The Girls’ Industrial Union
If you were to list the various vicarious vices in life, it is unlikely that wearing or even owning camouflage clothing would rank among them, but this is Barbados. Such behaviour on this island paradise is illicit, even in the privacy of one’s home it seems.
It may be recalled that when we first arrived Marty was soundly admonished for turning up to Customs wearing his Phuket rip-off Billabong camouflage shorts when we went to retrieve packages of pots and pans and household goods sent from Germany for Fleur. We thought the problem was wearing them in a government building, but apparently it is a criminal offence not only to wear such clothes anywhere at all, but even to possess them.
How we know this is through the example of Travis Springer who pleaded guilty this week in the Bridgetown traffic court (why traffic we do not know) to having a shirt and two hats made from camouflage material. What is unusual about this is that the offending clothing was found sitting on top of a clothes dresser along with a picture of local hero Ryan Brathwaite with President Obama. Young Travis, aged 21, wasn’t actually wearing the clothes but had them sitting on his dresser because “someday I gine be in the army.” While Travis wants to be in the army, his mother, a Seventh Day Adventist, won’t let him join, but it seems that, like a good scout, he is prepared and waiting should the opportunity arise. How the police found the clothing was that they chanced upon it while searching his home on another matter entirely.
Magistrate Christopher Birch told Travis “it’s been said over and over that unless you are a soldier you should not have camouflage clothing”, and just to show how serious the issue is, he remanded him to Her Majesty’s Prison, Dodds.
Surprised at just how serious this seemed to be we checked on the internet where every entry on clothing warned of the consequences of this heinous fashion crime. It may be just as well we are living off the beaten tourist trails as, to date, Marty has escaped arrest and detention. But this new knowledge serves as a warning and the camouflage shorts will be confined for wearing indoors around the house. There have to be some pleasures in life, and we have never been ones to completely yield to authority.
The demise of Travis Springer was just one of the stories we delight in devouring in The Nation each day, particularly the court page and agony column. Yesterday, evidence was reported from an assault case after a bus conductor slapped another man for insulting his mother. “I overhear he saying something about my mother and I ask if he got something to say and he says he ain’t care bout my mother or sister,” the defendant explained. “He spit and the spit blow pon my shirt an I slap he in he face. But I just gine about my business and he just come round me. I wasn’t pon that there, I was pon my job.”
According to Magistrate Pamela Beckeles, one thing a man would never tolerate is another telling him about his mother. Fair enough too, we say.
The verbatim reporting of courtroom discussion highlights dialectical differences and, even after three weeks here, it is difficult to fathom the meaning of some conversations. But what we have learned is that the common island name, Braithwaite is pronounced Bra’wit, and no-one can distinguish between the famous athlete Ryan Brathwaite’s surname from the visitor’s Braithwaite from New Zealand. We don’t mind and have bathed not only in that reflected glory, but also that of a Mr C. Brathwaite, one of the founders of the Barbados Labour Party. The party was founded on the principles of social reforms for the underprivileged, industrial peace and stability.
One thing The Nation does report is a good dose of union news, and the 25,000-member strong Barbados Workers’ Union, led by one Sir Roy Trotman, seems to have a hand in everything. Hard on the heels of forcing LIME, the telecommunications company, to rescind dismissal notices to several hundred workers, the union has entered an agreement with the local hospitality association that workers will not seek a pay increase this year on account of a slump in tourism, but on the condition that the workers will be properly rewarded when things come right. There may be a lesson in that for the New Zealand Hospitality Association, or at least a few other New Zealand employers we could name.
One thing we have not been able to shed light on is the history and origin of the Girls’ Industrial Union whose premises is on the bus route just past the garrison in Bridgetown. Try as we have, we have not been able to establish any authoritative leads on this beyond a suspicion that it has its foundation in protecting young women from exploitation and in the equal pay campaigns. Good stuff, we say.

The Barbados Triangle

If we were feeling virtuous after participating in the Barbados beach cleanup last Saturday, then we have reason to feel doubly so this weekend. Most of our chores are done; Kaelene has hung the curtains we lugged over from England (and we have some spare to lug back), the vacuum cleaner and washing machine have been brought, the latter installed and working well, and it appears we have, or at least Fleur has, purchased a car. Vehicle buying proved to be character building; like everything else, second hand cars are expensive, there are few for sale and most of the cheaper ones are so for good reason. But we did what others have done, phoned around the island’s rental car companies to check whether they are flogging off any of their used stock.
It might seem quite dull writing about buying washing machines and cars, but whole days, or even weeks, can be lost carrying out these tasks; in fact this could be the identification of what will become known as the Barbados Triangle, a bit like the Bermuda equivalent, but where time disappears without trace rather than people. There is also the Bajan equivalent of Murphy’s Law, like waiting at home on a hot sunny day for delivery of the washing machine (and earlier the bookshelf) when we could have been at the beach, only for it to turn up five hours late. Then, when we have nothing scheduled, the weather becomes morosely overcast and wet.
Although this island is only 20 something miles long, getting around looking at used cars has been testing. Drive-O-Matic, just south of Speightstown, had four Daihatsu for sale, one bus journey away if you can catch the right bus. That’s the bus that starts its journey twenty-five minutes late and then weaves around every back road of Bridgetown before heading up the coast and dropping Marty off at Drive-O-Matic a mere three hours after his leaving the house. It transpired that only one of the four cars was actually at the yard, the other three were at car dealers elsewhere, nearer town but inland, or so the man said. That meant a Reggae-throbbing route taxi-ride back to Bridgetown and another to a place called Warrens, then a walk of about 2 kilometers in 35 degree temperatures, only to learn that the other three cars had already been sold.
This story does have a happy ending though. Top Cars, from which we hired our little Chev sewing machine, came through and Trevor the mechanic gave a little silver Daihatsu Charade a clean bill of health. Or at least we think he did through his wonderful Bajan dialect and gesticulations, and so the sale and purchase process is underway. Soon we can be proper tourists, although we have been told that the country’s best land-based attraction, the Harrison Caves, is closed for renovation.
