Happy Errol Barrow Day!

Who was this lovely gentleman, you may ask? Errol Barrow was the founding father of Barbados, so why not celebrate his birthday – any excuse for a good, family BBQ Bajan-style! Unfortunately, the UN only gets a certain number of holidays so we had a rainy half-day of work, but as soon as 1pm rolled around, my roommate Melissa and I hopped on a bus to the West Coast, to Roadview, St. Peter, to enjoy the rest of the beautiful day with our friend Sam’s family. With juice and chocolate in tow, we had no idea the home cooking that was awaiting us. Sam had mentioned something about roasting breadfruit and fish, but the wood slotted oven built from sliced scraps would have made any caveman proud! The gist of it is that you build up the oven around the breadfruit, set the thing on fire, and wait for it to fall apart into ashes. Then the veggies are ready. And somewhere in there, you throw in some aluminum-wrapped sweet potato, a whole coconut and seasoned whole fish. While we watched it all be built up and fall apart, we sampled some fresh fried flying fish (tongue twister!) and bonita fish. Yum!

But the best was yet to come. Caveman’s ingenious bonfire yielded amazing roasted breadfruit – which reminded Melissa and I of ugali but better, with a dip of ketchup, pepper sauce and butter. How can you go wrong! And the roasted coconut was really nice as well.
And as the piece de resistance – the roasted fish were out of this and we revenged it right out of the foil. It felt so good and natural to eat stuff right out of the ground and sea. And a lovely sunset dip in the Sea to end off the day. And Saturday had even more down-to-earth cooking after Melissa and I went out to learn to catch big fish. After seeing some crazy looking splashing not so far from the boat, we circled around a few times before I felt a tug. After enlisting some help, I pulled out an 8-pounder – not bad!

Melissa steered the boat for a bit, but I’m not so good at that stuff, so I just played around with some flying fish that we caught earlier – flying fish is the national animal of Barbados and they have very large fins that spread out to allow them to jump out and almost hover in the air for a split second. I guess pretty fun to catch with nets.

And after that excitement, another bonfire was set up and, after guts were removed, roasted the flying fish “in their jackets” and got the 101 on de-boning, taking off the skin and what not to eat on the inside. Taking the skin off and dunking them in the saltwater provides as much seasoning as you need on these babies. Needless to say, I’m eating a lot of fish and loving it.

Caribbean Cricket

Not your grandpa’s 3-day cricket that breaks for afternoon tea. I’m talking about decently exciting 20/20-style where each team bats for 20 overs (think innings where only 6 balls are thrown) and each time runs are scored, dancers are wukking up and people are jumping out their seats and waving 4 or 6-run mini-posters! Overall – a surprisingly fun atmosphere! So Wednesday night Canada was playing Barbados at the Oval downtown, so with a (patient) Bajan friend in tow, I was off to my first match. First off, I was told that cricket wasn’t dissimilar to baseball, except that you only run back and forth in a line with wickets (tall stick things) at either end. But what I didn’t know was that one team bats the full 20 overs (takes about an hour and a half) before the other team takes over.

We arrived a bit late for the 8pm game but it didn’t end up starting until closer to 9 – typical Bajan time. Barbados was up first, so after a barrage of questions about what has going on, I was finally starting to understand. Mostly I just liked cheering and jumping up with everyone else! But the rain wasn’t holding up so the game was interrupted about four times in the first half, so a lot of what I watched was this:

So what do you eat at a cricket match you might ask? Fishcakes with pepper sauce and Banks! I think I might be mildly addicted to fishcakes. It seems like a large number of people from the Canadian ex-pat community came out to the game as well. Here is a highlight of why I was cheering for Barbados and keeping my nationality a little hush-hush:

Coconuts 101

In the spirit of positivity, I really had a great week and a really nice weekend. Of course the week it had its glitches – embarrassing myself in my first Spanish lesson, finding out that more friends have ulterior motives – but work and meetings with Trinidad and Tobago colleagues went well and I even got to present my work on social media at the all staff meeting on Thursday. I was happy with how it went and received a lot of positive feedback, which gave me a bit of natural high the rest of the morning! My weekend started early with a tour of Parliament and Harrison’s Cave in the afternoon. Parliament was cool, just essentially a smaller version of Canada’s Senate and House of Commons, but with all the same silly formalities. The Caves, advertised as a “must see” for tourists in Barbados, was very beautiful but a little too built up. I love seeing natural wonders, in a naturally wonderful place. Glass elevators and fancy Segway trams aside, the winding tunnels of stalactites and stalagmites, with carved waterfalls and calcium deposits made me wonder how Barbados came to be formed geologically – which luckily they showed in a film after the tour.

