So I'm up late - probably as late as usual - but I spent a good portion of the evening running the pump so that it can fill the water tanks. In the richest country of the Caribbean, where I am sitting here writing and doing work with synthetic worlds ('virtual' worlds), where I do web programming and other things... here, I have to wait and see when water is provided on the main and make sure that the tanks are filled because... one never knows with certainty when one will have water on the mainline again.

A country where oil is pumped out of the ground, sold to Europe. A country where men, like those pictured, wander around like lost children to open and close valves on pipes placed under roads in the 1950s. The roads have been paved for every election that I can remember. After every repaving of the roads, the Water and Sewage Authority (WASA) comes by and excavates the new road so that they can replace pieces of the water pipes. Whether the water is potable is always a question. But we have water, unlike so many places in the world that do not. The desalination plant in South Trinidad produces 80% of the water for San Fernando, Trinidad - or so I am told.

Oil is pumped out of the ground in pipes.

I remember the first time I saw the avocado tree bear avocados. I was about 9, and amazed that it grew on trees - I had only seen them at supermarkets. As far as I knew, they grew in boxes. In Trinidad, they are called pears - and they are pears - but they don't taste like the grainy fruit that are sold as pears. Very confusing for a young boy. Still, with some salt and hot roti, avocados are excellent.

That is the trouble with avocados.

When I was younger, Trinidad was different. No one came into yards and stole avocados as they do now. The tree, which last had fruit the same month my father died (August, 2005) is bearing again. I had trimmed it, and it has now recovered and flowered. It is a wonderful thing to see happen, but it comes with a responsibility that wasn't there before.