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The monkeys hadn't been giving us too much attention for the last few weeks. I could see them swinging in the trees behind the guesthouse from time to time, but not too much up close and uncomfortable time that gets my hair on edge and has me cringing on the patio that they will come too close looking for raw peanuts or the fallen mangoes and bananas we have inside. I hadn't seen them on the wall between our house and the neighbors' place at 5:30 am but that was because, with God's blessing, Lily and Virginie had not been waking up quite so early.
And then this week, the return. First I saw the two mothers and their little ones clinging to their bellies searching in a flower bed for something to eat and then they were right there. In front of my face. Right at the pool behind the patio in a tiny little tree with a strange fruit that, silly me, I thought were pine cones or something. I had never seen anything like them before. Turns out they are sugar apples or soursop and these monkermoos will do just about anything to sink their little teeth into them. At once there were six or so monkeys in one Charlie Brown Christmas tree going bonkers eating, tugging, fighting over this fruit! Even when I approached, and yes, I approached, a little bolder now, they made no move until I was about two feet away, too excited to chomp away on the sugary clumps.
Please forgive my salty language. But there really is no other way to express my utter disgust. Nearly every morning when we finally venture out of the cool bedrooms and head to the living room, I open the outside doors to test the humidity. If it is cooler outside than inside, which it often is not, I open the doors around the house to bring in a cross breeze. I will let the girls wander around the patio, riding their bikes and other sitting and riding toys while I open shutters and assess the state of the garden.
The garden always looks gorgeous. There might be hummingbirds or monkeys or new blooming flowers, Fallen limes or a chain of butterflies chasing each other. A beautiful sight for tired morning eyes. And then, on the patio, there is this.
The wretched toads that offer no promise of turning into princes have left hideous, putrid smelling gifts all over the patio. Gifts which, as I am the only person capable of cleaning in the house it appears, I am meant to clean before Virginie walks right into it or tries to pick it up. Paradise? Yeah...and it's full of shit.
I know these freaks are not only found in Barbados. My father told me that he'd once accused his neighbor of letting his dog freely relieve himself on my parents' driveway, only to discover that the toads in Florida too defecate all over walkways and other spaces. Yeah, I know, nature and all that. It's beautiful. It is. Next time you are marveling at the gorgeous views and photos of the sea in Barbados, think of me, yellow-gloved, armed with paper towels and disinfectant spray, scooping the never-to-be-princes' turds.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle
From kindergarten all the way through high school, there are all kinds of things we're told we will need to know in later life. Any savvy teenager will tell you that they are sure they will never use algebra or calculus once they graduate, I know I'd said as much, and as far as I know, I was right. (Although I wasn't paying enough attention and could be using algebra or calculus somewhere in my life and just don't know it.) But these Fahrenheit to Celsius or Centigrade temperature conversions? If you're going to spend any amount of time out of the US, you'd definitely want to try to retain these. And the metric system while you are at it, but that is another entry.
It's funny to hear people talking about the scorcher at 36 degrees or checking the temperature gauge in the car and seeing it read 38. Ha! I can handle that! All that time spent in Boston and New York. I got this! But check this, 36 degrees, a temperature I have come to know and fear as it posts in our daily weather report online, is 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit. And I see that reading every morning when we are still just preparing for the heat of the day. Throw in some direct sun and humidity, with air conditioning only in the bedrooms at home, spotty even in restaurants and some grocery stores, electricity expensive and also temperamental, and there is no safe place from the heat. Maybe the car.
And don't you know it, today I went for a walk on the boardwalk on the South Coast near Accra Beach because I had been looking for the thing for so long that when I saw it, I said, heat index be damned. My friend Karl and I pushed the girls in their respective strollers, covered with sunshades, for as long as we could stand and then took the girls for ice cream at Chilly Moos Ice Cream Treatery. Their second time in two days.
I still can't keep the conversion equation in my head, one more thing to jangle around in there, but I do know this, 36 degrees equals hot. 37 degrees equals hot. 38 degrees, well that's hot. And Barbados in August, Fahrenheit or Celsius, is melting that thermometer.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle
Crop Over is the height of Barbados holiday celebrations, even more so than Independence Day. Two days, two working days, are given over to the fete much like Carnival in Trinidad with music, nearly butt naked dancing and copious amounts of alcohol to whet the appetite for excitement and celebration. I watched it all on TV. Yeah, I know, lame. But I couldn't really think of any way to participate this year. Most of the jumping--walking, marching, and dancing in the parade--would take place far from home and Didier, sure of mysterious illnesses that would suddenly befall scheduled workers, was on the job. While I have been ambivalent about Barbados, I respect holidays and traditions, and hoped to experience the real Crop Over in some way.
