People

Aware that I don't blog about people I have tried, this week, to examine why. Nervous perhaps about being invasive. Or appearing judgmental, or exposing them to being judged by others?

People who want to be 'out there' have every means at their own disposal these days to prepare, curate, and publicize what they want to world to know or think about them. The rest are entitled to their anonymity.

(So, no photos.)

Like John, the Rasta man who cleans, carves and decorates calabash shells in a small studio at the end of this village. We chatted for ages while he showed me the raw material, the processes, his designs and colours. He uncovered some portraiture done by his brother; renditions of John himself with his hat off and greying dreadlocks around his face. Paintings that display a love of the subject; have personality. I envy the ability to capture and convey that.  

Out walking on another day I bumped into John and he said 'have you been here to the fisherman's parlour?' (parlour is a rather posh word in English - here I suspect its meaning here is more literal, a place to talk, socialize, hang out.) 'Walk with me' he said.

It was what we might describe as a shack with a large awning to provide shade to some seating built of pallets and fish crates, cards being played at a 'table', surrounded by piles of nets, crab pots, crates, ice chests, bits of boat, bits of boat engine.....and an excellent view of the sea that lapped up the beach there.  I didn't feel unsafe and wasn't made unwelcome by so much as a look, but did feel I had invaded a private space so I didn't linger.

Then there was Eric, who goes swimming in the sea, told us he was 79, and let us admire his walking stick, a stem that might have been vine-wrapped in life, captured by him from the sea and kept for its lovely twisted form; the handle polished bright from years of contact with his hand.

Henry, sitting out on his stoop with a neighbour who told me his wife lives in New York but he didn't like it there and came home.

'Aunty' who sells fruit and veg at the market across the road, her colourful headscarves and obvious pride in her Grenadian produce; generous with her advice on how to cook it and which are best for each 'recipe'.

Elizabeth who greeted me from her stoop on my Sunday walk and answered my questions about the fruiting trees in her yard.

Gentle, Friday's barman, chatting about almonds and lemon grass, revealed he had been 25 years a policeman. 25 years! He didn't look much older than 30! Obvious was his pride in his island, his parish, his town Sauteurs - its history all there for my questions on what remained of the original French influence there.

Everyone has a name, a story, wants to know what you think of Grenada, asks (perhaps strangely) "Do you feel safe here?" Gentle wasn't entirely complimentary about the vibe in Victoria (where we are staying). It might have been community rivalry, or his police experience speaking. It is a bit rundown. It is not set up for tourism. There does appear to be high unemployment. There are no frills, no luxuries, but is is clean, safe, friendly, vey relaxed. 

Innovation with available resources is highly evident - a push barrow made of an old pallet and recycled wheels, for example.  Bamboo features a lot.  Possessions are well maintained - bicycles, toys, cars, clothes....  The broken curbstones and potholed tarmac are weeded and swept daily, by hand, to within an inch of their existence. Littering is rare and quickly scooped up by the sweepers. Being drunk or stoned hasn't been visible (I've smelled more ganja daily on the streets and lanes of my home town in Hampshire England). There is only one beggar and he exhibits mental health issues; people buy a little extra at the shop or bakery next door and keep him in food. He is also the main, or in fact only, source of littering in the street outside the shop. 

What is obvious here is a universal pride in their home, their island, their community, a bond, the like of which I have never seen demonstrated in England; certainly not in larger urban communities. And I admire them for it, for wanting to share the bits they are most proud of - food, a view, a group or a place, their art, their garden, their recipes, the scenery in the jungled slopes that rise above here.

Maybe there is a number of individuals or a density of population that we as human animals can live within and beyond that we shut down as a kind of coping strategy. One chap told me there are 125,000 people on Grenada. I told him there were 145,000 in our 'parish' in England (they use the word parish here for administrative district, our 'council' region would be equivalent).  He had never been out of the Caribbean. The concept of so many people in one small place was beyond his imagining.

5 years ago, here on a 2 day visit to deliver a yacht, Ì passed the comment that I could live here. And I could. I've not changed my mind on that but I'm a New Zealander and I want to go home. And I want see if I can't encourage some of my own to be that real about the place they live and the people they share it with.