Spice Island (Grenada) Impressions:Days five & Six

By: aromaproductions on 8:38 PM

Share it Please

Tweet

Spice Island (Grenada) Impressions Day 5,

Thursday July 18, 2013
Spice, spice baby!

Carenage, St. Georges

I am up at 6:30. I have put the kettle on to make a cup of tea because I am tired of drinking instant Nescafe. With a broom in hand, I go in search of my enemy, the centipede.

I sweep under the dresser-drawer. The centipede is “dead dead.” Mission accomplished. It now lies in the big, black bag that the rubbish collector picks up at 9:00 a.m. each morning. The milk I just poured in my tea comes from Holland. At first when I saw Leche Entera, I thought it came from Venezuela which is close by but above it also says Bella Holandesa (Dutch Lady), then I check the distributor for confirmation and there it is-The Netherlands. The Dutch Antilles is not far away
 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_Antilles).

(map of the Caribbean)

http://www.westindiesgate.com/img/caribbeanislands.png

We Caribbean island folks import from everywhere in the world and often we import the cheapest things that fall apart in our hands and the most expensive, unaffordable things. Our search for pot covers yesterday is proof of that. Nobody sold pot covers. You had to buy a set of pots that cost over six hundred Eastern Caribbean dollars (1$ =2.70 E.C). So we are still without pot covers and I do not want to buy a ridiculously expensive pot just to get the cover. My daughter, Cassandra, will have to bring pot covers from Switzerland when she comes to Grenada in August.

I have just realized that I haven’t watched TV since I arrived. Well it is nice not to watch the daily unfolding tragedy that is today’s world.  I keep myself busy writing my daily diary, reading, editing a book of poems and learning about my surroundings.

                

Banana trees, French cashew, papaya and mango trees in our garden

Where I sit and look at the garden and the harbor from the hillside where our house is located.

                

Today’s trip to town is planned for 11:00. My husband has to buy nails and a new shower head, so we will leave together. I think he might be worried I won’t find my way back. We have to wait until a worker has finished adding a shelf to the kitchen cupboard.  There is a sudden downpour of heavy rain and the pipe behind our window is gushing water turbulently. The rain is brief but the flow of the water pipe is heavier and more rapid than the last rain.

On our way to the bus stop we bake in the heat rising after the rain. I am mopping my face with a paper towel I happen to have in my handbag. The paper is now limp with my sweat. The bus arrives to our relief and we do our usual journey down narrow, hilly roads to the St. Georges bus station.

After we have bought all the shopping on our list, we separate.  I go to the internet café to connect with the world, with family and friends, to send pictures I have taken of my tropical discoveries. My husband takes the bus home.  It takes me one hour and forty-five minutes to send pictures from my I-phone to family, post photos on Facebook, send messages, read e-mails on my three internet addresses, and quickly browse the news outlets. Nothing extremely devastating has happened; there are no new wars and I am happy with that. There is no time to greet individual Facebook friends.

I am hungry and I go to Andall Restaurant to have a late lunch but the line is extremely long.  I am wondering why so many people are having lunch at 3:00 p.m. That still remains a mystery. I decide to go to the market
 http://www.grenadaexplorer.com/tip/market/).

I bypass the outer stalls and go into the main market. It is filled with market women selling souvenirs of all sorts: nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, all-spice, bay-leaf, black pepper, turmeric or saffron and “boireden” leaves (local name) which are used for seasoning. The women hustle me to buy their ware. One gives me her card. I promise to return when my sister, Arlene, and cousin, Grace arrive from California.  They will certainly buy some spices. There is an enormous variety of souvenirs to choose from.

                     

dried cacao beans

Tamarind balls

tamarind

 There are also West Indian hot sauces, local marinades, handmade jewelry, baskets, calabash bowls, and the usual T-shirts, dresses and towels found in tourist destination all over the world. 





The Chinese must be happy with this demand for T-shirts, and the like. They seem to fill the demand for generic souvenirs (e.g. T-shirts) all over the world.

Hunger helps me to decide to hop onto the bus and head home. I decide I would have chicken roti again. I haven’t tried the roti skin (dal or bread with split peas). See chicken roti recipe (http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/283/West_Indian_Chicken_Roti46588.shtml)

Chicken roti which I love and roti skin (the basic bread with split peas).

I will order some mauby to go with it. The roti is delicious as usual, the mauby is bitter. I have had less bitter mauby in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. Nostalgia makes me drink it anyway and I am satisfied, but might not order mauby again, if I do, it will be from another eatery. I later discovered a more drink more pleasant to the palate but is not homemade.

According to Wikipedia maubi/mauby (in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Guyana,Bermuda, Barbados and Anguilla), but also known as mavi (maví or mabí) in Puerto Rico, mabi in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and maubi in the Virgin Islands and Dutch Caribbean islands of St. Eustatius, St. Maarten and Saba), is a tree bark-based beverage grown, and widely consumed, in the Caribbean. It is made with sugar and the bark and/or fruit of certain species in the Colubrina genus including Colubrina elliptica (also called behuco indio) and Colubrina arborescens, a small tree native to the northern Caribbean and south Florida. Recipes usually include other spices as well, aniseed being very common. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauby

I am frying Peter banana (The short, fat yellow banana/plantain). It will be served with fish and rice and will be my husband’s dinner.

