Times are hard and money is too tight to mention. If you can still afford a vacation we really want you to come to our small rock. Never mind the scandalous treatment of undocumented workers or the huge hike in water rates because the water company failed to put aside funds for depreciation. None of this will perturb your paradise. You must come here for the exquisite beaches, superb restaurants and friendly people.
Well the beaches are fantastic but maybe best to avoid Mullins Beach because the extensive building works in that area have directly caused severe beach erosion. Restaurants are world class but once you are prepared to pay London prices your digestion will be easier. And the friendly people you might meet on the beach are very friendly if you want to buy shells or get your hair braided. The rest of the population will treat you as if you have had a longstanding quarrel or more likely ignore you.
But these are minor matters. I really, really want you to choose Barbados rather than Bali for the summer or winter hols. Maybe you have been put off because there are questions you have but were too afraid to ask. I have gathered a number of such questions that the Tourist Board have neglected to address and provided answers to the best of my ability. These are authentic, hearsay inquiries. If you have others please drop me line.
1. What part of Jamaica is Barbados?
Barbados is NOT part of Jamaica. Yet. However, on current trends Jamaica will become part of Barbados. If you are in Jamaica and trying to find Barbados take an airline called LIAT and keep heading south. You might get here one day. Your luggage never will.
2. Do the natives speak English?
If this question is from an American then the answer is yes they do speak English so bring a dictionary and phrase book to help you along.
3. Is the hurricane season rainy?
Oh just a little. Best to have a brolly.
4. Are there nudist beaches?
Yes! Yes! Yes! Accra Beach on the south coast. Anytime. It is not compulsory so you might find everyone else in beachwear but do not feel constrained. Text me when you plan to be there.
5. Can I go topless around town?
Yes! Yes! Yes! Let nature’s soothing breezes caress your chest. Again, text me when you plan to be there.
6. What side of the road do they drive on in Barbados?
Difficult this one but suffice it to say it is never the one you expect.
7. How good is the ganga?
This organic herb is occasionally grown in St. Philip. However, Barbados is part of the Caribbean Economic Community and cheap imports from neighbouring St. Vincent are in plentiful supply. Note that free movement of goods is still way ahead of free movement of Vincentians, Guyanese and Jamaicans. (Dear First and Second Born: I didn’t inhale.)
8. I hear there are a lot of Russian escorts - is this true and are they less expensive than in London?
Yes. No.
9. Is there a website where female tourists can choose a beach stud for a two-week vacation?
www.iwantofoopinbarbados.com
10. How do I say “Good Morning” in Spanish?
Good Fooping.
11. What if I die on the way to Barbados? Will they fly my body straight back or must it go through immigration first?
Meat and meat-related products may not enter the country without an appropriate permit obtained from the Licensing Authority in The Pine so please obtain one before you die.
12. I met a boy on Accra beach last summer. We fell in love and had the most amazing two weeks together but he has not responded to my letters or emails. His name is Marlon. Can you help me find again?
Normally I would have to ask you to write to Dear Christine in The Nation but Lady Luck is with you my friend. Marlon is still renting beach chairs at the Crane Beach and looking well fit. You still have to pay his hourly rate but for true love it is a small price.
13. Can you buy a decent burger and fries?
Sandy Lane Club House does an excellent burger. It will cost the same as a small Chattel House, but if a fish cutter is not your thing then go for it. The economy needs more people like you.
14. Where does Rihanna live?
100 yards from Chris Brown.
THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO ROUND AND ROUND
No body said living in paradise was easy but for the past two and a half years of living on this small rock I have felt privileged and incredibly lucky. Then a week like this one happens and I pause with a heavy heart hoping we made the right decision.
It’s the kids you see.
They were on a daylong school bus trip and a few parents were asked to follow the bus in cars to help with general law and order. More kids turned up for the trip than anticipated and instead of saying they could not be accommodated the school just shoved them all on. In each row of two bucket seats one child per row sat in the middle on the partition.
‘Are you sure it is safe to have the children sit like this?’ I asked the Transport Board bus driver.
‘Yeah. Dat is how we does always carry de children.’
‘How many people can you take?’
‘Ninety-six.’
‘But that must be a certain number sitting and the rest standing.’
‘No. Once is ninety-six in all we good.’
It was only in 2007 that a bus crashed killing six and injuring thirty-seven people on their way to the Party Monarch Finals on the East coast. As Crop-Over draws near again our little society mourns this tragedy at Joe’s River. Somewhere, buried deep beneath a pile of papers on someone’s desk, are a series of proposals for improving safety on buses patiently awaiting implementation.
A few more children clambered on the already overflowing bus.
‘Hurry up! We running late.’
‘Are you sure you want to take on the risk of children seated like this?’ I again asked the two teachers who taught First and Second Born.
They sighed in resignation.
‘Fine. We’ll ask the principal.’
A few months ago the artist Corrie Scott and I embarked on a situationist dérive – the practice of abandoning one’s normal activities to experience a particular geography anew. Okay, so we only managed to ditch our cars and take a bus from Speightstown to Oistins and back. But cheese-on-bread the geography from that bus seat was totally new. I have never made it from one end of the island to the next so fast. Holetown was a blur. Bridgetown whizzed past our eyes. When we staggered off at Oistins it was only to fall into the nearest rum shop demanding soda water to settle our large and small intestines, liver and spleen back into their customary positions.
But it was all worth it for one reason. We shared the bus with a full bridal party. They too got on at Speightstown and off at Oistins. From our seats in the rum shop we saw the bride, in flowing white gown, and her beautifully turned out entourage, get off the bus and hail a ZR taxi. She and her party pushed in with the other passengers and sped off - presumably to the church where her groom was waiting. At least our bus had been on time or even ahead of schedule and we know ZRs will use whatever means necessary to get you to the church on time.
“The principal says if you have a problem take your children off the bus.’
So I did.
A couple other parents followed. But from the stinky looks all around it was clear that I was scornfully regarded as bringing my uppity foreign ways to bear on this Garden of Eden. Thirty-odd years ago my own parents would have shared their view. Our happiest summers were spent with another family squashed into their tiny car making our way from San Fernando to Mayaro beach in Trinidad. Five-year-old Mandy was perched on her mother’s knees in the front seat (no seat belt of course) and her slightly older brother Anton and I squashed ourselves between my parents. Instead of Nintendo we all sang songs, played “I Spy”, and waved or made faces at people in other cars. Life was simpler back then and we never considered the possibility of becoming road fatality statistics.
The first death I can recall was the loss of my much-loved Aunty Ruby when I was seven. She was always giving me presents of pretty dresses. The last one she gave me was white on top with a black skirt and a black velvet band around the waist. Her car crashed on the road between San Fernando and Mayaro. She died instantly.
It’s the kids you see.
They were on a daylong school bus trip and a few parents were asked to follow the bus in cars to help with general law and order. More kids turned up for the trip than anticipated and instead of saying they could not be accommodated the school just shoved them all on. In each row of two bucket seats one child per row sat in the middle on the partition.
‘Are you sure it is safe to have the children sit like this?’ I asked the Transport Board bus driver.
‘Yeah. Dat is how we does always carry de children.’
‘How many people can you take?’
‘Ninety-six.’
‘But that must be a certain number sitting and the rest standing.’
‘No. Once is ninety-six in all we good.’
It was only in 2007 that a bus crashed killing six and injuring thirty-seven people on their way to the Party Monarch Finals on the East coast. As Crop-Over draws near again our little society mourns this tragedy at Joe’s River. Somewhere, buried deep beneath a pile of papers on someone’s desk, are a series of proposals for improving safety on buses patiently awaiting implementation.
A few more children clambered on the already overflowing bus.
‘Hurry up! We running late.’
‘Are you sure you want to take on the risk of children seated like this?’ I again asked the two teachers who taught First and Second Born.
They sighed in resignation.
‘Fine. We’ll ask the principal.’
A few months ago the artist Corrie Scott and I embarked on a situationist dérive – the practice of abandoning one’s normal activities to experience a particular geography anew. Okay, so we only managed to ditch our cars and take a bus from Speightstown to Oistins and back. But cheese-on-bread the geography from that bus seat was totally new. I have never made it from one end of the island to the next so fast. Holetown was a blur. Bridgetown whizzed past our eyes. When we staggered off at Oistins it was only to fall into the nearest rum shop demanding soda water to settle our large and small intestines, liver and spleen back into their customary positions.
But it was all worth it for one reason. We shared the bus with a full bridal party. They too got on at Speightstown and off at Oistins. From our seats in the rum shop we saw the bride, in flowing white gown, and her beautifully turned out entourage, get off the bus and hail a ZR taxi. She and her party pushed in with the other passengers and sped off - presumably to the church where her groom was waiting. At least our bus had been on time or even ahead of schedule and we know ZRs will use whatever means necessary to get you to the church on time.
