Spice Island (Grenada) Impressions: Day One and Two

By: aromaproductions on 6:54 PM

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Spice Island (Grenada) Impressions

 

A view of St. George's

Arrival in Grenada, 14, July 2013

After nineteen hours in transit (Basel-London-Miami-Grenada), I am happy to be on the ground. It is not another layover; I am no longer killing time by observing other travelers and guessing their nationalities from accents.

In Miami I had chuckled inwardly at an elderly American man waiting on line with me and others to be summoned to the cubicle that admits American citizens. He was complaining about all the inconveniences. We had just landed from London and I wandered, wanted to ask him, if he was travelling for the first time since 911.  His grumpiness did not end there. It continued in front of the baggage claim carousel where he jumped in front of me as I grabbed my large, red suitcase, the color deliberately chosen so I could spot it at the distance.  His wife apologized, as he grabbed his bag and began rush off. She asked him if he was going to wait as she recovered hers. She, too, was obviously fed up with his moaning. I was thinking, time had made him like that or his ulcers might have been acting up. They quickly disappeared out of my perimeters.

The air at Maurice Bishop International Airport is tolerable. My husband, Emmanuel and I wait for what seems like another hour past my 8:30 p.m. arrival time for the taxi driver he had hired to find us or my husband to find him. We finally take to the noisy, narrow winding roads. Every car appears to be blowing horns. There are so many curves, I guess they have to hit the horns at frequent intervals. 

St. George's from the hilltop not far from our home.

After a twenty minute drive we arrive at my temporary residence, a two story apartment built against a sloping hill. I settle into studio 2 that will be my home for three weeks. It reminds me of the studio/apartment my daughter, Cassandra, and her daughter had stayed in in Lisbon, Portugal, three weeks earlier. The air condition is turned on and I hit the mosquito net-covered bed after brushing my teeth and getting into my nightgown.

Here I am standing in front of the apartment; not studio 2

Day two, Monday, July 15, 2013

Today is hot. I get up at 7:00 a.m. It is already 1:00 p.m. in Switzerland. I am ready for breakfast instead of lunch, drink a ginger tea, instead of coffee, for that is all there is. Then I jump into the shower. I am happy for once for cold water. Soon after, I return to the bathroom to get my comb. A millipede crawling on the floor greets me. “Welcome to the Caribbean.“

Here is millipede one lying in a dustpan and ready to be disposed of.

My home in St. Thomas (US Virgin Islands) and its surrounding was a habitat for millipedes. The black worms crawled up and down trees and sometimes found their way into our house. I shuddered every time I saw one and my killer instinct revealed itself. Some rational person, most likely, my father, would come to its recue. Edging the millipede onto a stick, it would be quickly disposed of.

Around 9:00 a.m. my husband and I walk down the hilly street, dodging cars, because there are no sidewalks. We enter the Blue Danube shop, whose owner comes from Aruba, off the north Venezuelan coast, to buy fresh bread and coffee. I am drawn to saltfish cakes in a container. I eye the fruit, mangoes and sour-sap. We buy salt-fish cakes and a medium sized sour-sap because I hadn’t had any since 2010 when I went to Colombia for the Twentieth Poetry Festival of Medellin. There I drank sour-sap juice almost every day until had diarhoea. Sour-sap is a natural laxative. We don’t buy mangoes. We already have more than we can eat and red, fallen French cashew fruit carpet the ground under the tree which is still laden with the fruit. 
       

Sour-sap in a sour-sap tree.

French cashews lying on the ground after rain

                                       Today is a day of jet-lag recovery. After breakfast which consists of wheat bread, salt-fish cake, two mangoes, a slice of sour-sap and coffee, I put my feet up to read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah, a book, whose characters, setting, and experience I identify with coming from the Caribbean (Antigua and St. Thomas, Virgin Islands) and having lived in Liberia, West Africa for fourteen years.

