Happy 44th Independence Day Barbados

I know it is a little late, but Tuesday, November 30th, we celebrated Independence Day here. It is interesting to think that Barbados is just about 100 years behind Canada in separating from the Brits. It makes sense why the island is sometimes referred to as “Little Britain” – which makes me think of the hilarious British comedy show.

Anyways, it is an official UN holiday here and it was quite refreshing to have a day off in the middle of the week! I took it upon myself to experience a little more Bajan (colloquial for Barbadian) cuisine and activities. The surfing lessons the previous Saturday went really well – though I only could crouch by the end of it, it was a workout-and-a-half. So my friend Sam who is giving me surf lessons offered to take me along with him and a friend while they went spearfishing, giving me some goggles and a snorkel to swim around the coral at the same time. So I headed out to the West Coast to meet Sam. I found him really high up trimming loose branches from a tree in his friend’s yard, which backs right on to the beach. After lounging around for a bit, we set out in a kayak towards the ring of coral reefs which encircles the island. I am not so interesting in doing the spear fishing myself, especially since they use a kind of gun and guns make me feel unsettled. But cool to watch. Not that I was watching much. I preferred just to swim around, check out the pretty fish and search for turtles! After having dove numerous times in Zanzibar without seeing any, and having helped those baby turtles back into the ocean, I really wanted to see them in a natural way.

And I didn’t have to look to for long, though Sam was much more adept at spotting them than I was, but they were so used to tourist groups on catamarans dangling fish pieces at them, that human contact is not so frightening for them. I will not delve into the ethics of luring hordes of turtles to have flighty tourists ogle at them. Regardless, to me, swimming with the turtles, just me and the turtles, was wonderful. I plan on going out there as often as I can; it really makes you forget everything else happening in your life. 3 hours of treading water later, and with a few fish each hung around their wire belts, we headed back to shore. I learned how to de-scale and clean a fish on the beach and learned that the fish here eat moss off rocks, which translates to bellies filled with green ooze. Yum. We also enjoyed some conkies, which is a traditional pumpkin/sweet potato based clump (soft cookie?) mixed with raisins, coconut, corn meal, spices and sometimes dried fruit, and baked or steamed wrapped inside a banana leaf. I’m currently sans camera – long story but I will have another quite shortly – so please enjoy this Google Image photo:

After conkies and the swim, we went over to Sam’s family’s place for a BBQ, with fresh fish and more traditional cuisine: pig’s tails. I just tried to find a suitable image and it mostly makes me wish that I hadn’t tried it. Regardless, it was like a hard, fried sausage with I guess a muscle or cartilage inside; edible at least. And they took great pleasure in offering it to me and watching me eat it; so, when in Rome! And otherwise, I watched a few local football matches as part of an Independence Day tournament. Interesting observation: the lines on fields here are painted with leftover black oil of some sort instead of our normal white paint to save money.

Oh and yesterday, I ran a half-marathon! I’ll post again tomorrow about that with photos and links. I’m off to the “hot pot” thermal springs tonight to work on my muscles. Right now I feel like I aged 80 years in one day.

In other news, McKinley, the CANADEM intern in St. Kitts whose bog I linked to earlier, is coming to Barbados for Christmas!

Boosted morale

While I am definitely wishing there were more opportunities for field work, for going to see what’s happening on the ground somewhere like St. Lucia, I know it’s just not in the cards right now. That is unless they urgently need a communications person in Montserrat, since my boss is afraid of very small planes. I have accepted office work as a by-product of working in an office operating out of a relatively high-income country and working in medium-income small island nations. Last week, while my supervisor Patrick was in and out of St. Lucia, I got tasked by the Deputy Representative to map all the available data/social indicators for all ten countries for the Rep to bring to a regional meeting in Panama this week. Let’s just say my math competencies have forcefully been revived from near demise. But I did get a bunch of positive feedback, which is nice since you can only pat yourself on the back so often.

And I wrote my first press release (a sign of confidence from Patrick, I hope) last week!

This week, I finally finished my first draft of the social media strategy for the office, and I did not expect myself to be in such a good mood about handing it over to Patrick. Let me just say, this document is a beautiful thing. Apparently I’m supposed to make a presentation to the programme staff and Representative about it shortly. In the meantime, at least I am starting to tick off more of the tasks on my work plan. And after editing an extremely lengthy funding proposal for child sexual abuse programming this afternoon, Patrick sent me a copy of the trip report he had to write up from St. Lucia so that I “could see the format for the new year.” Gasp! A sign of future travels? I hope so!

Okay, so I might be looking too hard for a sign. But regardless, things are going well enough now that I have accepted my non-field work state.

In the next week, a few noteworthy things are happening: An international surf competition on the east coast, Independence Day on Tuesday of next week, Hagen Daazs opens around the corner from my work, I have my first surfing lesson and I will see the new Harry Potter!

I was planning on talking a bit about Bajan dialect here, but actually another CANADEM intern McKinley, out posted way out in St. Kitts, has a good one on patois. Bajans really love replacing pronouns “her” and “his” with “she” and “him.” i.e. She got in she car.

