff themselves than throw out perfectly edible food, thus this popular saying.
These same photos in my Photo Gallery: 1972 Trinidad & Tobago
For more information on Trinidad & Tobago, see the Wikipedia article.
And for tourism check out Go Trinidad & Tobago for True Caribbean!
