Here's a smile at my grandmother's funeral in Santa Cruz, Trinidad. photo credit coming soon. It's supposed to be dry season in Trinidad and Tobago but it's been raining for the past hour. I'm sitting in what used to be my grandparent's house in Diamond Vale, which is in the town of Diego Martin. Diamond Vale is a valley and all the streets are named after precious stones. It's divided into two sections, the new vale and the old vale - my grandparent's house is in the old vale. When this neighborhood was first built, it was all the rage, but I can't help but wonder how much my grandparents and everyone else who moved here from the countryside must have felt to live in concrete houses that seemed designed to socialize them out of their country hospitality. There was a time when I knew almost everyone on this street, but so many have moved out, often abroad, and the street no longer has that coziness it once had when familiar faces greeted you ...