Letters from Grenada

My back hurts. My back hurts in such a way that if I am sitting down, I cannot lower my chin without pain at the other end of my spine.  All because the other night, my son fell asleep in front of the TV.  I leaned down to pick him up, trying very hard not to wake him, forgot to bend my knees and damaged myself.  I’m amazing.  Give me three seconds alone with a sleeping toddler and I can injure myself.

The baby, of course is perfectly fine.  He’s annoyed that Mommy can’t swing him around like she usually does, but that’s nothing that yet another marathon session of youtube Caillou can’t solve.  If history is any guide, I’ve got a week of walking like a constipated penguin, after which I too shall be just fine.  Provided I remember to behave.  Sigh.

Anyway.  Yesterday was Blog Action Day.  I couldn’t really sit up.  I was also in the throes of pre-debate flusterment.  (My mental health and I are very much looking forward to November 5th, thank you.) I was going to just skip the blogging, but then I read this post and got inspired. So here we are, a day late:

I first wrote about Blog Action Day in August, here. I had a grand plan for my second installment.  I was going to write about dust from Africa, and how it gets into electronics equipment, effectively halving its life.  I was going to talk about people having too many children too young with too many different partners.  I was going to talk about the exorbitant customs duties on foodstuffs imported to Grenada.  (Example: 20% on milk, and that reflects a recent decrease.)  I was going to rail at Nestle for pretending that their product is better than breastfeeding, thereby starting a cascade of events that leads to malnutrition. But then I remembered how little I enjoyed the tortured process of writing a post like that.  So forget it for now.  I just don’t have the energy, and I don’t particularly enjoy revealing my inner effete, impudent, intellectual snob.

Instead I’m going to tell a story.

On July 15, 2005, I spent the day at the boat yard.  I recall the exact date because it was the day after Hurricane Emily.  Hurricane Emily hit Grenada less than a year after Hurricane Ivan.  Remember that Grenada is in a theoretically hurricane-safe corridor, that before 2004, there had not been a hurricane in Grenada since Janet in 1955.  Most people alive in Grenada today don’t remember Janet, which is probably the primary reason Ivan was so (for lack of a better word) surprising.  Even the insurance companies were shocked.  Ivan had been devastating.  Emily was better described as really troublesome.  One person died, 16 houses were destroyed the estimated damage was later tallied at USD 110 million.  Wikipedia refers to Ivan as “catatrophic”; Emily is merely “significant”.  Ivan killed 39 people, destroyed an uncounted number of buildings, including the Prime Minister’s residence and the prison, from which, yes, the inmates escaped.  The total damage was later tallied at USD 815 million.

The day after Emily was a real kick.  I’d been worried, scared almost, in the days before the hurricane.  We knew it was coming, and we were prepared in every possible way.  The apartment that I lived in at the time was a long, narrow, middle apartment on the ground floor of a concrete house.  It only had one window, which meant that most of the ventilation came from the cross breeze between the front and back doors.  This sucked most of the time, but it was absolutely one of the safest places to be during a tropical storm.  But then the storm passed.  I literally slept through it. When I got up the next morning, the power was out but everything else was pretty much in order and it was clear that life would continue uninterrupted.  I was so disappointed, then felt like a schmuck for being disappointed.

I walked from the apartment in Westherhall to the boat yard in Corinth.  It was hot and sticky and muddy and slippery and looooong, but I needed an adventure.  The power was out at the beach bar (and everywhere else) but the barmaid was there, happily (franticly?) serving the warming Carib as fast as possible.

All sorts of random people were there on the beach that day.  Some of them I got to know much better later.  I still, at that time, didn’t understand that it really is better to keep your mouth shut (if you’re me) rather than interrupt a bunch of Grenadian men speaking to each other.  Had I understood that, I would have said nothing when the conversation turned to poverty in Grenada.  I certainly would not have said something like, You know what the thing is about Grenada?  No matter who you are, no matter what you don’t have or how poor you are, you can still pick food to eat.  I mean, like, it’s not like they’re eating fast food full of grease.  They don’t get stupid fat like poor Americans do.  They must be doing something right.

The man’s lip curled up.  Someone started to speak, but he interrupted.  Man, I hate to hear when you white people talk like that.  Listen to you!  Living off the land!  You really think a grown man can live off of nothing but bananas and breadfruit?  Seriously! For a minute I thought he was going to spit at me.

Wow, right?  ‘Cause that’s not what I said.  I know I should have known better than to talk about something I don’t really understand, but the “white people” comment stung.  I guess I’m spoiled, because I’m accustomed to most people listening when I speak.  Silly me.

All I meant was:  Grenadians know how to cook.  Except for the too liberal use of sugar, I’d say Grenadian cuisine — and it is indeed a cuisine — is remarkably natural and healthy.  I’d seen people make a lot out of a little, and I was impressed.  Also, as YingYing notes, we really do not have homeless people here in Grenada.  I was struck by this recently when a newspaper pubished a photo of someone passed out in the middle of a street in St. George’s the morning after the general election.  I suddenly realized I hadn’t seen an indigent sleeping in the streets since New York.  And meanwhile, the U.S. is so rich… and Grenada is so poor?

Moral of the story?
1.  Hurricanes are really expensive.
2.  I talk too much.
3. I shouldn’t blog when my back hurts.

Posted on October 16th, 2008 under Grenada • Tags: blogging, caribbean, election, Grenada, hurricanes, kitchen alchemy, other blogs, politics, poverty, random, tropical weather. •  Print This Post •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback