My time in Barbados has been brilliantly odd right from the start. After dragging my recently acclimatised body to Gatwick airport I found my flight had been canceled as the plane was stuck in Barbados having hit a bird! So on top of feeling guilty about carbon emissions now I have bird murder on my conscience! This does not bode well for my hippy credentials. Luckily they got us on the next flight and soon I was touching down to the balmy heat of Barbados.
I am staying with a friend of a friend, a woman called Lorna who is very well known and respected in the island due to her work with the Coastal Protection Agency (Barbados is mainly coast and Lorna is a real high flyer in the global discussions on marine conservation). Now having a coastal expert as a landland has some interesting consequences. Lorna and her sister Claudia met me at the airport and quickly informed me that, before going home, we would quickly pop to a beach to see a weird, unidentified, white, gelatinous creature that had washed up on the shore and been freaking people out. Worried that the white, jelly-like creature appearing on the shores somehow related to my arrival and crossed messages we headed off for my first peak of a Bajan beach, and a creature from the deep.
The news of the sea creature was top of the agenda when I arrived into the newspaper office where I am interning (it turned out to be whale blubber and not some pale, British girl) so we moved on to other stories. Barbados Today is a national, online newspapers and with its relatively small team is a great place for me to get some hands on journalism experience. My first day was suitably random, at first I was asked to contact the sheep farming organisation to ask if a new calypso song about “taking my sheep to town” was good for the industry or if it was in fact sheep exploitation. Yup you couldn't get much more Craggy island! But that was interrupted by a colleague asking me if I wanted to come and investigate a dead body in a car. “Wanted” was maybe not the work I would have used but off I went and got my first taste of reporting on deaths. A bit unsettling but oddly not as creepy as I thought it would have been.
Since then I have met the Minister for Education (who was super relaxed and chatty) and have written up a few articles. I may have also have discovered an new tourist mode: the tourist reporter. There is no better way to get to know the island better than racing around investigating the news. Of course not being able to tell the Minister of Education from Adam makes things about bit harder but I am doing my best to catch up.
When I am not interning, coming up with stories, finishing my MA thesis, starting my Journalism Diploma or applying for jobs I have managed to see a bit of the island. My weekend was actually uncharacteristically athletic. I spent Saturday morning on a 2 hour swimming session on a beautiful white sand, turquoise sea beach. Unfortunately, even going early in the morning didn't mean I escaped coming out of the sea as red as a lobster (beats white, gelatinous blob I guess). Breaking news: The sun in Barbados is hot!
Sunday brought more fun. I went to a big Sunday, family lunch with Lorna and her family. With twelve of us squashed round her sister's big dining table we scoffed down delicious food: cornbread, sweet potato, rice and peas, chayote and other goodies. It was all soooo good and was really lovely to be part of this big, typical Bajan lunch. (It is strange, every now and then the Bajan accent sounds a little Northern Irish, (other times West Country) and in a big group of sisters talking to their mum I feel like I am back visiting the grandparents in Ireland. Comforting in many ways!)
However the gluttony was soon to end as I headed off on a National Trust Sunday hike. Now this was advertised as the easiest of the walks, and if it was then I dread to see a hard one! We started out by one of the two remaining sugar factories and set off (virtually at a run) through the intense afternoon heat (we're averaging mid-30s here!). The walk/jog took 3 hours and we traveled about 8 miles, through forested gullys, hacking our way through dense undergrowth and clambering over hurricane-felled trees. Scrambling through the forest and up steep hills I was reminded of my childhood days of playing “freedom-fighters in the forest”, that classic children's game. A great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Sweat drenched but happy I finally arrived home having had a fascinating tour of the low flat, green fields of sugar cane, the damp, cool forests and the wide-sky sunsets that this beautiful country has to offer.
The main thing that has struck me about Barbados, other than the stunning postcard scenery, is just how lovely people are. And I don’t just mean smiley, I mean go-out-of-their-way-for-others lovely. The first example I found was Lorna and her sister Claudia who have been so sweet showing me round and making me feel at home. Lorna is a real gym buff and Claudia is a professional baker.... you can imagine whose skills I have been drawing on. Claudia and I had a huge baking session where she taught me to make pound cake- a delicious, dense sponge with raisins and essence in. We now have a fridge full of cake so instead of taking advantage of Lorna’s home gym I am just sat stuffing myself with delicious treats!
Another example of kindness is when, coming back from Bridgetown, I managed to get on the wrong bus. As we got to the end of the line and I realised I hadn't found my stop I looked bewilderedly at the bus driver who calmly asked where I had been trying to go. When he didn’t know the directions to point me in he instead drove his big, empty bus around for 10 minutes until we found my house! Now that is service!
So yeah, if things keep going this well this is going to be a brilliant month! I am going to try making more cakes, go surfing a few times and check out the start of the huge festival called “Crop Over”. So stay tuned.
This is Maeve McClenaghan reporting for The Year of Jam Times, Paradise.
Lessons learnt:
Number one: Barbados is paradise. Seriously. I always thought it was a bit of a cliched holiday destination but wow is it beautiful!
I am one of the fastest walkers I know and have endangered many friendships because of it. I have nothing on Bajan hikers!
Pound cake involves a pound of sugar, a pound of eggs and a pound of sugar. And I have two of them in my fridge. Calling to me. Constantly calling to me. As a result I will plan to stay away from beaches when reporters or easily spooked fishermen are around.
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