Your Time Is Up.....Now

The last sunny day....

It's bound to happen eventually.  The two months stint in paradise crawls to it's demise once again.  And it's easy to get all nostalgic and shit, and even start feeling a certain kind of fondness towards the mold on your favourite shoes, the infected mosquito scabs on your ankles, and also to the larvae spawning in your cereal.  God this place is great.

So happy

The cliche "It's like time has stood still here" never more applies to a place than it does here in Bequia.  Usually that phrase annoys me.  It is often used to describe crappy towns with a few old crumbling buildings and local business that tack "Ye Olde" on the beginning of everything.  "Ye Olde Bakery",  Ye Olde Poste Office"......There's nothing old about a boston bun love - unless it's been sitting there since Friday.  But Bequia is the real deal.  

Chalk's mate (literally it is)

I got dem sweet bananas

The shops are side of the road specials.  The supermarkets sell their dry goods in measured out plastic bags.  There are very few restaurants - and the ones that are there are pretty dam basic.  Fruit and vegetables arrive by sea from the next island every couple of days.  It's all organic because nobody can afford to buy pesticides.  It all tastes like the veggies you ate as a child (or didn't eat is more to the point).  Bananas, pineapples, avocados and papayas grow in our garden.  Talking about our garden - it is full of tropical flowers and hundreds of brightly coloured butterflies flap round it all day.  At night the bushes are full of fireflies.  Sometimes they get inside the bedrooms.  I like that.

Now, I've already discussed the tendencies towards overt religious practises in the schools.  But it's pretty out of control around our place these days.  Seriously, I've now got a couple of Jesus freaks on my hands.  Valli and Cordi break into "Jesus Loves Me" about 4 times a day.  I also catch them singing "Daniel In The Lions Den" and "We're Building a Temple To The Lord".  They are also keen to tell us stories about Joseph and his technicoloured dream coat.  And the other morning Valli gathered Cordi and Chalky together on the mat and announced "Let us pray".  I just hope they get over it before their Jewish grandmother finds out......

Loves it

Church is where everybody goes each week in their Sunday best - hats, gloves, frocks - you name it.  They find out all the local gossip.  Everyone knows everything about everyone around here. It does not take long for word to spread.  I posed for a photo with a couple of dudes from down the road, and one hour later - Cathy (she of the drawn on eyebrows) was up here telling me not to get involved with them - "They is bad people Emily....."  Her cousin had spotted me and dobbed.   And while I'm at it, like all the teachers on the island - and basically any woman over the age of 25, I have become known as Aunty Emily in these parts.  Either that or "CordiValliMummy" - which is what some of the kids call me when I see them around town.

The photo that started a scandal

And I use the word "Town" very loosely.  Never have you seen a more ramshackle place.  And there is nothing going on here.  Nada.  Not a thing.  The biggest excitement is when somebody has a load of fresh fish.  They put it on the back of their ute and drive around blowing a large conch shell.  How old school is that?

The crowds storm the main drag

This is what we eat every 3-4 days

It's the kind of place that grows on you.  And keeps growing on you until you start to consider living here permanently for a year or two.  Could I do it?  Maybe with a couple of trips to the States to break things up a bit.  Even though I am enjoying my slide into becoming a hermit - I think I need a reality check on occasion.  Nobody should be allowed to become as sickeningly healthy as I become here either.  Gone are meat eating ways, the boozing on, and my tendency to eat giant blocks of chocolate nightly.  And hello to a vegan lifestyle and running in the humidity.  I still have a dealer - but a dealer in coconut water - my good chum Elton who fixes me up with the good gear.  Love that fresh coco-water shit. I drink about 3 litres of it every couple of days.  It's a great rehydrator after the runs.   I know that it's odd - but I actually like running.  So off I go a few times a week and pound the tiny road on the almost deserted side of the island.  I run through gangs of goats, and cows that death stare me.  Thank god cows don't actually know their own strength.  They could easily get together and stomp me into the ground.  I run through alleys of coconut trees which is like playing Coconut Russian Roulette.  Occasionally you hear one of those bastards hit the ground.  The thing is, if it actually was heading for your skull you wouldn't know....and then BAM.....lights out.....I run past grassy fields rife with giant land crabs.  And I get bugs in my mouth and eyes daily.   The good times......

The Stompers

Take a walk on the wild side

Leave me alone cocos

Can't wait to retox

Lushness at Jack's Bar last Sunday

The perception of the Caribbean is basically one of luxury.  Sandy beaches, cocktails, sunshine, palm trees.  In reality - the greater part of Caribbean life is third world squalor.  Sure you can get all the brochure advertised bonuses - but only if you stay on your yacht or at a large resort.  But even that can't always guarantee you exclusion from the "real Caribbean".  This was recently found out by some package holiday UK visitors to the Dominican Republic.  Large busloads of locals on a special rate basically took over the hotel and completely rooted it up for everybody else.  Apparently they pissed and shat in the pool and ate all the buffet food.  There's nothing more horrific that not being able to get your stack of pancakes in the morning - except being urinated on while you're lying on your sun-lounge I guess.  As you can imagine the Poms weren't happy.  Nothing makes a Pom whinge more than an actual occasion where whinging is a perfectly reasonable response.  Particularly in the case of having a poo float past you while you're doing your morning backstroke.   But the locals were like "Fuck you English cocksuckers!  This is our country and everything in it is ours. So if we want to have a dump in the swimming pool and whip our cocks out for a slash all over your sunbaking wife, it's happening.  Suck it Up.  And by the way - the waffles are ours too.  ALL ours".........http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2358688/Holiday-hell-Britons-stage-sit-luxury-resort-rowdy-locals-super-cheap-deals-use-pool-toilet-urinate-sun-loungers-steal-food.html

I dunno - they look pretty happy for people staging a sit-in (apart from old thumbs down)

The poms take a walk

Cordi feeds Speedy...or is it Hasty?

But anyway, like I said - it's pretty much over and out at this end.  The bags are packed (fuck I'm a good packer - I might try and get one of those butler jobs in a fancy hotel or something), and we are departing for New York City in the morning.  Luckily it wasn't this morning.  It would have been a bumpy ride.  Old Tropical Storm Chantal blew through here today.  They've used up all the normal names - now they're onto the bogan specials....next it will be Hurricane Shazza or something.....  Anyway old Chantal gave it a red hot crack in the early hours of this morning.  We thought it had long passed and went down to the shops.  Upon our return we opened the door, and the entire room was flooded with water.  Shitfuck.  It must have blown in at a strange angle or something - I've never seen it drench the room so badly.  Everything was soaked.  Absolutely everything.  And pretty much impossible to dry because of the lack of sun today.  The worst of all was our passports - particularly mine.  The photo page is not looking good.  I look like 20 stone jaundice sufferer.  I hope to god they let me leave the country tomorrow.  

But if not there's worse places to get stuck.....So long Bequia.  And please, never, ever change.......

Over and Out