The timing was right, it was World Tourism Day on Sunday 27 September and the banner draped on the fence outside the fish market proclaimed that Barbados was celebrating. According to the official website, “this nation will join the rest of the world and commemorate the 30th anniversary of WTD”. The main event, the issuing of a commemorative message to the print media by the Minister of Tourism, Richard Sealy, and the usual Sunday scenic bus trip. There was also, to mark the occasion, a treasure hunt at St John’s Parish Church. The commemoration threshold on Barbados, it would appear, is not particularly high.
Our celebration was a trip to the movies at the Sheraton Mall (not related to the hotel chain) and the film The Boat that Rocked, a rollicking comedy set around a pirate radio ship in 1960’s Britain (and starring New Zealander Rhys Darby, Murray off Flight of the Concords). An excellent choice made the more entertaining by the usher coming in and apologizing for the late-running of the movie because the reel had come off the projector during the previous screening. Nothing digital here, we sat and watched an endless repetition of ads while it was fixed, and then felt a pang of sympathy as we heard the clatter as the celluloid separating from the projector just as the trailers for our show started. We’ve not heard that childhood sound in years.
But back to life on the roads; there is something quite cute here and that is that bus shelters are available for sponsorship as part of an Adopt-a-Stop campaign, and each adopted stop has a woman’s name. The closest we have come to Kaelene is Karlene but we’ve not yet found a Fleur. For around $5,000 per year, plus VAT, a shelter can be built in a “vernacular design” using local materials that harmonise with Caribbean streetscapes while strategically placing sponsor’s messages on roads “now blocked with up to 50,000 cars per day”. Now there’s making the best of traffic congestion.

Dexter Smith goes to jail
There it was on Sunday evening, piled up at the Rockley intersection on the main road in to Bridgetown, one of those minivan shuttles that work our route, completely the worse for wear after a decent sort of smash with a car. Both vehicles were extensively crumpled, still in the middle of the road, there was glass everywhere and the emergency services were dealing with the aftermath. These are the route taxis we have described as plying the main roads in a hair-raising sort of way, crammed full of passengers and seemingly powered by a bass beat alone such is the volume and intensity of the Rasta music that so completely overwhelms their insides. Riding in them is, if nothing else, distinctly edgy but we use these vans all the time to get around.
On Monday The Nation carried the story of the crash; fourteen minivan passengers hurt, minor cuts and abrasions for the driver and the occupants of the car in hospital for observation. We speculated on the cause, but from the wreckage it was impossible to tell what had happened, although clear that the vehicles wouldn’t be seeing any more time on the road.
By Wednesday it was all too apparent; Dexter Smith, the van driver was jailed for one year, convicted on charges of driving while disqualified, without insurance, without due care and attention, dangerously, without reasonable consideration, and that he passed beyond the stop line on all Sundays, whatever the latter might mean. Evidently, the crash was Smith’s fault entirely. The newspaper report continued: He (Smith, age 21) has thirty traffic convictions and has had his license suspended on four previous occasions, prompting the magistrate to describe him as representing the most dangerous fringe in the culture of the service vehicle industry. “You sometimes drive intoxicated, you overload the vehicle, you drive in and out as if you own the road,” he said, admonishing Smith, “and here you are at the scene of an accident with no license and no insurance.”
Well, we guess we won’t be getting a ride in to town with young Dexter for the remaining duration of our time here. It could be said he had the book thrown at him.
The court report described Smith as a Route Taxi Driver who recklessly injured his RZ passengers, RZ being the number plate prefix for this form of transport. Vehicles in Barbados are registered according their purpose, Z being the taxi moniker and RZ meaning Route Taxi. No-one appears quite sure why Z stands for taxi, but rental cars all start with H, short for hire. This is, of course, a dead giveaway, but comes as a mixed bag. Other vehicles will watch out and show extra courtesy, and strangers will offer help if an H-car driver looks lost or disorientated. But on the other hand, it is an open invitation for stall holders to try and sell unwanted trinkets or to clean windscreens and anything else you may not want.
This raises an interesting question that, in general, there does not seem to be a local sub-economy. The fruit and vegetable stalls, or fish markets operate a one price system; expensive for all. In some countries there is clearly a dual economy, one for tourists and another for locals. It can be as pronounced as having whole, separate fare structures for travel or, in places like Thailand, where the fruits and vegetable markets with exceptionally low prices are just not generally the domain of tourists. Just as hotel and chain restaurants with western-ish prices are not the natural domain of locals. Food in Thailand can be brought from street vendors at an exceptionally low cost but, again, the stomachs of most tourists are unseasoned recipients of their wares. The point to this is that we have wondered how, in a low wage economy such as Barbados, locals can afford to live. We have asked and the answer just seems to be that they have to, although some of the locals tell us they don’t have some costs westerners experience such as winter heating expenses. Notwithstanding, the last government, a Labour one, was recently kicked out and replaced by another promising to cut the cost of living for all. Since then the price of electricity has risen by 50 percent and water by 60. Nothing has come down at all; and it may be the reason our new friend Blanketman, instead of trying to sell us overpriced fruit, now simply asks for money. It seems more direct.
Coming home yesterday, in a fully-operational RZ minivan, one of our local roads was blocked off by police, and two ambulances were heading towards Bridgetown with sirens going and lights flashing. A further fifty meters along there were two cars strewn about the road. Marty could have sworn that one of them was our little, recently-hired Chevrolet Spark - which just goes to show that an H number plate cannot afford complete security against the dangers of the world.

Generous to a fault
We could claim to be virtuous, and quite rightly so. Not only we were up and about early, but we were on the beach at 7.00am on Saturday, not to join the dozens of locals exercising and preening themselves, but to take part in the great Barbados beach clean-up. Despite signs warning that fines of up to $5,000 could be leveled against litterers, it would be fair to conclude that some people here have little regard for their environment and even less for the sign. Our patch was the roadside and verges above Miami Beach, our team picked and sorted metals from glass from plastics and general non-recyclables. As we worked, a number of people, both local and visitor, stopped to applaud the efforts or offer encouragement, none joined in, or give advice or frank opinion about the hygiene habits of the locals, or at least the black-skinned ones. Racist generalization, it appears, is alive and well when it comes to apportioning blame for littering..
There was to be a prize for the most unusual find; Canadian coins and then a cache of Barbadian ones failed to beat a soiled paper nappy, then there were metal panels which may have been from discarded appliances, a car battery cable and an old desk lamp. Inevitably there were the discarded condoms, evidence that the authorities have a much more permissive attitude to nocturnal activity than in daylight.
