Island lifeWe 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.
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.
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