Wildlife Reserve

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.


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