It seems to be a consequence of this country’s British colonial past that the main beaches are patrolled during the day to ensure that, among other things, bathers are well togged up. By contrast to the Caribbean islands with French of Dutch colonial histories, and unlike some of the European countries we have visited, there is no topless or nude sunbathing or swimming on the beaches here. The rules are more strictly enforced by the authorities, whose presence reminds us very much of Maori wardens, than they are in the Muslim Emirate of Abu Dhabi, all of which seems a pity when the allure of full exposure to the sun and hot weather is so appealing. This raises the interesting question of whether this conservatism is an innate part of the indigenous culture (albeit African in origin) or a result of the Christianisation of those people by white missionaries. Unlike Thailand, where sensitivity to the local Buddhist culture relies on at least some discretion, it appears here to be simply a lingering and unnecessary hangover of god-fearing fundamentalism.
But back to the beach, and the discovery of Canadian coins should not have been a surprise. This country appears to have a strong connection with Canada; the Canadian banks all have branches here and Air Canada has a direct flight once a day in summer and twice in winter. Two of the teachers we have met from Fleur’s school are Canadian and we are told that a number of Barbadians send their children to school or university there, a more popular choice than the United States. The supermarkets carry Canadian brands of food as well as English and we have asked why this is so, but have not been able to get an answer yet. One suggestion is that Canadian businesspeople historically used Barbados as a tax haven or at least a place to keep money from the notice of their own authorities, but we do not know for sure.
Our house is perfumed with the delicious smell of overripe guava; we have a bowl full of them as a result of our complete but unfathomable inability to say no to buying fruit from one of the local characters. He looks very much like Wellington’s well-known vagrant, Blanketman, and makes about as much sense, but it seems that each day he is out there lying in wait as we walk through Oistins or go to relax on the beach. We get his daily view of the world; he smokes but stands apart from us because he respects us too much than to blow his second-hand smoke our way. That, he informs us with medical certainty through his few, yellow rotted teeth, is far more dangerous than the freshly inhaled variety. Yesterday he says he found a bit of plastic in his Chefette fast-food and was desperately worried that this might cause him some medical misadventure, but the potential for harm was relieved by the owner’s compensatory tumbler of soft drink. But through all of these trials and tribulations he usually has something special for us to sample and then buy; a guava, mangos or a very special and rare melon and he usually encourages us away from public view to complete the transaction. It may be because he is an unlicensed seller, but we suspect he doesn’t want anyone to know we are paying him about three times the actual value of the fruit. But that’s us, generous to a fault.

Island life

We do end up in some unusual places, last night United States Marines mess at Dover Beach for the US Embassy’s September celebration of Oktoberfest. The teachers from Fleur’s school were invited presumably to provide additional company for American boys far from home, and we tagged along, so it was five female teachers and us. We can report that there was no particular threat posed by the marines, although a number were a danger to themselves dressed in the stereotypical image of Austrians; shorts hoisted high enough to cause extreme discomfort to their family jewelry, socks riding up from hiking boots and pulled up to the bottom of the shorts, white shirts and braces, and hats with feathers. The fraulines played their part too, beer hall dresses with breasts trussed up forcing cleavages ample enough for inquisitive marines to become lost and never seen again. Not that we noticed.
If anything, this was a tame affair; we were the last to leave having been persuaded to linger by the embassy man who kept plonking rounds of free beer on our table (it was the free ones which caused the next-day headaches), and it was only this generosity which restrained Marty from souveniring the framed marine posters which decorated the hall or, and it would have been quite a haul, the large centerpiece American Flag. As it was we were not empty-handed, our number came up in the lucky draw for six picture cards of Barbados beaches.
But life on this island was not all about indulging hedonistic pleasures. There was work to be done transforming Fleur’s very spartan flat into a home and, as well as bringing half of the IKEA store from London with us (some of the curtains are up), much of the week was spent looking at second hand cars and washing machines, buying household goods, waiting, and, of course, completing the recovery of parcels from Customs. There is not a second hand store or junk shop in Bridgetown that we have not rummaged through, each one a spectacular voyage of discovery. Probably never has so much unusable, poor quality oddments and rubbish been so tightly and messily packed together, much of it so completely ghastly they make New Zealand’s The Warehouse seem like a slick luxury goods stores. When looking for a kitchen rubbish tin, for example, the stainless steel ones with the pedal operation for opening, we found only one in three stores that wasn’t dented or tarnished beyond salvation and actually worked. And that included at the downtown duty-free retail shop.
We brought a bookshelf, an inexpensive one after fighting off a salesperson who thought we would prefer the $B1,000 faux mahogany room divider, complete with hideous, spindly cabriole legs. Of the bookshelf we brought, there were perhaps a dozen all damaged to a greater or lesser extent, so we picked out what we thought was the best and arranged for delivery the next morning. It didn’t turn up so we phoned to find that the delivery man hadn’t turned up for work, but they promised it would be dropped off after 6.00pm. It didn’t arrive. Next day, the man phoned just before 11.00 to say he was on his way. We waited and he did show. but not until 5.00pm. Bajan time we are told.
Back at Customs with the requisite authority from Fleur, the officer went and fetched each of the three cartons of pots and pans and kitchen utensils we had come to collect. To describe the service as unhurried would be generous, but it gave us time to peruse the local public service union poster on the wall behind the counter, Rights for Women mean Human Rights for all. Once on the counter, we had to open each of the boxes for inspection and go through the contents before repacking and then handing over $3 and heading off. Mission accomplished.
Perhaps the greatest challenge, but it was fun, has been driving around looking at second-hand cars and, in this case, reconditioned washing machines. Although the official language is English the Bajan dialect and intonations are so strong that directions become almost impossible to comprehend, made more challenging by unfamiliar terminology. Then there is the road system which is often unmarked and comprises indistinct, rutted tracks and cul-de-sacs which seem to follow no particular order or system, and roundabouts on the highway (yes we’ve found a highway and the speed limit is 80kph) which are all known by names different than on the map. What this means though is that our navigations skills, without SatNav Ken, have become well honed and we are learning fast, and then there is Trevor the mechanic who seems to have taken us under his wing. Without him we may have brought a complete lemon so convinced were we by the Mitsubishi Pajero which appeared well kept, sounded nice and drove well, but which turned out to be held together by chewing gum and plasticine, and whose chassis was completely out of alignment. Trevor conveyed that it had had a somewhat hard life - without our being able to understand a word he said.