With the surf not so ideal, I opted to learn a little something about coconuts. Who knew they would be such a complex…fruit? Sam was asked to pick coconuts and do some trimming at an old (and adorable) German lady’s place so I tagged along to get what Sam dubbed a “coconut education.” And now I will bestow my newfound learnings on y’all.

Essentially, there are three main stages that a coconut goes through while it’s on the tree. When the fruit is still young, it’s green, smooth and the coconut water inside will be at its prime and the flesh is really just a gel at this time. And generally you see alcoholic drinks being served in young coconuts. Over the next few months, the coconut starts drying out, becoming more fibrous and getting brown veiny spots on the outside. The water tastes sour or bitter but the flesh inside is getting meaty so it’s apparently at the best for using in coconut bread. Finally, about six months after the youngin’ popped up, the “old” coconut, with most of the water gone, will be ready. After hacking off the outside and middle fibers, the core is what we see, at home, as a coconut – with a hairy, hard, brown shell and white flesh. I had no idea! Part of me really wanted to learn to climb the tree, but Bajans learn from young so I think I will leave that to the professionals.
Topping the rest of the day off with snorkeling, napping on the beach, fish soup and ice cream, I got introduced to the indigenous sport of Barbados. Want to wager a guess? Road tennis! Take the look of a ping-pong tabletop, enlarge it on pavement and combine it with tennis rules and you got road tennis. Apparently the game has been played here for close to 50 years and now a few other nations are jumping in too. I can see the appeal – super cheap to play, you can draw up a court almost anywhere and it’s a pretty good workout. It looks like this:

I should get to practicing some Spanish so that I don’t stick out like a sore thumb in lessons next week!

Hasta luego!

Christmas in Canada

Why would you trade the warmth and beaches of the Caribbean for the cold, barrenness of a Canadian winter?! Are you crazy?!

Apparently so. So now that we’re past a discussion of my sanity, I had a really wonderful and energizing time in Ottawa over Christmas. I have to admit that getting off that plane that first night, I thought I could never be warm again. I definitely have a better appreciation for new Canadians and winter visitors – it was as if my bones were cold too! Needless to say, my weakling ways wore off (mostly) after a few days of being back. I got to enjoy a bit of snow, make new friends and spend some quality time with old ones, reconnect with my family and get my fill of Canadiana – though I forgot to have a poutine!

Seeing friends and family over the holidays was a privilege, something I don’t always get to do when I’m abroad. But this was the first time I actually had two separate lives running parallel and active at the same time!

I couldn’t help but be curious about what roommates and friends in Barbados were doing and get the scoop on what I would be going back to. Don’t get me wrong; there was nowhere else I would rather be than home for the holidays. It was just over in a flash and now I’m back in the swing of my Caribbean life, though there seem to be more challenges than I remember. But my new years ‘resolution’ (not big on the formality of making one) is to seek positivity in my life and be responsible for my own happiness. All that to say: I plan on not letting others affect my ability to enjoy life. There are always people who want to put you down, who treat you as though you are a lower human life form and who see only what they can gain from you.

So here I am, starting my first full week back to work and to life on a small island with an unwavering optimism that, while being tested, is making me feel grounded. Plus, we have UNICEF colleagues from Trinidad and Tobago coming in this week to make sense of our new programme for this year – quite the challenge to merge two offices. And Patrick, my supervisor, hasn’t once called me Julie this year! UPDATE: Scratch that, he did this morning.


Welcome back to Barbados! Looks like everyone is coming for a visit:


Side story from the trip back: On a positive note, while overnighting in Toronto Pearson Airport on my way back here, I helped an elderly Chinese lady who couldn’t speak a word of English to go across terminals to catch a flight to Hong Kong. She sat beside me on the flight from Ottawa and after landing she latched on to my arm and never let go, pointing excitedly at the boarding pass in the pouch around her neck. So without so much as a word, I took her up and down escalators (did I mention this might have been her first time out of China), on moving sidewalks, trying to get to Terminal 3 where international airlines depart from. So we hobbled onto the skytrain and got off in a deserted corridor. It was at that point that my heart sunk. I never checked to see if her baggage was going all the way through! What if her bags were still in Terminal 1?! Luckily the woman at the Cathay Airlines counter could speak with her, and after outfitting her with a wheelchair (why hadn’t I thought of that?) and a pin with her seat number, she told me that indeed her luggage was on the plane. Phew! And I got a heartfelt thank you via the Cathay translator. At least I only had 7 more hours to kill before my morning flight!