“The principal says if you have a problem take your children off the bus.’
So I did.
A couple other parents followed. But from the stinky looks all around it was clear that I was scornfully regarded as bringing my uppity foreign ways to bear on this Garden of Eden. Thirty-odd years ago my own parents would have shared their view. Our happiest summers were spent with another family squashed into their tiny car making our way from San Fernando to Mayaro beach in Trinidad. Five-year-old Mandy was perched on her mother’s knees in the front seat (no seat belt of course) and her slightly older brother Anton and I squashed ourselves between my parents. Instead of Nintendo we all sang songs, played “I Spy”, and waved or made faces at people in other cars. Life was simpler back then and we never considered the possibility of becoming road fatality statistics.
The first death I can recall was the loss of my much-loved Aunty Ruby when I was seven. She was always giving me presents of pretty dresses. The last one she gave me was white on top with a black skirt and a black velvet band around the waist. Her car crashed on the road between San Fernando and Mayaro. She died instantly.
AN ASSESSMENT OF THE CONTRIBUTION OF CAKE TO DEMOCRATIC REFORMS FROM 1789 TO 2009
Maybe it was Marie-Antoinette, more likely it was Marie-Thérèse, but one of these bad-ass chicks said something like “let them eat cake”. Since then we have been faced with the vexed question of what was meant by that inflammatory remark made in the face of soaring bread prices. If Marie-Antoinette, a much-misunderstood woman, had indeed uttered these famous words, it would not have been the cynical statement it first appears. Hers would have been a plea that if her people can’t have baguette then they deserve something better. So historians have neglected to consider another vexed question: which cake exactly was Her Royal Sweetness referring to? Answers have been sought in the patisseries of Paris, with theories verging from a simple sponge like a Madeleine to some elaborate, cream-laden concoction. But it is on this small rock, where the population has no appetite for revolution, and salt bread prices are relatively stable, that the answer has at last been revealed.
Actually “revealed” is not quite correct. Not all 280,000 inhabitants of this small rock have tasted The Cake and there are no signs of it coming into commercial production. A man who makes his living by selling a Caribbean cake in a distinctive box at tourist outlets, (the locals know better than to eat the stuff themselves), tasted The Cake and was smitten. It was moist and overflowing with perfectly blended ingredients. A slightly tart frosting, the texture of pure cashmere, offset its sweetness. And every time the tip of the tongue touched this sensual paradise it quivered involuntarily. Apparently.
But I digress. The Box Cake man made the baker a proposition: I will buy the Holetown coffee house you are selling for the full asking price. But in return you must agree to give me The Cake recipe so that I may bake it, put it in a box, and sell it to the tourists and locals alike. She declined. He had already ruined one cake and she was not about to let him ruin another. Ten years have passed since that rejection. Still he asks. Still it seems she refuses.
Others have been less bold, preferring an occasional taste on The Cake, rather than coveting the recipe for private use. Emily was content that the baker agreed to make it for her wedding and Sharon asked for and received nothing more - or less - than The Cake for her big Five O. Two elderly ladies were known to make the journey by bus from St. Philip, on the other side of the island, every Thursday that God spare life, to eat The Cake and drink freshly brewed tea while the baker was in residence.
One day the coffee house did change hands and the baker departed taking the recipe with her. Years have passed but stories persist of a party in St. Lucy, or a wedding in Christ Church, when guests were treated to The Cake. By the time I came to live on this small rock The Cake was pure urban myth. Versions of the recipe have apparently been found around the island. Someone claimed it was among the many scribbles that covered the walls of Groots roti shop. A woman sent a letter to Dear Christine, our national agony aunt, with a version of the recipe she said was left on the seat of a ZR taxi. Still another said it was inside a bottle that washed up on Pebbles Beach. But these glimmers of hope have been short-lived. No one could reproduce anything like The Cake.
Such pessimism neglected to value one factor: chance. As a statistical probability I should have known I would sooner, rather than later, come face to face with the baker. Yet even as I was stumbling onto The Cake I was only half aware. It was Sunday morning and we were collecting First and Second Born from a sleepover.
'Come in! Come in!' said the gracious host.
'Thank you but we mustn’t impose. We’ll just get the boys and head off.'
'Please I insist.'
'Okay,' said The Husband as he pushed past me to join our host. He was dying for a boys chat – you know the sort of thing - modeling exchange rate risk or, for a real laugh, reforming the Bretton Woods system.