Protecting your wicket
The previous description of island life being slow somewhat overstated the pace in the customs section of the central post office in Bridgetown, everything is done at so far less than a dawdle it is hard at times to discern life at all. That was aside from the woman who summonsed Marty, or rather barked at him, from down one end of the counter to the other and then unceremoniously branded him a law-breaker in front of everyone there. “It is illegal,” she said, “to wear any sort of camouflage clothing in a government building, you cannot stay,” the offending dress being a pair of rip-off Billabong shorts brought from the markets in Phuket. Shamefaced we left the empty-handed, but not before they told us they wouldn’t hand over the packages we came to collect because they were addressed to Fleur, not us.
No such disrespect was shown, however, by Cory, the nice young man who delivered the sewing machine with wheels we hired instead of a car so we could get about Barbados. Braithwaite, he told us, was an island name but he did not seem to appreciate our exceedingly witty retort, that it seemed the most common surname of those reported in the daily newspaper, The Nation, as appearing before the local magistrate. Sensing that we were on a different humour wavelength, we applauded Ryan Braithwaite’s (actually it turns out he is probably spelled Brathwaite, the newspapers use both versions) recent gold medal athletic efforts, and then impressed Cory further by telling him that when at home we live, or is it lived, in Christchurch New Zealand while home here is the parish of Christ Church Barbados. The name similarities actually go further, Fleur’s father Vic lives in Bridgetown, Western Australia.
The sewing machine, a Chevrolet Spark (and who would have thought they make Chevrolets so small they fit into cornflakes packets) has a dual purpose, to let us explore some of the nooks and crannys of Barbados and to fetch and cart stuff as Fleur settles into her new home and school. Barbados is not big, 21 miles long by 14 miles wide, shaped something like an upside down comma, the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the Caribbean Sea on the west. The population is less than 300,000 and possession of narcotics, including cannabis, carries a penalty of up to twenty years in prison. On that basis, it is hard to see how half the population is not imprisoned but we think it is down to the fact that the use of cannabis is an accepted part of the Rastafarian way of life.
So, while the drug laws do not appear to be enforced, neither does it seem there are any particular road rules aside from a $B10 (around $NZ7.50) charge for a local driver’s license. We aren’t sure whether there is a speed limit, but that may be because most roads are so rough that speeds of more than about 30kph are impossible, anything faster resulting in an almost certain and violent bone-shaking death. Notwithstanding the roads, we drove almost the full 21 miles from the south, up the west coast to St Lucy in the north. Between Bridgetown and Holetown, the beachside comprises a strip of luxury resorts and golf clubs, no doubt occupying the most idyllic shores, places with alluring names such as Paradise beach, Golden Palm, Great Escape, Malibu Beach Club, and then, for good measure, Glitter Bay with its appropriately named retail outlet, Diamonds International. This tourist ghetto is perhaps the only part of the island, aside from St Lawrence Gap and Rockley Beach on the south coast, which has been despoiled by “progress” and where white faces outnumber black. It is an unfortunate reminder of the world-wide practice whereby multi-national hospitality chains build huge, often hideous, luxury resorts which effectively dispossess local communities. A feature in the weekend paper revealed that, as a result of property prices and consequentially high local authority rates booming, locals, dependent on the sea for their livelihoods, were being forced from coastal properties to relocate inland.
One thing that has not been spoiled or dampened, fortunately, is the locals’ passion for cricket; there are grounds everywhere full of men at weekends dressed in white hitting and chasing the traditional five and a half ounce red ball. And on the topic of passion, cricketers are being used to spearhead the campaign for safe sex and Aids education Oddly enough, it is a woman cricketer (a famous one no doubt) who uses the sexual middle stump analogy. “It’s your wicket, protect it”, she says, holding a condom aloft the billboard.

Eating Flipper
This may appear racist, but our presumption that all Caribbean people are musically gifted was patently wrong. They can be every bit as hideous as most of their paler counterparts and if last night’s effort in the Hercules karaoke bar was anything to go but they can murder a Cindy Lauper song as well as anyone else in the world. Karaoke is only good when done badly and the locals were so splendidly bad it seemed inappropriate to try and compete, although we suspected Fleur’s schoolteacher colleague from Canada was itching to have a go and would be right up there belting out one of those tunes we are rightly unfamiliar with the moment our backs were turned.
Across the road the town was humming, Friday being fish-fry night when tourists and locals from across the island converge on a series of huts-come-restaurants on the beach to eat fresh fish with salad and chips and drink rum punch or beer and generally hang out. There were a few market stalls and a stage where young people do strange things like break dance under a cloud of marijuana smoke but mostly it is a place to socialize and it is quite magical. On one side of us the sea lapped the shore and on the other, reggae music blared accompanied by the smells of fish being cooked. Sacrilegiously, or so we thought, we tucked into plates of flying fish, the Barbadian national emblem, but it turns out these little critters form part of the islanders staple diet. They travel in large schools and, according to the guide book, leap out of the sea and hurtle through the air for distances of about 20 metres at a time at a speed of around 55 kph, their side-fins fan out acting as wings and tail fins as rear-end propellers. We imagine that fishers just sit out at sea with their nets suspended in the air and wait for a passing school to leap suicidally into the trap, and with catches of up to 4,000 a time we thought we might go out with frying pans at the ready and wait for some hapless strays.
But there are not just flying fish on the menu, as well as all other delights including lobster, two of Fleur’s colleagues and one of their friends ate dolphin, or Flipper as we chided them. Others were quick to defend the choice attempting to explain that the dolphin they serve here is not one of the cute talking mammal variety that perform for humans or star on TV shows, but the local name for a fish called Mahi Mahi. But we were having none of that and tried to convince the lovely young Frenchwoman that the vivid red stain that had smeared on her trousers from the freshly painted table was actually the blood from murdered dolphin. One thing is for sure, murdered dolphin blood would be easier to remove than paint and those soiled trousers will remain forever a grim reminder of the perils of eating Flipper.