From my end, all I saw were closed shops and banks, empty streets, a quiet Holetown, and ex-pats scrambling to get together. Many had already been part of Crop Over in years passed and just wanted to get on with their lives today and some were in situations like mine, just not really willing to bus the girls to Bridgetown for bacchanalia in the heat, rain, and crowds, though the rain and wind probably gave the jumpers some break from this broiling heat and humidity.
That was yesterday. Today, the banks and stores are still closed. I imagine there is quite a lot of recuperating going on on the island today. Even better for us. Because today, we ladies had a special treat. We met up, well actually, we were picked up by my friend and the girls' swimming instructor, Wendy and her two little girls, both former classmates of Lily's, and taken to the beach at Sandy Lane. Sandy Lane is an incredibly posh hotel on the island, actually THE posh hotel which also has a housing development full of lovely homes and a golf course and all things lovely on Barbados. It is truly stunning. Tiger Woods, God bless him, got married at Sandy Lane, and though he unsuccessful prevented people from taking the access road through the property to prevent paparazzi et al from getting in, he was able to shut down the rest of the place. I can see why he'd want to. It is gorgeous and well maintained. It's where all the British celebrities stay when they are here. (And they are here much more than anyone from America.) The beach is lovely and today was quite calm and quiet.
The girls got to playing straight away and we all got in the water, it being too gorgeous to resist. Wendy is right up my alley, something I surely haven't said much since arriving here. She is funny and witty and we found we had more in common than we'd known. I don't feel like I have to be selective about what I share, trying to protect her from my potty mouth and sarcasm and felt I could be more forthright about our life here.
There is a lot of pretense in Barbados. Surely everywhere, but there is a facade I think quite common in resort communities where people either pretend to have more than they do, to be happier than they are, to adore everything they experience on a daily basis and give you a look of repulsion if you say you think the emperor is really not wearing any clothes. Now I am certainly a great pretender, I made my living that way for a time, but I have missed honest, open dialogue, irreverence, and just shit-talking. I have always needed to talk it out to figure it out and I find the more I have been able to do that of late, the better being here has been. Better. I am not selling the farm just yet.
It was a lovely morning with just one meltdown, finally not mine or Lily's, and I arrived home happy, contented, and absolutely burnt a nice chocolate brown. My little caramel and milk chocolate dewdrops were satisfied too. Now isn't that a way to spend a holiday.
(c) copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
It's not what you think. I haven't woken up on a cloud and I am not on drugs. I will still be happy to make my move to a place that's right for me, where I don't feel so alienated from the things that make my heart sing, where I am not confronted with the hassles that living in Barbados presented and still continue to present. I just had to make a choice. And after coming out of the fog of my post partum depression, after a release from gut-wrenching pain, hysterical tears, and infinite sadness, I am here. One more year on my husband's contract, the current earner in an economically difficult climate. Two children to feed, clothe, entertain, and educate. Bills to pay, money to save, plans to make. What would you do? Really. Because I have considered it all.
I suppose I have really become an adult now because I recognize where the sacrifices need to be made, and many of them are on my back. I am happy to have my family and want to do all I can to preserve it. I love my husband and my children but I certainly don't profess to consider this current arrangement even remotely satisfying. I wish it was about getting a sitter and going out on the town to have some fun, but it is so much more complicated than that.
Didier is old school. The arguments we have are all cliches of parenting books and there is no stopping these conversations from going down. I hear them play out before we even begin. He has a job. It is very demanding. He has just enough to concentrate on that job and perform well in shark-infested waters. It is hostile and stressful and exhausting and when he comes home he wants a break. And the break he gets, is on my back. Because I am taking care of and running this household and raising the girls on my own, save his two days off when he plays with them while I take care of the household and handle anything pertaining to life outside of the hotel. He does cook when he is home. Lovely, delicious meals for us and pasta and pizza for the girls. The pizza is made from scratch and is extraordinary. And for the cooking, I pay back tenfold.
I want for Lily and Virginie everything I couldn't get from my mother who was frustrated at having the responsibility of taking care of three children while her husband worked and offered little help at home. I know that the anger can turn one away from the children and that that can never happen with my girls, not with me. So I play with them and read with them and draw and paint and swim and swing and make dinner and bathe them and get them dressed and brush teeth and go pee pee on the potty and then one more time because "it didn't all come out that time" and get a glass of water and turn the light just so and put on the monitor so I can hear them in the middle of the night and tuck them in and stay with them until they are asleep...and then come out into the empty house. I make something to eat. Wash the dishes. Read. Some nights I wait up and others I pass out. I turn off the lights on a tidy, orderly house, and get into bed, listening to the girls on the monitor.