Here is her post: http://mikistkitts.blogspot.com/2010/11/patois-and-parlance.html

Also, I’m considering staying in Barbados until July, just to be here for crop over: http://www.barbados.org/cropover.htm

Liming in Bathsheba

Two Saturdays ago, the four girls decided to venture out to see a different part of the island. I realized the other day that although I’ve been here nearing 2 months, I really haven’t seen many of the other parishes. One of the most famous beaches, Bathsheba, is on the Atlantic Ocean side and the "Soup Bowl" is a surfer’s paradise. where international surfing competitions take place each year. And it did not disappoint!
Oh and liming means relaxing, just so you know! Example: “I’m going to go lime on the beach.”

Here are some snaps of serenity:

Calm after the Storm

Since last week, Barbados and other islands that were affected by Tomas, are picking up the pieces, cleaning up debris and many families are looking for normalcy in their lives. Last Thursday, my supervisor went into St. Lucia for a few hours to write a story for a fundraising appeal with the UK UNICEF national committee. I am starting to understand the coordination among organizations necessitated by working in this type of emergency. For example, UNICEF’s mandate is to ensure the security and livelihood of women and children, therefore, UNICEF supplies – hygiene kits, bottled water, recreational and school supplies, and water purification tablets – are supposed to be helping children, more than just the general population. Not such an easy task on the ground, especially when the communities nearest the port get news of 5,000 5L water jugs coming in hours.

Also, when one of the programme staff, Elaine, was in St. Lucia to do training for the Return to Happiness programme, she was saying that one of the elements is to have a positive message song to begin and end the session. So, as she so hilariously demonstrated by singing and doing a little dance in the latest meeting, the children involved chose Shakira’s opening of the FIFA World Cup anthem Waka Waka (This is Africa) – replacing “Africa” so it ends “This is St. Lucia.” Okay, it’s pretty darn cute.

Apparently a lack of drinking water is the major issue right now, so the purification tablets are important if people are drinking from streams so as to prevent a cholera outbreak. And conditions are right, as they are also in Haiti, for child abuse, with shelters packed, adults and children sleeping together and children generally left unsupervised.

Some photos from St. Lucia:





The Child Protection Specialist Heather took some photos in St. Lucia with the Return to Happiness kits that we spent almost a week sorting out and packing. The aim is to help children come to terms with emotions and concerns following a natural disaster and work through them in small groups. Here are some images:

A Breezy Weekend

Now that’s the understatement of the century. Tropical Storm / Hurricane Tomas really shook up Barbados (though not as much as it did St. Lucia and St. Vincent). And being so late in the hurricane season, it caught everyone off guard, and me in particular! Word came late Friday evening of a tropical storm warning, which we took mildly seriously, going out for dinner but calling it an early night. We only heard of the upgrade to a hurricane watch from a colleague who phoned around 11pm. This is the downside to not having a working tv, a radio or reliable internet. After bringing in patio chairs, laundry, the garbage can and shoes, we closed all the windows and went to bed. By midnight, the rain and wind was so loud, I was waking up every 2 hours until our landlord’s phone call at 6:30am.

“We’re all fine; the house is fine,” was all I could string together in my groggy state. No power, but we had water. Melissa, my newest roommate and emergency management intern at unicef, was also up early. The banana tree in our backyard had fallen but luckily it was not large enough to damage anything. The storm was still surging outside. We ate our breakfast almost in silence, discussing tactics for if we felt the winds were getting stronger. We could put a mattress against the glass door. We should take shelter in the corners away from windows. And we should have bought candles.

By midday, the ‘all clear’ was given to emergency crews and police to start clearing roads and getting the people who needed urgent help. Luckily, we remembered that Melissa’s phone has an FM radio, so we took turns following the news and napping or cleaning the house. The news was structured mostly as a call-in show, where people from all over the island called to explain the situation in their area, so that emergency crews listening could make note. St. Lucy, the northernmost point, and St. George in the east, sustained the worst damage. Christ Church, where our house is, was also quite badly hit. Government subsidized housing across the country sounded pretty well destroyed; so much for building codes.

I was particularly transfixed to the radio when callers explain their personal stories:
- An old lady appealing for help after a pear tree fell on her roof
- A lupus sufferer and others with special needs whose neighbours were calling to report roofs blown off and unsure of what to do about medications
- A family whose house was destroyed staying at a primary school and appealing for basic assistance
- Intense flooding in some area; with one report only saying there was major flooding in one house with a baby inside...and so is anyone helping?!?
- “Fisherfolk” in the East and West coasts braving the surf to salvage their boats – their livelihoods
- Someone calling to tell “George” that his house had been destroyed (this one pulled at my heart strings)

The “all clear” was given around 2:30pm, though intense rain continued so we actually never left the house on Saturday. Stores were obviously not open, so with only one flashlight and early nightfall here, we packed it in early for another restless sleep as the tropical storm conditions continued. At one point, around 2am Sunday morning, I was hugging the far corner of my bed, to get as far away from the window as possible – even though I knew the hurricane had passed. Sunday we stocked up on non-perishables and candles amidst a frantic crowd at the grocery store. Power lines were down all over our street, but only our street. So we pretty much have lowest priority on the entire island.

