skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Lily made me so proud. She greeted everyone who came to the table with her sweetest "Bon jour, which means good day in French," as she advised, and sat with her little napkin on her lap. She was thrilled to have been given a fork and knife which signified that she was now a big girl. Knives don't usually make it to her table setting at home. When her crepes arrived, she cut every single piece, even the ones she had no intentions of eating, into tiny little squares. Virginie, on the other hand, still new to the game, did a lot of screeching and wiggling and ended up in my arms while I tried to eat, rocking her from side to side on one hip.
I was sweating like a piglet. Honestly, I just seem to be sweating more than most here. Luckily I have given up all pretense of wearing make up or appointing myself properly. I am just one big, sweaty hot mess in a dress carting around children. At least my skin is hydrated.
We took a tour of the Gap in Holetown, a series of little restaurants and small hotels in a one block radius, to digest a little of our breakfast. It was quite a nice tour until the ominous black clouds of rain surged across the sky. Running back to the car, we made it just in time for a serious downpour! Rather than drive home and risk soaking ourselves to get inside, we drove north along the west coast and stopped at the Weston Fish Market when we saw beautiful red snapper and other fish we didn't recognize being sold. For $22 Barbados dollars ($11 US), we bought a gorgeous piece of fish that will surely get eaten by hungry Penn-Virots tonight.
Virginie passed out in the car and is still sleeping. Papa and Lily are swimming in the pool and Mommy is writing. A nice hot Saturday morning spent together.
(c)copyright 2010. Citymominthejungle
I went on a class trip with my daughter Lily to Farley Hill and the Barbados Wildlife Reserve today with the classes from Blossoms Nursery School. This was my first time as a class mother and I was so excited. I packed enough for a weekend trip--Six sandwiches, four frozen juice boxes, two frozen bottles of water, two sippy cups, brownie bites, Cheese Sticks, the Barbados equivalent to Cheetos, Tortillaz, Bajan Doritos, marshmallows, cantaloupe, grapes, apples, two extra changes of clothing, and Virginie. Well, we still don't have a proper sitter yet and I did not want to miss out on this trip with Lily, so her baby sister came along too. Lily and many of the other kids were just as excited about the ride on the blue bus as they were about our actual destinations. But I think Lily was relieved to get off the bus when we got to Farley Hill as she had clutched the seat bar in front of her the entire ride!
How I wish I had met some of these mothers when I first arrived in Barbados. I might have had a different impression of the island's people! I don't think anything is going to make we want to stay here longer than our contracted two years, but there were some women there that I would be happy to call friend.
Farley Hill National Park in the parish of St. Peter has very lush natural views and an historic mansion in ruins. While this appealed to my curiosity, Lily and her classmates were most interested in the playground! They ran wild for a few hours, stopping on occasion to snack and drink juice and water, as it was seriously humid and hot out there. Virginie was so thrilled with the raging three and four year olds that she refused a real nap of any kind until we went to the Wildlife Reserve.
The Wildlife Reserve tours are self-guided romps through the forest where one encounters turtles, deer, peacocks, and a feeding frenzy that includes them all plus the Barbados green monkeys in droves. An interesting prospect with two, three and four year olds and their moms and nannies. We were greeting at the gate by tortoises. Even though the literature at the park said there were very few on the rest of Barbados, there were hordes here in the Reserve. I could see why given their copulating at any given spot along the trail nearly non-stop. The kids had no idea, but all the chaperones were in fits of giggles. Other animals and birds roamed the forest and we stopped at each sight to Ooh and Ahh with the kids. The peacocks are always impressive, for me anyway. That blue is definitely a gift from God. I took about 65 pictures of the peacocks alone. Don't be fooled by the brown doves. They are pigeons.
There were warnings about sudden noises provoking the animals and all I could think was, we are a pack of sudden noises going into the wild. At the feeding time, nearly all the kiddies started howling and cooing and the monkeys went bonkers. They couldn't decided what was more interesting, the food or all these kids dressed in red, yellow, green and blue. At just the moment I thought I couldn't take it anymore, weighed down with Virginie in the Hip Hammock, the stroller long abandoned on the cobbled brick path, and a screeching Lily too tired to care about decorum any longer, Didier arrived to the rescue.
Nevermind that I had supported and fed and nursed and cared for the girls and their classmates all day. All anyone will remember is my knight arriving to pick us up just as we were to reembark the bus and return to school. As he whisked us to the car and onto our journey home, Lily passed out from sheer exhaustion and heat fatigue. Truthfully, it was a lot of fun and being with Lily on her journey of discovery was priceless. I will endure the wildlife of three and four year olds and wild animals for her any day, even on the days that she is pretty wild herself.
(c)copyright 2010. Citymominthejungle
I admit that I have it easier than most with a chef as a husband. And a chef as wonderful and creative as Didier Virot, even better. When I was pregnant with Virginie I gained 55 pounds and my OB/GYN with her big brown eyes would look at me and ask, "Stephanie, what did you eat this week? You know we have passed the recommended 25-30 lbs and you still have half way to go?" Yes, of course, thank you. I cannot blame Didier entirely, but we really did eat well all through both pregnancies.