While the rest of us (us being a group of teachers from Fleur’s school and hangers-on) ordered meals and drink, we were bemused by the Canadian colleague. Not only had she eaten prior to coming out and so didn’t actually dine with the rest of us, she produced from her bag a bottle of liqueur someone had given her, a mixer, then a glass and, believe it or not, her own bag of ice. The wages for teaching in Barbados, she told us, were quite low and the cost of living very high. It made perfect sense but we turned down her offer of a ride home for fear she would want us to push the car to save petrol.
We have already noted how friendly people here are, which in itself is quite remarkable given the island’s history in slavery, but here is a good example. While waiting at the bus stop for our first exploratory trip to Bridgetown, the capital, a car pulled up and the occupants offered us a lift to the bus station at Oistins. From there, they said, we would get a more frequent service than on our rural road. Once at Oistins, one of the women took us over the timetable board and gave us the pointers to make our trip home easier. Then, on the return journey and even after Marty had tried to short-fare the driver, he asked where we were going and dropped us right at the corner of our road. That was the pattern; it seemed the driver would pull up not only at the actual bus stops but also anywhere else en route that a passenger wanted to alight. Nothing was a bother at all as the driver cruised along, tooting the horn and waving to his mates or, it seemed, anyone he vaguely recognized.
We reflected on our bus travels in London where, it seemed, that drivers wouldn’t pull up at scheduled stops if they didn’t feel so inclined, or in Abu Dhabi where the driver would have preferred to remonstrate with a passenger or even throw them from a moving bus rather than interrupt the journey. Life here is very different.

Tucker time for turtles
There could be worse things in life than to be sprawled out under the hot sun on the white sands of Miami Beach on the southern coast of Barbados, but right now we cannot think of any. The temperature is in the mid-thirties, the water warm and, unlike the vivid blue of Croatia and Greece, it is a milky blue, the result of sand churning with the surf as it gently crashes against the shore.
Miami Beach and the neighbouring Endeavour Beach appear to be favourites, every day dozens of Bajans were there both in the mornings and evening in what looked to be the local equivalent of aquacise classes, a few were long-distance swimming and others exercised on the beach, some with trainers, or ran and walked in laps along the foreshore. Calisthenics and yoga, stretching and muscle-toning, we had not envisaged the amount of fitness activity going on, clearly those shapely and glistening black-skinned bodies require as much work as Western ones. Unlike us, however, the participants looked happy attempting physical perfection and even happier standing around afterwards chatting and drinking tea from thermoses or glasses of Bajan lemonade. It was very appealing.
Barbados, or at least the small part of it we have seen so far, is probably much as we expected, and similar to our image of a Pacific island with the obvious difference being that the people are West Indian of African (and slave) descent rather than Polynesian brown. The pace of life is slow, languid almost, but it is too hot to be otherwise. It reminds us of a time in New Zealand perhaps almost fifty years ago when the summers seemed long and hot with blue cloudless skies, when long grass lined country roads and, in the absence of footpaths, everyone shared the road, the only real disturbance now being the occasional boy racer (where is Clayton Cosgrove when you need him?). It is friendly, the locals all greet each other and extend the acknowledgement to strangers such as us and we reciprocate. This is a country where gay still means happy and Mount Gay Rum makes you very happy. The island is also home to whistling frogs which, given they are the size of a thumbnail, make an extraordinary racket, green monkeys, crabs, and the mongoose has been introduced for pest control.
Oistins, just down the road from Fleur’s house, was the place where the 1652 Barbados Charter was signed after the country’s Royalist House of Assembly refused to recognize Oliver Cromwell’s leadership following the execution of Charles I. After keeping 4,000 British troops at bay for six months agreement was reached; in return for continued self governance and free trade, obedience was pledged to Cromwell’s commonwealth government.
That, of course, is history, the tavern where the agreement was signed has long since disappeared and the place is now best known for its fish market and weekend fish fry-ups. The outdoor fish market is a hive (if that’s the right expression), of activity, the daily catch of red snapper, barracuda, flying fish, baby marlin, kingfish, swordfish and other beauties is gutted and filleted and then sold. Behind the market a jetty reaches out into the sea allowing fishing boats to come right in and unload and, although supposedly off limits, we walked out for what was to be a real treat. A nice Rasta boy (he doesn’t charge but does accept donations) threw fish scraps into the water attracting a school of about eight waiting turtles. These were big ones, up to about 3 foot in diameter and so we watched as they swam about enjoying their dinner. The fish scraps were as much a treat for us as them.
It is nice to be able to report that negotiations between the Barbados Workers Union and the telecommunications company LIME has been resolved through negotiations chaired by the nation’s prime minister, David Thompson. LIME has agreed, with immediate effect, to withdraw the letters of termination sent to about 100 workers on 30 July. Now there’s a useful prime minister.
Note: Access to the internet from Fleur’s apartment is limited to times when the neighbour downstairs turns on his/her unsecured wireless connection. Our unwitting host appears to take a cautious approach and so it the internet is turned on only occasionally. Consequently, our days are spent huddled over the netbooks waiting in anticipation with the result that our postings may be more limited than usual over the next month or so.

Pirates of the Caribbean
It was more detention than détente, our arrival on the Caribbean Island of Barbados. It may seem careless but many times on our arrival into foreign lands, particularly when staying with Fleur and Jade, we have had no idea of the actual address of where they live, instead, we have relied on them picking us up and this usually works. But not this time, the big bloke on counter number one in the arrivals hall at Barbados’s Grantley Adams Airport was having none of it and insisted on having a physical address before we could enter the country. Until then we would just have to wait with all of the drug dealers, gun runners and those detained caught attempting to enter the country illegally. We did not think this would be remedied easily, Fleur wasn’t due to pick us up until late because she was teaching her class how to surf (yes, part of the curriculum) and we had no idea of how to contact her in the interim. In Germany, fortunately, the workday was over and a desperate call to Fleur’s friend Thomas provided the relief we needed, our salvation in the form of a text message: Coral Drive number eight. Atlantic Shores. Christ church. We were freed.
Within five hours this was forgotten as we returned to Fleur’s apartment in one of the beaten-up mini-vans that continuously transport passengers backwards and forwards along the main roads throughout the island, in this case from St Lawrence Gap to Oistins. Eighteen passengers plus the driver and his offsider crushed into one small mini-van, tearing along country road with music pulsating so loud that we thought the van was being propelled by the throbbing bass alone. What an introduction, for $B1.50 (around $NZ1.20) passengers can travel the length of any route in the island, though at this stage we are not sure quite where they start and end, but we will learn.