Tea and cake were offered. It looked like any other nice carrot cake. But from the first bite we were delirious.
'This is amazing cake!' said The Husband only to add in the same breath, 'Ingrid never bakes me a cake.'
I took a deep, deep, breath.
'It is not my comparative advantage. Perhaps you might like to take a baking course at the Community College?'
Our host coughed.
'Ahem. Have another slice,' and quickly pushed the cake stand towards me.
My homicidal mood melted with the next bite.
'Do you know about this cake?' asked the hostess to no one in particular.
And then I understood.
It was hard to keep from trembling.
'Is this The Cake?' I asked nervously.
'Yes. I’ve been making it for years. Used to sell it at my coffee shop in Holetown when I had the place. Got the recipe from a sculptor who was living on the island.'
I hesitated but this chance might never come again. There was nothing to lose and only girth to gain.
'Do you think I could maybe, please, possibly have the recipe?' I mumbled.
'Sure,' she replied. 'I’ll email it to you.'
My inbox is still empty.
Actually “revealed” is not quite correct. Not all 280,000 inhabitants of this small rock have tasted The Cake and there are no signs of it coming into commercial production. A man who makes his living by selling a Caribbean cake in a distinctive box at tourist outlets, (the locals know better than to eat the stuff themselves), tasted The Cake and was smitten. It was moist and overflowing with perfectly blended ingredients. A slightly tart frosting, the texture of pure cashmere, offset its sweetness. And every time the tip of the tongue touched this sensual paradise it quivered involuntarily. Apparently.
But I digress. The Box Cake man made the baker a proposition: I will buy the Holetown coffee house you are selling for the full asking price. But in return you must agree to give me The Cake recipe so that I may bake it, put it in a box, and sell it to the tourists and locals alike. She declined. He had already ruined one cake and she was not about to let him ruin another. Ten years have passed since that rejection. Still he asks. Still it seems she refuses.
Others have been less bold, preferring an occasional taste on The Cake, rather than coveting the recipe for private use. Emily was content that the baker agreed to make it for her wedding and Sharon asked for and received nothing more - or less - than The Cake for her big Five O. Two elderly ladies were known to make the journey by bus from St. Philip, on the other side of the island, every Thursday that God spare life, to eat The Cake and drink freshly brewed tea while the baker was in residence.
One day the coffee house did change hands and the baker departed taking the recipe with her. Years have passed but stories persist of a party in St. Lucy, or a wedding in Christ Church, when guests were treated to The Cake. By the time I came to live on this small rock The Cake was pure urban myth. Versions of the recipe have apparently been found around the island. Someone claimed it was among the many scribbles that covered the walls of Groots roti shop. A woman sent a letter to Dear Christine, our national agony aunt, with a version of the recipe she said was left on the seat of a ZR taxi. Still another said it was inside a bottle that washed up on Pebbles Beach. But these glimmers of hope have been short-lived. No one could reproduce anything like The Cake.
Such pessimism neglected to value one factor: chance. As a statistical probability I should have known I would sooner, rather than later, come face to face with the baker. Yet even as I was stumbling onto The Cake I was only half aware. It was Sunday morning and we were collecting First and Second Born from a sleepover.
'Come in! Come in!' said the gracious host.
'Thank you but we mustn’t impose. We’ll just get the boys and head off.'
'Please I insist.'
'Okay,' said The Husband as he pushed past me to join our host. He was dying for a boys chat – you know the sort of thing - modeling exchange rate risk or, for a real laugh, reforming the Bretton Woods system.
Tea and cake were offered. It looked like any other nice carrot cake. But from the first bite we were delirious.
'This is amazing cake!' said The Husband only to add in the same breath, 'Ingrid never bakes me a cake.'
I took a deep, deep, breath.
'It is not my comparative advantage. Perhaps you might like to take a baking course at the Community College?'
Our host coughed.
'Ahem. Have another slice,' and quickly pushed the cake stand towards me.
My homicidal mood melted with the next bite.
'Do you know about this cake?' asked the hostess to no one in particular.
And then I understood.
It was hard to keep from trembling.
'Is this The Cake?' I asked nervously.
'Yes. I’ve been making it for years. Used to sell it at my coffee shop in Holetown when I had the place. Got the recipe from a sculptor who was living on the island.'
I hesitated but this chance might never come again. There was nothing to lose and only girth to gain.
'Do you think I could maybe, please, possibly have the recipe?' I mumbled.
'Sure,' she replied. 'I’ll email it to you.'
My inbox is still empty.
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