Cooking in Barbados has been challenging, as has been finding interesting things to eat that will not cost your preschool tuition. Which is to say that while I know there are good restaurants in Barbados, one cannot eat at them everyday as it is cost prohibitive and just not that exciting. Sue me. I came here from New York.
Our troubles at home begin with the heat. It is hot. Every day. But more challenging is the heat that could be generated by the oven. I say could because we don't even bother. Before we arrived, Didier cooked using the oven and thought he might die of heat shock in the house, with no one to find him for days. If I ever need to blowdry my hair, and yes, I am a Black woman, so that time does come on occasion, I do it outside! That's how hot it is in here. We don't want to add any extra heat. That leaves us to the burners on the stove, the barbecue, and cold salads and dishes.
Now I know that many people, I was surely one of them, imagine that living on an island, one would find fresh fish, produce and vegetables to cook and eat and savor. But this couldn't be further from the truth here. Barbados imports nearly all of its food from other countries. There are many options from the States, Europe, and Canada but they are either frozen options or insanely expensive.
The girls, well the girls are another story. Lily eats pasta, noodles, or spaghetti nearly every day. While these things may all seem like the same thing to you, I dare you to say so to her. We make french fries, pizza, corn pancakes and gauffres from scratch for them and serve lots of fruit--apples, pears, grapes, oranges from Jamaica, and cantaloupe. There are brownies and cookies and juice boxes, the ubiquitous Goldfish and Cheerios. Yogurt. Ice cream that will break the bank--this stuff is like gold here, extraordinarily expensive. Recently, Lily has broken down and has begun eating a little chicken, some steaks, maybe turkey franks. An eater as finicky as that could nearly kill a chef. But not to worry, Virginie eats everything.
I was sad about our food options because I had become so spoiled in New York with the availability of everything. But I have found some places that have put a real smile on my face. I'll tell you about them soon.
(c)copyright 2010. Citymominthejungle
I didn't realize that we, well certainly not I, are nakeds. Everyone in my family, once they are safely in the house and away from prying eyes, strips down to their Sunday best. Virginie keeps on her diaper as her one year old status would warrant, and I sometimes put on a swim suit, wary of the jiggly bits doing lots of jiggling. But it is really hot here, often hotter in the house than outside and sweating it out in clothing, even the lightest cotton seems ridiculous. Nearly all the pictures we take of the girls I have to tell Didier, "Please make sure you get some where all the nudity isn't hanging out so we can post them or send them to my parents." It started out about the heat, but I also want the girls to feel comfortable with their bodies and the way for them to own their bodies and love them is to see us all doing so.
But Didier took it to a new level yesterday. Lily was at school and I was trying to put Virginie to sleep. In our garden, there is a small hole, well groove really, where a tree used to stand but had been removed. While I was nursing the little one and trying to get her to sleep, Didier began a replanting project. He'd taken a palm tree that was nestled next to the guesthouse in a shaded area and dug it out of the ground, carried it by its long neck to the groove, which he had now dug into a hole, and planted it securely in the ground. I came out to the patio to find him panting, soaked from head to toe in sweat, and completely naked carrying a bucket of soil in one hand and a bucket of old, empty coconuts in the other. (He'd used the coconuts to fill the hole for a few days while he decided what to do with it apparently.)
There was soil all over his body and his face was red, probably from all the labor, but just as likely from the rum and Coke he'd had before beginning this project. His body was glistening with sweat and he had this silly grin on his face that said "Crazy from the heat, " which he clearly was. I asked him politely if it was his aim to have a heart attack or get heat stroke working in the middle of the day but he told me that this hole had been annoying him and he had to fill it at just that moment.
The truth is, the tree looks lovely there and the image of my naked chef walking through the garden doing work certainly didn't hurt the eyes. It was nice to fall in love again with this crazy French guy.
When we leave here, the new tenants will love their palm tree and never know how it got there. But I will.
(c)copyright 2010. Citymominthejungle
Except for the dead rat found under the Sit N'Spin on the patio, today started out like any other Sunday. Lily was certain that the poor thing died due to eating the "poison berries" that Virginie got into, but the truth seems to be a bit worse. Apparently, one evening when I was closing up shop, I tossed the Sit N' Spin into its place on the patio, just as said dead rodent happened to be passing by. He became trapped under the toy and then must have suffocated underneath it, struggling for days to break free. More than likely, he'd ventured to the patio because of all the coconuts sitting there still waiting to be opened by the husband. Rats, I have been told, love coconuts. Many of the trees on Barbados have metal rings at the lower trunk to prevent rats from climbing up and devouring the coconuts and then dropping shells onto people's heads. Were it not for those yummy coconuts, that rat would have been free to wreak havoc in the garden until the Norquest man came again.
But that event was not to stop us from enjoying the day. After a morning swim, we loaded the girls in the car to take them to the South Coast for a little tour of the beaches. The car ride was so soothing that both ladies went to sleep immediately, and Didier and I just drove around the coast admiring views and checking out places to visit in the future. There are so many beautiful locations on the island and if the nature alone could make me happy, then I would be overjoyed. As an artist, I see the colors, the patterns, the meeting places, barber shops and hair salons, churches and fruit stands and feel excitement.