We decided to dine out on our first night despite Fleur warning that the price of food in restaurants is almost prohibitive at up to $NZ50 for a main. That almost everything has to be imported makes commodities, including food, pretty expensive so we may be confined to a diet of fish and marijuana. Next day we discovered that even the price of supermarket items made us blanch, but there was little option but to grin and bear it. Notwithstanding that we came away from our first night relatively financially unscathed, future dining out may be confined to Friday fish fry-ups adjacent to the local fish market.
Barbados is an old British colony whose independence was only gained in 1966. The local inhabitants are called Bajan (rhymes with Asian) and only 4 percent of the population is white, but utterly British it is. English is the official language, they drive on the left hand side of the road and ten of its districts are named after saints with one of the other two being Christ church. The street names seem to be predominantly English in origin and the judicial and governance systems are all British and conservative by comparison to most of its Caribbean neighbours, particularly those with a French or Dutch colonial history. We got told off for not sitting at a park bench correctly.
The local newspaper, the Daily Nation, provided an interesting insight into an industrial show down between the Barbados Workers Union and LIME, the island’s telecommunication equivalent of Telecom. It appears that threatened strike action by workers over compulsory redundancies may be averted by negotiations under the chairmanship of prime minister, David Thompson. Rather a quaint but pleasing notion that a prime minister would become personally involved in trying to resolve an industrial dispute. It may be more than twenty years since anything similar has happened in New Zealand.
But if amusement was to be derived from the newspaper, the family assisted. A completely incomprehensible letter to the editor thanked God for the agricultural produce of St Andrew and son of the soil, Ryan Braithwaite. This apparently humble and self-inspired gentleman had appealed against the death sentence imposed by the international court of fallacy and delivered justice from Berlin on the behalf of his county - whatever any of that means. But we did learn that Ryan won the gold medal, the first ever for a Bajan, in the 110 metre hurdles at the recent world athletics championship and in whose honour a wall at the end of Church Gap has been decorated with a mural.
Not appearing quite so distinguished however was Krystal Braithwaite who has been ordered by a local magistrate to live in peace with her neighbour, Zelma Moore. In a case of neighbour-rage, Ms Moore waved a knife in Braithwaite’s face after earlier coming at her with a cleaver following finding “stuff” on her clothes drying on the line and on some of her food. Call us snobs, but we are only calling on cousin Ryan this visit.
While it may be that this is an island which resembles a small British nation, there is no escaping that the region is the home of reggae and Rastafarianism. Perched high up in a tree between Oistins town and home we heard and then spied a young Rasta man singing at the top of his voice. Normally you would describe him as being out of his tree, but no, he was wedged firmly between the branches.

Dimitri the Greek
It would be hard to imagine what Nicos must think of modern-day tourism, Nikos being the father of Nikos who owns the Nikos accommodation complex (we think they are called studio rooms) in which we were housed during our holiday in Alikes. There is speculation that Nikos senior is aged anywhere between 81 and 91 depending on which authoritative account you believe and his wife some four years younger. Neither can speak English but they and a single cleaner appear to run the place in the absence of Nicos junior who is there sometimes but who is mainly occupied doing his compulsory military training somewhere else.
For Nicos senior and his wife (we did not learn her name), the contrast brought about through tourism must be both profound and bewildering. They look to have lived a simple life, probably in a subsistence way tending to grapes and a few animals, but now have foist upon them package tourism which in itself is a curious phenomenon. On Thursday each week during the season an existing establishment of tourists are packed out and an entire new lot are packed in for the next week. Mostly they are British, from the north, and while some like the Greek experience, for most it is somewhere to have a British experience but in a warmer climate. Nicos’s wife spends the first part of each morning cooking sausages and baked beans on toast and, from mid morning, Nicos pours pints of beer in nicely chilled handles while the guests lounge around the swimming pool, interrupted occasionally to turn over, dive in the pool, or snarl at their children. Then, one evening a week, the Thomas Cook rep turns up in civvies to lead the Karaoke and sell more package day trips.
Kaelene did a little research on the internet and found a debate about the overall quality at Nicos, and probably all sides of the argument were right. There is no doubt the accommodation was pretty basic and the cleanliness a little wanting, but equally the Nicos seniors worked hard to provide genuinely nice, if not confused, hospitality much of it achieved through sign language and gesticulation. What we learned later gave it some meaning, that Thomas Cook screw these people to the limit, paying them only 8 Euro (about $NZ17) a night for a studio that can sleep three people. It is a Catch-22 situation: property owners have the choice of high turnover at a very low rate or trying to survive independently on an island where tourism is the domain of the package tour operators. At the rates paid by Thomas Cook it is little wonder there is little left to reinvest in improving the standard of accommodation.
What we also learned through our own meticulous investigation is that the locals are laid back and extremely hospitable. We pondered the menu one evening outside the Asteria, a beachside restaurant, and were persuaded to go in by convincing patter about the cooking and the promise of a free carafe of wine. This was another family run place; the grandmother cooked and a perfectly formed granddaughter seemed to lead the waiting staff most of whom, she told us, returned year after year. Like the previously mentioned Apollo restaurant, the food was sublime (calamari and prawns again) and then after dinner, while chatting to a couple at a neighbouring table, the granddaughter returned with a complimentary cocktail and then later with a grass of wine each. One other evening, back at the Asteria (where Marty had the house special, a flambé lamb as his main and Kaelene the Greek yoghurt with sour cherry dessert), Vladimir, the young man who had initially lured us in, joined us at the table. He was Albanian and had returned each year for the last five years and took huge pride in his treatment of guests, both at the restaurant and on the beach where he doubles hiring out deck chains and umbrellas.
But Zyknthos was not all wine and food, we hired a car and explored. Twice down to Gerakas at the southern tip of the island where an endangered species of turtles lay their eggs (most of the beach is off limits for fear of disturbing the nests), a boat trip through the azure waters to the Keri sea caves and on to an island for a swim, a look at a few other beaches and churches, then to the main tourist area of Laganas with its Australian and other themed bars, strip joints and nightclubs, and another look at Zykanthos town. In particular, we went into the Cathedral (Greek Orthodox) and found yet again another example of how no expense and attention to detail is spared by the religious in adorning their shrines. The entire ceiling and upper walls were completely covered in murals depicting biblical scenes and, below, alters and adornments all decorated in gold.