 In the background the radio blasts calypso. It has been blaring calypso all day, just like the cars and buses that ply the streets.  Every bus is suited up with a sound system that booms music all day long. Some buses are equipped with videos of the musicians playing. The videos are strategically placed so that the listener cannot miss the action. It a good way for the homesick soul, the calypso aficionada to do a crash course in contemporary calypso. This is not Jamaica. Reggae is secondary here and Grenada is right next door to Trinidad and Tobago, the home of calypso.

I am beginning to think that food takes longer to fry in coconut oil or maybe it is the brand new hotplate that is slow. The first batch of fried Peter banana is done. The coconut oil has given it a unique, delicious taste. Yum!

It is 6:40 p.m. and the sun is going down. I am looking forward to continuing Americanah. I am half way through the book. It is going to be the bedtime story I read to myself.

Tomorrow we leave for Madeys. We are going to spend the weekend with Lena, return late Sunday or early Monday morning.  I am excited about seeing another part of the island and taking photos of the scenery, interesting houses and people I see along the way.

In the bathroom, a greyish-pink lizard is crawling on the wall. Looks like the local creatures are taking turns to bid me goodnight. I decide to ignore the lizard, let it go about its business.

Day six, Friday July 19, 2013

Today I plan to visit the internet shop once again. This time I will check in on Facebook friends and find out what is going on in their world. Yesterday I had time only for family. I am going to be gone the whole weekend and I doubt there is any kind of internet service in the Madeys’area.  I also plan to visit the famous Grand Anse beach just to walk around, take in the view and take pictures. I will be alone and won’t flirt with the water because someone needs to watch my personal belongings. I don’t have a wickelfisch. It is a plastic waterproof sack in which you can put your belongs and swim with it. It also serves as a floating device. (http://www.tiloahmels.ch/pop.php?lI=content/produkte/wickelfisch/b/1.jpg&pTit=Wickelfisch)

The rain has started and I am waiting for the heat to raise its ugly head. I am not enjoying my tea so much this morning. The milk sits next to a bottle of kiwi- cranberry juice and twice now I have poured the juice into my tea. Fortunately, not enough to make it cold, but it does transform the taste. I will have to separate the cartons.

I have another encounter with a centipede. This time it is hidden in a dishcloth I was about to use to wipe down the sink. I try to kill it and it seems indestructible, so I clamp a glass over it and go to find my husband. He doesn’t seem too concerned, tells me to take it up with a cloth and shake it out outside. 

When I return, I discover it has escaped from under the glass and is crawling around in the sink.  I am becoming hysterical now. I find the insect spray and try to exterminate it and it is still wriggling slowly. Then I beat it to death with the tin of insect spray. 

 Childhood memory of my mother becoming hysterical when she saw a huge centipede crawling on our ceiling springs back. I was under five when it happened and we were living in village called Rotten Town, near English Harbour, Antigua. I now wonder how a village earns such a name. The centipede is poisonous and the pain is horrendous when it bites. These insects are “creeping me out.” I now remember that my husband said he had killed a snake soon after her arrived on the island.

My husband’s cousin (uncle Pim’s son), who has stopped by to say hello, tells me it is the raining season and the fruit trees are bearing and it is natural to have all of insects around. I am not too happy. Matters might be worse when we go to the countryside this weekend.

We arrive in Madeys after 5:00 p.m. It is a village about one hour’s drives from St. Georges. To get to Madeys we drive up hills, down hills, drive along the Atlantic seaside, repeating this pattern of travel. We pass the town of St. Johns in Gouyave Paris, after that St. Mark’s Parish, Sauteures, the capital of St. Patricks’ Parish and finally after La Fortune village, we are at Madeys (See Grenada map).

http://www.travelgrenada.com/grenada-maps.html

 It is a small and surrounded by green woods that hide trees bearing a variety of fruit. Around my sister-law’s house are mango, lime, guava, water lemon, damson and trees bearing “five fingers” known to us as carambola. There are a variety of beautiful flowers the names of which I am not familiar but I will soon find out from Lena, my sister-in-law.

Here is my husband waiting for Lena to tie her three dogs.  One has a vicious temper.

     

On Lena's veranda and photos  of a few flowers and fruit from Lena's enormous garden

 


      

Lena prepares a dinner of jack fish, breadfruit slices, boiled bananas, rice with peas, and macaroni pie. She had prepared dinner for Saturday as well as she is a devoted Seventh Day Adventist and must not work on Sabbath. For dessert we have mango palrey and learn that in this area of the island there is also mango yam and mango sugar. We are also treated to a small yellow fruit called a water lemon.

Water Lemon

Tonight I watch TV for the first time in five days. The news is filled with tragic stories as always.

Here in this hot tropical environment we rise earlier and go to bed earlier. It is fast approaching my bedtime. A bed covered with a mosquito net awaits us. A an electric fan stands like a soldier at its side.

I hope I will dream of the mini Garden of Eden Lena calls home and not about the coconut tree that leans precariously above a neighbor's house.

Perhaps the mosquitoes will see to it that I don't dream at all.