We ate sour-sap and papaya almost every morning

My husband, Emmanuel, gives me a tour of the family home since I have never seen it. I had not visited Grenada since 1989. Elderly parents always took me to St Thomas, Virgin Islands. With only my one parent left, after the death of my mother in 1993, dad was precious gold and every moment spent with him was a subtle lesson on how to cope with age. My dad didn’t know he was teaching me how to grow old with grace.

My husband shows me around the top apartment which is being renovated. The tenants have just moved out after many years of renting and the apartment is in dire need of a renovation. A second smaller apartment is rented. We are staying in one of two small studios. The more compact studio on the ground floor next to the small apartment is being refurbished.

My sister, Arlene Romeo-Ware and My husband.

The house seen from a different angle.

 

From here one can flag down a bus going to St. George's

Later my husband and I go to Grand Anse area (not the beach) to buy lumber and nails and other items necessary in construction. With the project manager’s list in hand, my husband and I walk down Lother’s Lane hill, backpacks filled with laptop, I-Pad and I-Phones. We skirt the moving traffic, jump into the grass when cars are dangerously close. On the way to a bus stop that would take us to the lumber shop, we search for open Wi-Fi feeds but are unlucky. There is no internet in our quarters. I am melting in the heat and thoughts of returning to the studio begin to circle my mind. I shrug them off and soldier on accepting that I must condition myself to the environment.

The “tap-tap” buses, always crammed with passengers, like all transport, drive on the left. The buses bring back memories of Liberia as they are fitted with four to five rows of seats. The seats at the end fold so that passengers can have access to backseats. If you wish to sit next to the driver, there are two seats available up front. There is a conductor, known as carboys in Liberia, who collects fees from passengers when they disembark. You also have to shout “bus stop,” or tap loudly on the ceiling of the bus when you are about to reach your destination. How far away and how similar is the island nation of Grenada to the West African nation of Liberia.

 After our shopping at Ramdhanny Hardware Shop is done near Grand Anse, we take a bus to St. Georges and search again for internet cafes. On the way, we stop to buy roasted corn and boiled breadnuts, buy a drink at a supermarket we are told has free Wi Fi. 

 The drink is cold and satisfying but there is no Wi Fi. It is already 5:00 p.m. the shops are closing, the bus station is swirling with people trying to get home and packed with buses departing to various destinations on the island We hop onto a bus which is heading to St. Paul’s, a suburb of St. Georges, the Capital of Grenada. The bus climbs a hill that makes you think that you are climbing to heaven and I hold on to anything that makes me feel secure as the bus climbs further up and bends round sharp curves. Approaching our stop in Lother’s Lane, my husband points out buildings that indicate we are close to home. We get off. I take photos of breadfruit trees and the scenery around me as we walk downhill home. 

The road taken when you walk to the city.

One can catch a bus to St. George's near this sign.

 Roti has been on my mind all afternoon and we stop at the Blue Danube Shop to buy a roti. It is going to be my dinner.   

Chicken roti dinner

On our way home I am approached by a hustler selling a breadfruit--his last he says. It looks like it fell from a tree as there are chunks missing. Then he recognizes my husband and offers it to me free.  He promises to bring more produce later that evening.  It is already around six. 

I notice a mural whose paintings reflect the culture of the almost extinct Carib and extinct Arawak Indians, the indigenous people of the Caribbean Islands. It shows them drying fish, pounding grain, women bathing in the river, and women coming home from work and passing by a cornfield. Here on the wall is the story that is part of our history. I am happy that someone took time out to paint it, a public museum on the roadside, reminding us of the past as we pass by.

 


While eating my roti on the patio, the vendor arrives with mangoes, avocado, grapefruit, oranges, lime and callalo leaves (the leaves of the dasheen root vegetable). My husband offers him five Grenadian dollars to thank him for his generosity, but he asks for seven dollars more to buy gas for his car. We are surprised because we thought the gifts were from the heart. I tell him to come back tomorrow for the rest. I haven’t been to the bank yet to change money.

Breadfruit left (back) and different types of mangoes

Blugger(left) green bananas (center), breadfruit (right), peter banana (yellow)

French cashews

I am in bed by 8:00 p.m.  It is 2:00 a.m. in Switzerland and my body tells me it is bedtime.