The speed limit on the island appears to be only 60 kph, going any faster would be positively dangerous as most roads are narrow and rough, and many have treacherous ditches either side. We drove for miles, at times almost getting deliberately lost just to experience the landscape: the olive groves which go for miles (the harvest is due to start), the vineyards (each vine is free-standing like a bush), little villages, and the churches whose spires reach into blue, cloudless skies.
It was only right that our farewell evening nightcap (after Kaelene’s lobster dinner) was with Dimitri, the barman at the Apollo. He was, it would be fair to say, despondent when we arrived, his hotel having gambled against a Thomas Cook contract and lost. It was dead quiet with only a couple of shady ex-pats drinking when we turned up. That soon changed with the arrival of our new friends from Lancashire and then the two young women from Halifax. After a few wines sophistically served from a plastic coke bottle, Dimitri came alive, turned up the soundtrack to Zorba the Greek and, accompanied by the young women, gave a display of Greek dancing by the pool complete with the throwing of handfuls of serviettes in the air. The arrival of “Mad George”, another Greek, spurred the competition, the shots of Ouzo poured in a circuit along the bar without pausing between glasses, and free rounds of beer and wine, was topped by the final round of dancing, complete this time with the smashing of crockery plates. This was the real deal, the impromptu Greek night without a single tour operator or Thomas Cook rep in sight. Wonderful.

To Kefalonia and back
There is a serious side to holidaying and a trip to the nearby island of Kefalonia, the largest in the Ionion group, was just one of those sides. We were awake and up to meet the bus before 8.30am and journeyed over steep, treacherous terrain to a little port town to await the arrival of a ferry, the Angelo. These ferries are part of the Greek shipping line which transports people, cars, livestock and even, in our case, two Hell’s Angel motorcyclists between the islands.
The terrain getting to the port is typical of this part of the world, the Ionian islands having been hit by a huge earthquake in 1953 which destroyed virtually all buildings and killed several thousand people. The resulting coastline is similar to that in Croatia, high-cliffed and rocky fault line plunging deep into the sea, but un like Croatia there are plenty of pebbled beaches and sandy bays. Everywhere the water is crystal clear and of the most stunning but ever-changing shades of aqua-marine imaginable.
The ferry journey to Kefalonia takes one hour and a half, at the other end a concrete slab acts as a dock among the rocks at Pessada and a single road intersecting the olive groves provides access to the few nearby towns. We learn that Kefalonia is something of a cultural oasis, with more university professors, poets and scholars emanating from these shores than from any other part of Greece, but first for us is a visit to the Drogarati caves near the town of Sami. We learned only afterwards that it takes 176 steps to descend the 95 metres down into these caves which are a magical floodlit paradise of stalagmites and stalactites. The main cave chamber is 65 metres by 45 and about 20 metres in height, and maintains a constant temperature of 18 degrees, something of a relief from the more than 30 degree outside. Apparently the acoustics are so good that occasional concerts and recordings are done in the cave (M, Farantouri and the soprano Irene Karayianni, whoever they may be), but with six tour buses all descending at once, we were not afforded the opportunity for an audio test. Time was of the essence. So while cave karaoke was not for us, the return 176 steps back up to civilization were unavoidable.
From these caves, it was on to the nearby attraction of Melissani, or the cave of the nymphs. This is a spring fed lake and cave 160 metres long and 40 metres wide formed deep in the centre of a hill at the base of what looks like a volcano crater. Entry is gained through a passage through the middle of the hill and we were intrigued at one tourist filming and voicing a running commentary of his descent into the lake itself. If he was enamoured enough to film a thirty metre, dark, featureless passageway, he would have been ecstatic by the sight of the lake and cave with its collection of 20,000 year old stalactites. Early excavation of the cave resulted in the discovery of the existence of a cult of the god Pan back in the 3rd and 4th centuries BC, giving rise to the nymph reference in the name.
With six tour buses on the road the day we were there, we were exhorted by the guide to sprint our way through these attractions to be first in and avoid any potential queuing, and like dutiful souls or sheep we did so. What this meant was that we had a one hour and a half lunch stop at the small town of Agia Efimia, at the tour company’s restaurant of choice, and then another one hour and a half at Argostoli, the capital city for a further refreshment break at another of the tour company’s restaurants of choice. Along the way we completely bypassed the town of Sami itself where the movie Captain Corelli’s Mandolin was produced and, instead of visiting the beautiful sands of Myrto where some of the spectacular beach scenes were filmed, we had what was described as a (long distance) photo opportunity from the road, high above the beach itself. Leisure time in Argostoli may have been alright in theory, but for the fact that the town was closed, completely, aside from one or two tourist shops. Because of the earthquake reconstruction, there is very little to look at in the way of architecture or historical buildings, and we saw no museums, so most of the time was spent at an internet café seeking respire from the hot sun. The breaks though did give the tour guides plenty of time to catch up with each other, smoke cigarettes and drink their complimentary coffees and coke, a sort of work-time siesta perhaps.

Island life
Island life is slower than in London or at home, and it is different but in ways we hadn’t anticipated. For a start the (hand held) showers don’t have curtains and many don’t even have trays but just a drain in the centre of the floor. The Greeks believe that shower curtains harbour unpleasant bacteria, concluding that the mess left in their absence is the more hygienic option. For that reason they use only small towels, the bigger the towel the bigger the breeding ground for those pesky bugs. Like many other countries, the tap water isn’t suitable at all for drinking and the hot water is only hot in the latter parts of the day or evening as it is all solar heated. We hadn’t given a thought about the use of solar energy, but clearly the benefits of harnessing all that free energy from the sun are not lost on the locals. If you like hot showers in the morning, however, you are out of luck. Then there are the toilets, conventional ones but ones in which toilet paper cannot be flushed. Without wishing to get into graphic detail, used toilet paper is put in a separate container and fetched away by cleaning staff, poor sods.
