The Rural Voice, 1988-12, Page 28T
Grenada Journal
he trade wind had stalled; the
one thin sheet had long since
been kicked off the foot of the
bed, yet the mattress still felt clammy.
Such are the major problems of a
winter tourist in the tropics. We had
arrived in Grenada several days earlier
to explore this island country, not
much bigger than our township back
home. Yet, amazingly, it felt very
much like a nation. The friendly
people are proud of their hilly, green,
Lilliputian island.
Unfortunates born to the sharp -
edged northern zephyrs, once touched
by the trade winds, are never free of
their seductive summons. These
breezes, soft as the clasp of a child's
hand, bear a tantalizing fragrance, not
quite identifiable — oranges perhaps,
or just the anticipation of warm sunny
days. The memory of the winds of
other islands had flooded back to us.
In the wee hours after midnight,
however, the breeze had deserted us
and it was stuffy.
Out on the balcony of our country
motel, which had been built well up
on a precipitous hillside (there is very
little else but precipitous hillsides in
Grenada), we could see that traffic on
the road below had stilled; the caco-
phonic rhythms of calypso, reggae,
jazz, and pop from the surrounding
houses and the "Dynamic Disco" in
the "housing settlement" of the next
valley were uncharacteristically quiet.
Today, state farms are
being broken up and given to
small farmers. "This is a laudable
goal," says the head of agricultural
extension, "but it won't work.
Unless a person has a financial
stake in his land he will not be
successful."
The multitude of roosters that live
within a quarter mile of our place had
not yet begun to outdo each other in
proclaiming incessantly, for several
dark hours, the imminent arrival of a
new day.
To northerners used to being sealed
inside their triple -glazed, double -
story and
photos by
W. Merle
Gunby
insulated buildings, the sounds of the
tropics are a culture shock. Here
much of life is lived publicly. Doors
are open, windows are rare, walls are
constructed with an opening at the top
for ventilation, people crowd onto
porches and into the streets and visit.
Children play and cry, dogs bark,
roosters crow, ghetto blasters pour out
a me=lange of sound. The grackle in
the north adopts the northern reticence
and keeps respectfully away from
humans; here, if not discouraged
severely, they will land with a piercing
shriek and steal tidbits from the table.
But now only the moon perched
precariously over the summit of the
purple hill opposite disturbed the dark
stillness. Then the moonlight itself
disappeared as a cloud bearing a
tropical shower seemed to catch itself
on the hilltop. With a gentle rushing
sound the cooling breeze returned, the
cloud untangled itself from the little
mountain, and silver curtains of rain
moved across the valley, beating a
refreshing tattoo on the galvanized
roofs before climbing over our hill and
out into the Caribbean. The quiet was
26 THE RURAL VOICE