Six years ago today, Davin and I embarked on a month-long trip that took us to 3 Caribbean islands. This trip was a really big deal for me as my maternal side is from the Caribbean, and until then I had never been, save a few weeklong trips to Cuba. At that time I had a deep need — one I would describe as an expanding ache in the heart — to see where my people are from and experience those places first hand.
I had intended to post here much more often while on the trip, but our connection to the Internet was often flaky, and while I had a cellphone back then it was not the fancy iPhone with a nice camera lens world that I live in now. It’s amazing how much things have changed in just 6 years! As soon as I returned I had a month of heavy experiences to process and was immediately thrown right back into working life, and promoting a book that I had written that was about to come out (Grow Great Grub). Posting about the trip eventually fell to the wayside and while I did manage to publish a few stories here and there, I have folders of images and a brain full of anecdotes that I am yet to share. For the month of December, I’ve decided to try and post everyday with images, stories, or botanical nuggets that I gleaned in that intense month away six years back. It will be interesting to see what my brain can recall after so much time has passed! I did take notes, so I will have to dig those up as well.
In Search of My Grandmother’s Garden
If you’re new to the site or just want a recap, the following will help provide more context about the trip. In the coming month I will write more about my goals, what I achieved, and what I learned.
This is a post I wrote before leaving, outlining some of what I planned to do on the trip.
This post, entitled, The Requirement to Garden, written almost 2 months after the trip recaps some of what I learned about my background and how that merges with my life as a gardener.
All of the posts that I have written about my time in the Caribbean can be found here, but you can also follow along by country: Barbados, Dominica, St. Lucia.
Day One: Barbados
Day one was travel day and upon arrival we were taken to the wrong hotel so by the time we got settled and out the door the sun was already beginning to set. For that reason there are few images or stories to tell. I do recall listening to Donny Hathaway sing his affecting cover version of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” on the flight and through much of the trip. It may seem like an odd soundtrack choice; however, the words, “I was dreaming ’bout the past, and my heart was beating fast. I began to lose control. I began to lose control.” made sense at the time and even now, they never fail to stir me back to that place in time and the feelings that took me over as the plane descended over Barbados. Prior to the trip I didn’t feel much connection to the island — actually felt some hostility towards it — and had booked our time there more as an after-thought and a stepping stone to Dominica, which was my REAL heart’s destination. I never predicted the tears that would come as we flew over the island or the intense range of emotions I would experience at other key moments in the days that followed. I certainly never imagined that by the end of the trip I would long to return and spend more time there.
I’m often curious about the sorts of plants that are growing on or nearby the beach.
The first and one of the last times I would see an agave on this trip. Barbados is dry and flat and conducive to growing agave, succulents, and cacti, while Dominica is mountainous, VERY humid, and a place where many such plants would simply rot away.
These large seeds that wash up from parts close and far are called sea beans, although they aren’t often technically beans. They are sometimes crafted into handmade necklaces, which I collect them, of course. Because seeds.
We chose our hotel in Barbados due to the fact that it was the best deal we could find online at the time and it was located in Christ Church, the area my mother is from. That was my only criteria: price and location. I won’t bother telling you the name as I wouldn’t recommend it nor would I stay there again in the future. The beach was too rough for swimming, and the food was overpriced and mediocre. It was far enough away from anything that we were forced to eat in the hotel restaurant more than I would have liked. On the plus side, we did enjoy dark, nighttime walks to Douglas’ Supermarket where locals hung out playing dominos and we purchased a number of packaged items that I reviewed on camera over here. The nearby convenience shop was also where we went to catch the local bus/van and where we asked the bus/van to drop us off each night after a day of adventure. And on the first night, it was where I was introduced to the sing-song of peepers that began their loud chorus on schedule at dusk and continued until sun up on each and every night of our trip.
