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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.