First Month in Grenada

I have been putting this off for way too long. I am actually typing away in my bed protected underneath a net from the ravaging mosquitoes that would like nothing more than to suck out every last drop of blood and then my bone marrow… these little bastards must surely be the national bird of the West Indies! Oddly enough they don’t bother the locals but they sure as hell bother me… Thank god for Deet! I am also very grateful that my mother bought me very light traveling pants… At least they don’t come out during the day but I will have an easier time to endure the discomfort of wearing pants in this heat more than put up with those blood suckers.

Tomorrow I am getting a ride back to the main island of Grenada on a beautiful hand made sail boat but I will get back to the fun stuff later… for now I will just complain a bit ;) It is officially one month since I left home. I have been in Grenada since May 22nd 2002. Actually, I have spent most of my time on the sister island of Carriacou (about 6000 people). Tourism has been really hit hard here. In most of the places I stay in, I am pretty much the only guest. So it gets a little lonely especially since I spent just about the first 3 weeks eating 3 meals a day alone in the hotel/guesthouse restaurants.

I typically work all day doing my computer training. For the most part I have tried to keep a schedule of 9-5, since its something I am used to but it’s difficult to build up a routine since every week I move to a new place. But I really can’t complain… for the most part, many of the places I have stayed in thus far had AC (and so protection from my nemesis the Mosquito). All my meals are prepared, my transportation is arranged for me, my room and my laundry are cleaned by staff so I don’t really do anything for myself except wipe my ass. Plus the Caribbean is just beautiful, both on land and in the water.

In the time I have been here, my experiences have been different from one place to the next. I arrived on the main island of Grenada and spent a day there before leaving for Carriacou on my first assignment. People are ferried back and forth between the islands on a huge motor powered catamaran called the Osprey. It’s a rough ride (especially over the underwater volcano Kickem’ Jenny) and takes about 90 minutes. The crew usually run around offering complimentary vomit bags. I did however make it safely to Carriacou without seeing my lunch come up.

The locals in Carriacou call themselves Kayaks, after the natives who lived here generations ago before being whipped out by other tribes and the European colonists. Carriacou is a dry rock with two basic seasons: one month flood and eleven months drought. Mostly all the water here is rainwater, which is good to drink. They do have desalination plants just in case though. As a general rule, people here don’t flush when they do #1. To be honest, it’s not really a rock… it has plenty of vegetation, but not the rain forests of Grenada, which I will soon see.

Anyway, back to my first assignment… I spent a week at the Carriacou Grand View Hotel that was recently built and very fancy by local standards. It’s located up on a hill with a beautiful view of the harbour and town.I taught web development and we even published their site (www.carriacougrandview.com). It was great work but pretty boring at night. I learned quickly that there is nothing to do weekdays after sundown, which is 7pm. Actually, sundown is too romantic a word. Rather, it should be sun fall… within half an hour you go from bright daylight to pitch darkness… you can actually SEE the sun move under the horizon within minutes.

On my first weekend I was taken out to a bar which was pretty empty because of another big social event among the young…bingo! Although many people do play, many of them come to do a little Limin (aka just hanging out with friends). So we went to the bingo and afterwards danced at the Sunrise Disco (a small dance bar along the coast). As far as I can tell, there are only two dance bars in Carriacou… I am not really a big fan of Reggae and Hip Hop (which is pretty much all they play here) but I danced none the less… It was however very strange being the only white guy in the place. What caught my eye was how everyone danced facing the same direction… this place was packed with a few hundred people and they all danced this way. Plus, because of the heat, many people carry a rag that hangs out of their pockets to whip off the sweat.

