HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1979-03-15, Page 7THE:
WNW" notes: Huron Expositor editor
Susan White, her husband, Andy and his
family recently returned from a Week's
;Caribbean ccuiseR .
BY SUSANT WHITE:
Seeing five countries in five days doesn't
qualify anyone to write .about them,
In fact a sort of bums .rush grand tour
does the opposite. You see just enough to
give you the illusion that you've learned
something about each place. But Actually a
day or a half day on an, island leaves you
unqualified to write anything more than a
post card home: to mom.
t However, I'm ignoring my own advice::
and herewith is, a hurricane's eye view of
parts of the Caribbean, ,
The best place wesaw, the plane we're'
going back to some day is Grenada, a tiny
(120 square miles) • independent• nation
hat's one of the Windward Islands.
renadians speak English, use Eastern
Caribbean dollars. worth roughly half ,oars
and are great farmers and fishermen.
Grenada's the spice 'island, andInutmeg,
cinnamon etc, aro everywhere...growing.
for sale in the streets and processed i?n:local
factories. '
Grenada also has polite, dignified people
some of whose faces stay with, me now, ten
da}s after 1 niet them. ,
The include; A ladyin a dry goods store,
asking all about our baby at home when I.
bought a dress length for her! A man on.
'lunch break from his hospital job, talking
about his wife and daughter in Toronto and
offering' us some of the super powerful
Grenadiannwhite rum. Just a sniff cleared,
my head as three of us sat in the outside
far overhanging the harbour in St.
.George's of Grenada's hilly and beautiful
. port city. A record by Bob Marley and the
Wailers, Jamaican:: reggae played "Rat
'Race" in the background:
A young lady in, a uniform, police or
customs officer maybe., who walked with us
.from the Carenage, the old port area, to the.
centre of the city and told ushow to. find
Martinique's rain forest. Just a short drive on the other side of the islano•
land is barren and Ory.
•
the .only bank in St. GeorBe's that's open
afternoons,
Then there was the middleaged: PuM are
talked to as we drank beer in his ,grocery
store; (The local beer, Carib, is another
very good reason to visit Grenada).' it's,
hard getting away fora holiday when
you're in busines for ,yourself, we agreed.
We left with the ;gift of an ugli fruit and,
the address of someone to write about
renting a, housekeeping cabin on nearby
Grand Anse beach*
SPICES AND P
We went supermarket shopping in
Grenada, mainly, for spices and rum, and:
ended up in a long conversation with the
store employee who had. toauthorize
cashing our traveller's cheque.
My husband used his health unit card for
ID and the two of them were off on a
discussion of sanitation, problems in , food.
stores.. , tropical and Canadian ones.
Although she says Grenada has bugs
pretty well licked, mice sa steal the stores:
blind.. "They eat the labels off our cans at
night and all the perishables, have. to be
stored away," Just like home, we told
her— .in the fall our kitchen is the local,
field mice's home away from home.
If you want more, St. George's has a
busy market square, government offices
with tropical flowers growing on exterior
walls, brightly painted open air buses and
an .interesting local museum in what used,
to be a jail.
Grenada • has turquoise waters and
beautiful beaches where you can buy, a
fresh coconut from a kid, or a straw hat
from the. woman, who made it,
ASH WEDNESDAY
We could go back to Martinique too but
we didn't get the same close to the ground
feeling for it. First of all, it was.. Carnival' '
'time in the Caribbean.: and Ash Wddnesday
when we: got to Martinique. - _
According, to the guide who drove us on a
three hour tour around some of ,the island, -
the celebration has quieted down in recent
years. Mostly kids take part now....but it's
'still important or rowdy enough that just
about all the businesses in the capital, Fort
de France, close, By 3 p.m. people from all
over the island are heading there to be in or
at least watch the big parade.
Costumes are simple...they're ,black.
•and white and people.' gather in neighbour-•
hood or ,. school , groups which gradually,
mesh with 'a 'huge . parade,steel drums
providing terrific music.;
Martinique's "a .department of France
and you'd get along best if you speak some...
French Our gtilde *tote perfect English;
and showed"us the'rain forest, old runt
factories, pineapple and banana; plant-
ations and took us to the beach on our cross
island drive, for $10 a person. ,>
The reason we got a guide and van
Mount Pelee in Martinique which erupted ? Rf::902 and5•.kitle !
•
10
MAI
144 11
Those young
ladies, in phi'
u niforms,. Crested in; St....�'•61RR'6,
market square :while; they waited to
take .a bus home.
though was seSt. Pierre, thtow.a
where about 3(1to,000e, people were wiped!e out
by a volcano in 1902. Just one man, a
political prisoner in a cave like jail cell,
survived the explosion, l'ava, and ash and.
toured the world afterwardson his story.,
A small museum has good photos of the
tragedy in the new smaller town that's
grown up around the ruins. But it's driving
back towards Fort de France on the coastal'
highway that you get a bit of an idea what
the•green, sloping fields at the base of Mt..
Pelee must have looked like with flame and:
lava pouring out of the volcano's top,
Before the eruption, St, Pierre was the
capital of Martinique...quite a cultured
place with its own opera and lovely old
buildings, There'snone of that left and the
new little St. Pierre looks about like its
neighbouring coastal fishing villages.
The big indignity in Martinique was that
instead of the fine ,French janch we had
planned to shell out quite a few francs for,
we ate thelocalversion of Kentucky Fried
Chicken because just about everything else
was closed for Carnival.
. f to be concluded, next week)
"r
People gathering for Martinique's Ash Wednesday carnival dressed in,
C black and white •
The captain of the SS Veendam Watches as young Grenadians dive for •
Coins from: their smaIi row boats thrown by 'cruise ship passengers in St. (,
George's harbour from his private deckk On the ship, Just' after the ph6to
was taken passengers were asked not to throw coins because such diving;
Is dangerous
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• Susan White,, left, talks with store owner Rupert St. John on St.. John St.
in-St..George's,-Grenada,• over a bogie of the excellent- local beer-, Carib.,
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A street, corner in St. George's,
Grenda. Two people in the photo are
wearing woolen toques because it's
winter. , .about 78°F. in Grenada.
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