This is like forced camping. Did I mention how much I love gas stoves?

Regardless, all is well here, though without power for an undetermined amount of time. Another experience for the books. Here's to hoping Tomas miraculously steers clear of Haiti.


RIP our banana tree:



Putting together 'Return to Happiness' child trauma counseling kits at work:

I am working here, I promise.

I am constantly reminded of this space I am filling between local and tourist, on an island primarily frequented by Western vacationers looking to have a good time. However, I am here to work, regardless of the frustrations that may accompany these efforts. While today was slow to say the least, I’ll take this time to talk a bit about my work life here in Barbados. Currently, other than supporting the Communications team – Lisa and Patrick – with anything they need, I am working on documenting best practices to write up a social media platform for this country office. Not too time consuming save trying to get in contact with other country offices to figure out what they’re up to. So, I am prone to taking regular tea breaks here, especially since the lunch room (read: closet) has milo as well. And I must say, though I find it odd that everyone drinks evaporated milk with their hot beverages, I am growing to love the taste!

The last two days I was working on a presentation for our rep Tom to make for high school students on UN Statistics Day (try making that interesting), but it got cancelled. Pretty much everything has been cancelled this past week since the Prime Minister died of cancer last Saturday. I think he was quite loved and fairly young. The funeral is next Wednesday. But it was a nice change to have the TACRO (UNICEF The Americas and Caribbean Regional Office) Representative visiting last week, and now you can virtually meet my colleagues:

Otherwise, a few of us have taken to having our lunch break on the beach – it really makes for a legit break from the office, even though I find it a little too hot outside. But how can I complain with the breeze, good company and the sound of waves breaking. Also, I should say that Julie and I share an “office” – it’s actually that we have desks in the library. No complaints since it has windows and a lot to read, but it turns out it also serves as the holding pen for children of staff when they are in the office. It doesn’t help that there is a big screen TV in here. Last week, when schools were on a break, I could swear we were running a glorified babysitting service. I do love kids, I promise, but I cannot be expected to work when they are listening to Scooby Doo on volume 10000 in Spanish. I’m trying to be “child-friendly” – and they are cute, Kayla made us a homage that is up for interpretation:

After work, usually we opt to walk most of the way home, past the smoothie van, hotels, banks and shops, Bert’s Bar, Shell and on to Big B (our grocery store of choice). When we first arrived, we went almost every day. I am trying to buy as much “local” as possible – but it’s tempting with so many Canadian imports. The other great thing about Big B is they have a free shuttle when you buy groceries. A must since there is no bus running to our place from there.

And two nights ago, I spent about an hour making a delicious teriyaki veggie stir fry – complete with (knife) crushed peanuts – and what do I hear? Bells! Ice cream! I grabbed my wallet, ran to the curb and listened. And it was as if the sugar gods heard my prayer because the ice cream truck came around the bend onto my street! Someone hailed him down a few houses away, huzzah! I talked to the ice cream man and told him to drop by any time. This is so dangerous.


After a really lovely run under the stars, I spent the rest of the night relaxing on the porch with the scrumptious eats.

So, does anyone want to come visit?

P.S. False advertising, this is from my colleague's porch, not mine!

The Morning Report

Is it possible that I am actually starting to really enjoy running? It seems odd to be looking forward to my morning runs, so much so that I have to stop myself from running every day. Weird. It might in part be due to signing up for a half marathon on December 5th with Laurie, the French intern at the office – www.runbarbados.org. I thought it was totally doable until I checked online only to find that the average finish time for a relatively fit woman is around 2 hours. In this heat, it will be quite the challenge for a distance noob like me. I ran about 10km last Sunday, and this Sunday, maybe 12km – so I’m sure I’ll survive. Though the race starts at 5am, harkening back to my press clipping hours. Here are some things I have observed while on my runs so far:

1. Everyone here owns a guard dog, or two, or three. This makes running a heart-attack-inducing activity, with the domino effect coming into full force and before long, the entire block becomes a chorus of different yelps, barks and growls. It’s a little much at 6:30am.

2. I have an unofficial running buddy here. Most mornings I see this old man, with mildly bowed legs, in his navy wife beater and red shorts. We always nod knowingly at each other as we are both dripping with sweat. This always makes me smile, like we have made a little connection. The other day, he seemed to have started pushing a small bicycle wheel alongside him with a stick. Now that takes skills.

3. I cannot seem to shake Sam, a delightful teacher who we met at Oistins, the Friday night fish market, our first week in Barbados. He lives up the street and always sees me running and wants to chit chat about everything. Run away!

4. On my evening runs, I’m still taunted by the distant bell chimes of the ice cream truck. Still unsuccessful in my attempts at figuring that one out.

More to come as the training continues. Wish me luck!