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.