Turning into my typical Saturday, and I like it!

I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t enjoying my time in Barbados. Working at the UN has its own set of challenges – hierarchies, office dynamics and atmosphere, some menial work tasks – but I am learning and enjoying myself for sure. And outside of work, I’m really getting the chance to learn about Bajan culture. I’m getting the slang, the dance moves, the walk and the food. Okay, so I am a bit of a foodie so I like to focus on that a bit too much sometimes. On a side note, in addition to the almost daily temptation of the ice cream truck circulating in our neighbourhood, today a bakery-on-wheels came though as well! Canada needs to get on the ball on this one.

Back to Bajan food. On today’s menu: soursop punch. Soursop is a green, bumpy round fruit with white, sour flesh. Not the most appealing sounding, but mix it with some sugar, water and a bit of milk and it’s really tasty! The hard part is taking out all the seeds, blending it and straining it.

Yesterday was another food first: I actually caught and then ate my own fish that night. I went fishing with a friend in a sit-on-top kayak. Well I fished for a bit, and I caught a robin (obviously not the bird) and a herring (apparently not the same as the ones that come in cans or that are featured in Monty Python). The third and fourth from the top in the photo are mine. The technique was to throw fish pieces in the water, wait for the fish to swarm it, and then throw the baited line at them, hoping they would nibble. I can be a patient person, but after catching two fish, I was ready to just snorkel around and look for turtles. I found a mom and a small guy not far from the kayak so I just followed them around for a bit. I am really falling in love with turtles here though; they are so graceful and beautiful.

And then it was time for surf lesson #2. I have to say that I was a little bit nervous since it has been 2 weeks since my first lesson. But we were alone out on the waves and after more than a few falls, and a little technique adjustment, I actually was able to stand properly on the board! I rode that wave to the end (okay it was tiny) but picture me, fists pumping in the air yelling “yeeaaahhhh.” Success!





This photo was taken after I gave back the rental board, so I posed with my teacher's board. Mine was 7'10" - much easier to learn on. And so after that natural high of finally getting up, I learned how to cook fish stew and how to cut yams and breadfruit.

Today, I limed like it was my job. Speaking of work, this week is going to be quite interesting with staff from Trinidad and Tobago coming in for meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday is about integrating their activities, success, challenges, etc. into our annual report for this year and Wednesday we are supposed to plan how to integrate them into our country programme plan for next year. They are the newest member of the UNICEF Eastern Caribbean team, bringing the total to 11. And Anguilla might join at some point too. This is a really unique region in that way, working in some many places, with different targets and baselines in each. I will let you know how it goes! And can you believe that I actually ran on my own accord three times since the half-marathon. I think I’m officially crazy.

D- Day

The time is now. Well it was actually Sunday morning at 3am when Laurie and I forced ourselves out of bed to catch the FREE! shuttle to the start line. After psyching ourselves out by watching everyone warm up and look super professional, the race started right on time (unlike everything else in the Caribbean haha) at 5am.

As much as running in the dark is weird, it was really nice not to have the sun draining all your energy. The course went from Bridgetown to Payne’s Bay close to Holetown on the West coast, where runners turn around and head back to Bridgetown. Off we went, sticking together most of the way to Payne’s Bay, along the highway hugging the coast line, eerily silent until BAM! steel drum band. Oh so stereotypically Caribbean, but lovely nonetheless.

As I neared Payne’s Bay, the crowds of people lining the streets started growing. Who wakes up at 6am on a Sunday morning for no reason?! And my friend Sam, who lives out that way, came out with a big sign for me and after I turned around, he proceeded to bike with me back half way to Bridgetown. Pretty good incentive not to walk. And after Sam went home, a women who had been running in front of me most of the way told me she thought she couldn’t finish and had never run alone before. She pretty much summarized her life story, 40 and a single mom, working at the UK High Commission etc. etc. and so together we pushed to run the second half together. So I never ended up walking and finished in 2:07:58 :)

And Rodney, Laurie’s friend and Melissa, one of my roommates supported us at the finish line! Overall, I felt really great to have actually trained and finished. And to celebrate: ice cream!


I am not publicizing my finish line photos because my shorts (originally made for doing yoga) clearly were not designed to sustain so much motion and sweat because they were really drooping down my butt so classily highlighting my white underwear against black shorts. Note to self, purchase new running shorts.

Here are the overall results

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!