When I sit at my sit spot, I see coconut trees and different fruits I’ve never seen before falling to the ground; pomerac, pommecythere, and sapodilla (what the bats eat behind the hall I stay behind. The water that I drink on hall WASA collected through rainwater and reservoirs and goes through extensive chemical treatment process to be drinkable. They use chemicals called coagulants to create sediments in the water to reduce the turbidity and remove impurities. Looking more into this reminds me of the water treatment class that I took at MIT last spring so that’s a really cool connection! Throughout the semester we’ve has several water outages on my hall of residence due to the dry season and in that case, we resort to the water tanks outside that are used for when the water system fails. Thankfully, these outages have not been extensive enough to affect me deeply – nothing more than 3-4 hours at times.

Doing some research and talking to friends, oil and gas are the primary sources of energy in Trinidad. The University dabbles a bit in solar energy on campus and some of the oil and gas companies include PetroTrin, RamCo, and there’s the major plant in the country in Point Lisas in Central Trinidad. Most of the energy is produced through unsustainable options due to the oil and gas industry powering the Trinidad economy for the past 4 decades. Unfortunately, the government currently is not of mind to enter renewable options because of the idea that there’s still money to be made in that sector.