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When I ask people to come and visit, implore them really, it is because having guests validates my existence. Okay, that's a little dramatic, but I find that living here in Barbados makes me feel like I am somehow in a parallel universe and I desperately want contact with the universe where I used to live. This isn't meant to be a depressing tome about what you have over there and we have over here, but more about my state. I continue to live in the past and future and rarely glimpse the present here. This is surely my own fault and something I am aware of and working on.
There are moments of presence that more often than not have to do with sitting at eye level to the people, Lily and Virginie. I can smell them, feel them, hear them, breathe them in and just love them. In those moments I am so there. But find me doing housework or other mindless tasks and my mind always leaves Barbados. Even the times that I am with friends, socializing, participating in school events, a part of me is thinking about how I will view those moments when I am living somewhere else. Didier and I often say, we will look back on this period in our lives and laugh, but even now, we are looking back at it before we've even left.
It has taken me a long time, at every stage in my life, to feel secure in new situations, to feel like I am able to let down my guard and be myself, to let people really know me. My friends in a parallel universe have made it over that hurdle with me and with them, I feel free. When friends and family have come to visit, I have been able to open my heart a little to Barbados and be here. As we may be here another two years, please, please come and visit. You will certainly have a marvelous vacation (I am still a fabulous hostess on Mars) and I will more and more allow myself to be...here.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
It is when people visit us in Barbados that we venture out into the world of dining, tourist stops and shops. It isn't that we aren't interested at all, (at least I have some interest, Didier not so much), but that much of the island's activities are set up for tourists or for repeat offenders (Norms, regulars). For example, when you call to make a reservation at a hotel, for scuba diving, for a tour to anywhere, they ask at which hotel you are staying. Locals either don't or can't afford some of the activities and ex-pats have either done it all before or wouldn't be caught dead participating. We have fallen into that category at times, but have now discovered that we were missing out on some things. Even if just to say we would never do them again.
Didier's best friend whom he has known since he was eighteen years old, and his family came to visit us for two weeks and stayed in our guesthouse. As they have three children ranging in age from eight to sixteen, exciting activities and events had to be generated to prevent boredom. A pool, the sea, and some sunshine were just not going to cut it. So they made haste out of the compound and oftentimes, we followed, sometimes led. We went up north to show them the Animal Flower Cave and to our favorite beaches and sights on the East Coast, as well as a visit to our favorite seaside restaurant and bar, Cassareep in Speightstown. At their suggestion, we took a long drive with multiple roundabouts to go to Rockley Beach near the Accra Hotel and Resort, which seems to cater to Americans, on the South Coast.
I will say, that if I were visiting Barbados and not living here, I would more than likely stay on the South Coast. It has a more energetic vibe and lots of options to eat, drink, and be merry and my favorite, sidewalks! It even boasts a beautiful boardwalk along the beach. The waves were more exciting at Rockley and the fine sand and sun made the water almost glow turquoise with layers of cobalt blue. Not so great, driving back 40 minutes in the car with two little girls under 5 years of age who were hot and tired and bothered. We ate gyros at Opa, Lily had a slice from New York Pizza (yeah, right), and we all gorged ourselves on ice cream from Chilly Moo's before we left for home. That was a treat for all.
While we still haven't done the Mount Gay tour or the Banks Brewery crawl, after one year on the island, we did venture out to dinner at Zacchio's and almost, almost ate at Surfside in Holetown. Steel drum music, tiki torches on the beach, and fruity cocktails add to a gorgeous Caribbean vacation; people dream about those sunset scenes. But we live here and are not really fans of any of that hocus pocus. Sure, there is more offered in Barbados by way of fine dining and entertainment, so this is not about a lack of exciting things to do. It's just that our focus is on the girls who, while precocious, are indeed quite young and not particularly interested or thrilled by late night dining or alcohol-fueled tours.
Our guests, like others before them went surfing, and loved it. We've visited the Soup Bowl where expert surfers show their stuff during a well known tournament every year and are thrilled at their feats. But we haven't gotten out there on a long, or short board for that matter...yet. Didier and Frederick did scuba dive, once with Fred's daughter, Fiona and another time just the two of them, and they all loved the experience. Thanks to Didier's week off from work, he was able to enjoy these activities.
Generally speaking, Didier works like a maniac and once summer ends, our routine will return. Lily will start school, Virginie and I toddler and mommy activities and lessons, and all of us will go back to the business of living here. Enjoying the sun and sea and year round heatwave, but doing day to day tasks and chores, paying bills, going to the grocery store, doctor's office, dentist, and swimming lessons too. We may get around to doing all of the stuff the brochures boast, but we may not. We are not tourists. It's not all sunshine and piña coladas. We live here.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
Last night, with the blessing and kindness of our guests visiting from New York, Didier and I were able to go out for the second time in a year. For dinner. Together. Without the children. While I was a little nervous about Virginie who is in a wicked separation anxiety phase, I had to seize the opportunity when it was available. It felt so good to put on some clothes on that hadn't been spilled, vomited, or peed on, wear some heels and basically look how I looked before the people came.
Scarlet is a sweet, little restaurant in Paynes Bay on the West Coast of Barbados, opposite the more familiar and more expensive, Daphne's. It was a lovely surprise for me, a red jewelry box with Warhol portraits of Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe, lacquered surfaces and exotic flowers. The music was a mix of 50s and 60s hits, rhythm and blues, early rock n' roll, girl groups, and a little George Benson thrown in. George Benson will always make me smile because he reminds me so much of my dad because of his good looks and because he was one of my dad's car driving music faves.
Finally for dessert, which was more standard and less adventurous than the rest of the menu, but do the trick with chocolate, for me anyway, we chose the hot chocolate pudding and the sticky toffee pudding with butterscotch sauce. The most delicious treat of all was the time and the conversation with my husband. I had not realized how much we really needed some time away.
Stephane and Sophie, the owners of Scarlet, are a very nice couple with a beautiful little girl, who know the struggles of the restaurant business and raising a family. I'd met Sophie at my first Toddler Group and liked her instantly. Didier had the opportunity to meet the couple at an event at the US Ambassador's residence for a discussion and presentation on US trade and import of various foods. Didier and I have often wondered what the next path for us will be and have talked extensively about opening something again, something where we won't find ourselves working for anyone but ourselves. It's a tough call. We know the hours are deadly and that restaurants and all service industries really, are dependent and often hostage to the whim of the public, but it would be ours. Ours to win or fail.
But last night we let that topic, like all others, come freely and loosely in and out of play while we laughed, touched hands and feet, smooched and talked of life in the heady, romantic language of courtship, not the clipped, exhausted shorthand of parents. It was glorious.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