The main drink here is rum. They brew their own here in Carriacou called Jack Iron… 99% proof!!!… The stuff will fuel your engine, strip your paint and get you drunk all a once. Many bars use it cause it’s not very expensive and you need less rum per drink so a bottle goes a long way. There are basically two beers here Carib (which is pretty good) and Heineken the local’s favourite. (They say that only the foreigners, people like me, drink Carib beer). The first few times I bought beer I always got these strange looks when I left a tip… I was worried that perhaps I didn’t give enough until I asked and found out that you don’t tip the bar tender?!? And of course, at the end of the night we got something to eat. A local lady always shows up outside any social event with her BBQ, her special sauce and lots of chicken and pork… this stuff is really good, especially at 2:30am! Its handed to you on a sheet of aluminium foil and you eat with your hands… quite messy but there are no alternatives.

The next night, Saturday, I went to the community centre for the Carriacou Comedy Festival… that was an experience. I sat near the front to get a good look… I soon realized (after the show started) that only women sat in the front and men sat way back in the last rows or even just stood. First off, I should say that when locals talk to me, they spare me the slang…but when they talk to each other they may as well be speaking Portuguese for all I know. So either I couldn’t understand what these comedians were saying or I didn’t find their jokes funny. So everyone is rolling on the ground laughing and I am just sitting there puzzled and looking very silly. So not only am I white but I am not cool enough to stand in the back with the rest of the men and I have no sense of humour so I really stood out!

The next week, I spent at Ade’s Dream Guesthouse and Hotel. A relatively big place in “the big city” of Hillsborough, the heart of Carriacou. When people say they are going downtown, they mean Hillsborough… a bustling metropolis of 600 people and a few shops and restaurants, a bank and some bars. There is one main road and the only gas station on the island is a Shell. Ade’s Dream was nice and they did have AC and Cable TV but the work was long since I had three groups of 4 per day. Two of these groups were teaching the very basic computer usage like mouse and keyboard… that’s much harder to teach than web development! I liked it there though since I met up with the local strong man Chris who heads up the gym. I was very happy to find a place like this…it had all the basic free weights tightly packed into a little shack on the beach. It would get really hot in there but 20 feet away was the ocean and there was always a good breeze.

I was then sent to Grenada’s second sister island… Petit Martinique. Despite the name, there are no longer any people who speak French there. Petit Martinique is well…petit (small… 13 square miles ). The island has about 600 people, a bank (open twice a week), a tiny post office, a church and a store…plus one guesthouse where I stayed. Despite its size, Petit Martinique is reputed to have the highest income per capita in all the Caribbean due to their great boat building, trade and fishing skills. The people are very intelligent, very friendly and deeply religious. Despite the claims from the Kayak’s (people from Carriacou) that Petit Martinique is boring, I actually had a really good time there. And the women on this island are more attractive to me than in Carriacou. I think it has something to do with their mix of Caribbean, Scottish and Native Indian (Carib).

As I said, the people are very friendly and eager to talk to the new face in town. Being a very small community, word spread fast that I was there and many people approached me asking if I could help them with their computer needs or even include them in my teaching sessions.

I stayed in the Melody Guesthouse, which also doubles up as the most popular bar on the island. Saturdays are a big night with their crowd pleasing Karaoke. They really get into this! I spent most of the night talking to this very attractive young woman called Nadine. At the end of the night I innocently walked her home. It seems that caused a little bit of a stir and by the next day every one seemed to know. I guess gossiping is an integral part of a tiny island.

Speaking of tiny islands, I went to Petit St-Vincent (a.k.a. PSV) for the day. PSV is extremely beautiful and is actually privately owned by an American who transformed it into an exclusive and very expensive resort ($1000/night) for those who want to get away from typical resorts. The island is actually part of St-Vincent and the Grenadines… not Grenada. This place is a dream. Imagine this island is almost totally surrounded by the softest white sand beaches, warm turquoise waters and amazingly serene landscaping (plus many of the pretty women from Petit Martinique work there). The 22 private cottages are scattered, some on hillsides, some set into the sides of cliffs and some right on the beach. There are no telephones in the cottages but there are bamboo flagpoles outside them. When you want something, you simply raise a yellow flag but when you want to be alone you send up the red flag.