Tuesday 25th November 08
We arrived in Carriacou on Saturday and checked into Scraper’s. He has a restaurant, bar and shop and 4 self contained units just across the road from the beach at Tyrrel Bay. I don’t know why he’s called Scraper. We’ve noticed that many of the locals have names that we assume were not the handles endowed on them at birth by the doting parents, but maybe acquired at school and stuck into adulthood and beyond. There’s Bubbles, who drives a taxi and rents out a house, Nark, Slinger the guitarist, Baba and many more. We’ve been coming across these people in the course of our enquiries, as our mission at the moment is to find somewhere cheap to rent for the next five months, so we’ve been asking everyone. David Augustine, who runs the Laqua Supermarket, the Twilight Bar and rents a house or two, showed us a little wooden place very close to the beach at the quiet end of Tyrrel Bay, but it is very small. Pokey would be the most accurate description. We saw a very dark apartment which was right on Paradise Beach (50 points in its favour) but the landlady lives upstairs and has about five dogs and a couple of cats (100 points against). The gloom and the resident cockroach also didn’t make us leap at it. Joseph at the Hardwood Snacket surprised us by showing us two lovely apartments with a fantastic view over to Union Island, but they were slightly more expensive and a little out of the way. We don’t want to be too isolated as we want to get to know people and get involved with local life. We’ve seen a nice little house just up the road from the beach at Tyrrel Bay which has been fixed up since the last hurricane (Ivan in 2004) and we’re waiting to hear what the rent is for that. Also, the guy next door who looks after the place for the landlady who is in England, was unable to unlock the door! We should find out this evening, so have decided not to make any more enquiries today, but have awarded ourselves a day off.
There has been a lot of rain here during November and we have been woken in the night a few times by some giant emptying a humungous bucket of water over the roof for about ten minutes. The result is a far greater humidity than anything we’ve experienced here before. So we’ve been sweating profusely and not actually cooling down. It was a little debilitating to start with, but I think I’m beginning to acclimatise. It should get drier from now on, anyway. The cloud formations have been dramatic – towering, boiling cumulus.
I wish I could put the sounds and smells of this place into the blog to share it with you. As I sit in my kitchen writing this I can hear a woman singing at the top of her voice somewhere down the road....I’ve just stepped out for a looksee and it’s Scraper’s wife sweeping the path singing what sounds like a traditional African song. She sounds happy in her work.
It wasn’t just the rain keeping us awake last night, as next door at Tanty Liz’s were having a big funeral party. When we arrived on Saturday they were chopping up meat on a table outside with big machetes. We saw them making preparations all weekend as more and more people arrived to stay. The preparations stepped up on Monday morning then they all disappeared to the church dressed in sombre finery. I say sombre because they were mainly in black and white, but still the ladies wore fancy hats and all the gold jewellery they could muster. By early evening they were all back next door, spilling out across the road, with plates of food and drinks, and we could hear the conversation getting louder and louder. Then the drumming started. I don’t know how many guys were on the big hand drums, but the rhythms were complicated and loud. If it had been any other kind of party I would have gone out for a gawp, but in respect for the dead person, we kept out of the way. So I don’t know if people were dancing or not. It went on until nearly midnight, though. It made my Mum’s funeral seem rather restrained in comparison. I do know that she would have risen up and given me what for if we’d had African drumming at her send off.
Andy already has project to start. He is going to be working with Ted (English guy) to get a GP14 (sailing dinghy) seaworthy. Ted has some Optimists (little dinghies) as well and teaches the local kids sailing on Saturday mornings. I’m hoping to get involved with helping to teach them to swim, too. Once Andy and Ted have done some fibreglass repair work and got the boat rigged, we will have the use of it, which should be fun.
As the day is getting warmer, I’m going to put away this steaming laptop and go for my daily long, lazy swim in the bay.
Wednesday 26th November 08
We moved into a lovely house with a stunning view over the bay (photos to follow). We think we will enjoy it more once the electricity and water start working! We waited in all afternoon for Grenlec to come and sort it. Looks like there was a small fire in the thing outside the house where the wires join. We have tank full of water but it comes into the house via an electric pump. We have some candles and a bucket of water at the ready and have come out for a pizza.
We also have two lovely kids to dote on living under the house.
Yes, real kids. Their mother is a goat.