I am up at the first cry or call and check for wet diapers or undies. I change the baby, the sheets, if necessary, take Lily to the bathroom and depending on the time of night or how tired I am, just get in bed with whichever babe gives me the most room. Always up first and always before 6:30, I start the girls on the morning rituals. Making beds, getting dressed, making breakfast, lunch, turning on the coffee, making our bed once Didier is up, finding a minute to brush my own teeth, maybe shower, pull my hair back for the ride to school, making sure everyone feels loved and appreciated and we are off to school by ten after eight. After dropping Lily, I wish Didier a good day at work, pray for less stress, offer him words of encouragement and praise and return to the house with Virginie no later than ten to nine.
And then my day begins. I am not delusional. I feel full of hope because it is what keeps me sane right now. I am making friends, getting into new things. Writing. Trying to learn French. Trying to lose those last five pounds. Breathing. A friend of mine called me an independent woman and I burst into tears hearing that comment. It has been so long since I allowed myself to consider me, to acknowledge the "just me."
Barbados isn't the only problem by any stretch, but it just doesn't make it any better.
(c) copyright 2010. Citymominthejungle
Lily turned four years old today! After a party a couple of weekends ago with her classmates,she will celebrate today at school with mini-ice cream cones, chocolate and vanilla for all the kids at camp. Camp for Lily is basically school without the uniform and lots of fun projects and some older girls to copy and look up to. She wore a special t-shirt with ballet shoes on it and took a birthday hat and mask and noisemaker to get everyone all riled up!
July 27th, 2006, I went to the hospital with Didier to have an ultrasound. Because I was over 35 years old and 40 weeks pregnant, I was to go to the hospital twice a week to make sure that all was safe and sound with the baby. It was a crazy summer in New York City that year. We were in the midst of a massive heatwave with temperatures over 100 degrees for 5 days in a row. To get to Beth Israel Hospital from our apartment was such a complicated trip, that we had timed a subway and bus ride faster than a cab!
That morning it was so incredibly hot and I was so huge I just couldn't eat a thing. I took a glass of water and we left the apartment to make our way to our appointment. Once there, after a stress test and a look at the active little monster on the screen, the doctor came in to ask me if I had noticed anything out of the ordinary. Any 'contractions. Any water leakage. Nothing came to mind. I just felt huge and nervous and incredibly hot. "Well", she said, "we are going to admit you and start you on a drip and I think we are going to induce this baby. Your fluid is low and I think she is ready to come on out."
Say what?
From that moment I was not permitted to eat or drink and was told I was more than likely looking at a long day...and night ahead of me. I was taken to another floor to a birthing room where Didier was told to kiss me goodbye and go and get my things. Which, of course, were long packed and ready to go waiting at the bedroom door. He left me looking scared to bits, I am sure, and ran off to take care of the remaining details. The folks at the hospital got started on me. With a drip of pitossin started, it looked like Didier might not make it back. I dilated fairly quickly and handled the pain pretty well for about 7 hours and then...not so much. The epidural slowed it all down to a halt and we watched movies and napped and hung about waiting for a sign from the babe that we were getting ready for some action.
At 5:01 on the morning of the 28th, Lily Frances Grace made her way into the world. All bright eyes and screams. Didier says she flew out like a fish and even though he had promised not to look, the first mention of the hair and he was in there like someone's obstetrician. I loved her immediately. Like I had never loved another human being up until that moment. The love a mother has for her child is different that being loved by a parent, by a lover, by a sibling, or by a friend. I looked into her beautiful brown eyes and saw life, the lotus, God, a promise. I was nearly speechless and whispered only, "Oh my God. Oh my God."
Most Sundays we try to get out and see the island, a new beach, even a beloved familiar one, different parishes, cane fields, anything to get out as a family and create new memories for ourselves and the girls. This weekend after visiting the beach near our home, we decided to travel up to North Point in St. Lucy again. We have gone up there a number of times and have never visited the Animal Flower Cave, one of Barbados's oldest treasures and a destination with stunning views where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the cave again this time either. But we did catch up with a friend and her family--Sue, Bella, Mimi, and Manuel--who not only live up there, right at the Cave, but who own and run the place.
Living right at the edge of the site, Sue and Manuel have a sprawling home with a lovely play area for the girls with swings, hammocks, and the sweetest treehouse. Lily and I had just been talking about treehouses, so she was thrilled out of her mind to get to play in one so immediately. Lily actually could have stayed there; she was so smitten with Bella and Mimi and all their dress up costumes. There was a menagerie of animals. Dogs, cats, an iguana, two turtles, one of whom, Polly had been laying eggs about the property. Mimi, Sue's littlest, found a tiny baby turtle wandering in the garden and they'd put it in a box with some squash to eat. Virginie also was happy to experience something new and had the dogs licking her hands and face as she fed them dropped Cheese Sticks (Cheetos to my American friends).