There is one thing we quite like and that is a decent afternoon siesta. Usually lasting from 1.00pm until about 5.00 it means that shops, apart from tourist ones, all close down and people just relax away the afternoon. A flow-on effect is that dinner starts about 9.00pm, meaning that for early diners like us there is never a problem getting a table. One night we chatted to three women who turned out to be from Wales, somewhere near Cardiff, the mother, probably in her late fifties and two daughters, all splendidly tanned and enjoying life to the full. The family had been coming here for more than thirty years, two weeks at the same time every year and staying in the same place on the beach. Needless to say they loved it, warts and all, but told us of friends who, persuaded by their love of the place, came over and couldn’t put up with the eccentricities of the water and sewerage systems. “We’ll never speak to you again,” some of them told her on their return. That these women were so tanned was the subject of discussion, the mother explained how as soon as the winter darkness in Wales lifts she sets up the deckchairs in the garden and they all wait, wrapped in blankets, for the sun to appear. Each time it glimpses, the blankets come off and then go back on as quickly as soon as a cloud cover sets in. The neighbours all think they are mad, but these women were proud of their tans and thought every moment in the garden worth it.
It is clear that there are many regulars who return year after year, we can’t help but earwig in on conversations between tables among those who have become familiar with each other. There are life stories to be abridged and told in minutes, details of events between holidays and changes to holiday patterns, who has and hasn’t returned and why, and the poor woman who was so morbidly fat her heartless husband left her during the year. Shell-shocked, she lost 14 stone in weight and has returned, but just with daughter.
Our hotel, which is more like a motel complex but without such luxuries as the telephone or television, is inhabited almost exclusively by English package holiday visitors. The swimming pool is the centre of village life: The solid boys from the blackstuff whose northern brogue is so thick we cannot understand them, the woman from Lancashire in her sixties who sunbathes topless all day and then the noisy kids who, if their parents heard our silent wishes, would drown them. There are those keen to socialize and one bloke who eats and drinks by himself every day, his constant companions a book and litre carafe of house red wine. Then there are those dreadful tattoos, and we were tempted to ask the big bloke with Jean inscribed in capitalized Gothic lettering across his back and two others with Debbie and Jane daubed in similar format whether the women bearing those names were still the centres of their attention. Still, it put us in mind of a business opportunity which is of selling naming rights across people’s bodies. Football hooligans could become tattoo-daubed human billboards.
If so, the spelling would need to be better than that of Yanni’s, a local horseman who we haven’t laid eyes on, but from whom we have received an invitation to ride in one of his carriages. They are distinguished from those of his competitors by a sign on the back saying “Yanni’s (Yee haa!!) Horses”. Yanni’s love of horses is inbred apparently because his family have been keeping and raising hourses for 2 generations and he has a farm where they undertake a breedding programme every year. “Anybody who knows Yannis (this time without the apostrophe) will inform you that from morning until night he works to ensure that his horses receive the best car that is available and he is happiest when he can show them off.” With such a recommendation, who could resist.

Greek orthodoxy
We were not sure who was going to order “Rocket salad for difficult people” off the menu, but it was there and we thought something was either lost in translation or the item had been included deliberately to allow a frustrated spouse have a dig at a partner by ordering it for them. The restaurant in Zykanthos looked to be named Zn6n, but we could not be sure, the bus tour guide had recommended it as they do, and the chance for our first Greek meal of squid for Marty and giant prawns for Kaelene was not going to be lost to a rocket salad.
By contrast, our mainly English bus companions ordered English dishes, generally sausage or steak, eggs and (baked) beans, and then later complain that the food wasn’t as good as at home. We had heard that this is the practice in Spain, so why not here in Greece, particularly with such fine seafood in abundance? Why bother with fresh calamari and “pregnant” sea bass (stuffed with grape leaves and red peppers), or even swordfish, when there are chip and bacon butties to be had?
This was it, Zykanthos the third largest of the Greek Ionian islands, sundrenched, it has rained twice in the last five months, once for an hour and once for half an hour. The daytime temperatures were reaching into the high thirty degrees and our hotel, Nicos, in Alykes about 15 kilometers from Zykanthos town, seems to be an old family-run affair of about 20 units centered on a large, deep swimming pool.
This trip was one of those advertised last minute package holidays, and only after you book and pay do you find why it is inexpensive. If you want legroom on the Thomas Cook charter flight, you have to purchase it otherwise you sit with your knees up around your chin in the most uncomfortable seats manufactured since Jetstar started flying between Sydney and Phuket. Similarly, once tickets are issued you find, surprisingly so, that “you have not booked seats together as part of this booking” but for 12 pounds each this can be remedied. The potential for further exploitation is not left to chance, moments after arrival the travel weary (meaning those suffering from extreme discomfort) are reminded that a limited number of seats with additional legroom are still available, and passengers can purchase upgrades for the return journey on a first come first served basis.
On the island Thomas Cook representatives run orientation meetings at the accommodation venues they use, a sort of familiarization-on-speed session, the content of which can only be recalled by those with the audio equivalent of a photographic memory. Where to go, what not to do and what tours they can offer and, it must be acknowledged, the tours look good. That is, when they operate, as we waited on the side of the road for forty minutes to be picked up for our “sunkissed tour” only for the representative to turn up, exasperated, to say it had been cancelled. “Not the night before, not at 8.00 this morning, but right now”, she gasped, right now being at 8.50am. We didn’t refuse her offer of a compensatory bottle of wine but didn’t hold our breath in anticipation of its arrival.
But if this paints a slightly jaundiced picture it should not be the case. Our “dusk delights” package at only 12 euro per person, had us picked up, driven through countryside and up the hills to a private museum with an eccentric collection of stuffed animals ranging from a brown bear to small alligators and marine exhibits including New Zealand Paua shells and a porcupine fish. From there we went on to a local winery, a Greek Orthodox church with spectacular views over Zykanthos town, and then down to the town itself for three hours free time for dinner and to wander around. The highlight was perhaps the Solomos Winery where after a visit to the cellars we tasted and then brought the local, delicious product. We learned recently that, rather than ouzo, the national tipple is something called Retsina, a dry white wine infused with tree gum and which tastes exactly as the written image might conjure. An acquired taste to say the least.
It seems also that every bartender here has modeled themselves on Tom Conti’s character from the movie Shirley Valentine. Overlooking the intersection at the end of our road sits the Apollo pool bar where Dimitri the barman loudly beckons passersby, summonsing them in for drinks and snacks, or even that last drink of the evening. All done with a twinkle and more than a hint of mischief in his eye. Yammas, or cheers to you in Anglais.