Night Light

On the menu today:

Its a full moon again (2nd this month- blue moon on New Years, woo...) so that means its time for night swimming! Right after helping cook a 5-course New Year's (or Old Year's Night as they cal it here) dinner at the hotel and before heading to the harbor for the midnight fireworks and a night of partying on the beach!

Happy New Year!

The Animal Issue

I was laying in my hammock this afternoon, and like all other afternoons at around 5pm my neighbor walks out of his house and begins rounding up his dozen or so goats that roam around the grass all day under my balcony.


Sometimes the baby goats get into the hotel and graze around there all afternoon- the guests love them, I think they're amazing, but the gardeners go crazy. I don't really blame them, they eat our flowers and baby-palms, but at least they keep the grass short!

On more than one occasion I've looked out of my office window and watched a gardener frantically chase a goat around in a circle. Yea, those moments make my day.

In other news I've now got a pet frog. His name is Herman. He's about the size of my fingernail and hangs out near my Christmas palm. I don't really know where he came from. Here you can see him chilling in his pool (aka, ketchup bowl). He's a good addition to Zadie, my baby gecko, who lives under my lonely planet and is in charge of mosquito control.

'Twas the night before Christmas...

Its my first working Christmas and the first away from my family too, so I've been making Pia sing me Christmas songs and we've decked out our office with- count them- 8 mini Santa Clauses.

Also incessant Christmas radio, lights (and parties) in the streets and the fact I spent all day walking around in a Santa hat makes this pretty much the most Christmassy Christmas I've had in a while.

But my favorite is my living room's supercool Caribbean Christmas tree, growing straight out of a coconut. Beat THAT Charles...

Merry Christmas!

About Nothing

Doing nothing is an art, you know.


There are so many different ways to do it and switching from one way to another is almost as satisfying as switching from doing something to doing nothing. You can lay on your bed, lay on the floor, on the beach, sit on the balcony armchair or in the hammock and watch the world. You can do any of the above with music/a book/a movie/food/a friend or even a combination of these.

You can justify it by getting a tan or learning something. You can require it after a busy day, you can use it to think about your future or your toes.

But its always more glorious if you know there’s something you should be doing instead.

About jobs

So the job market here is a little different than in other places… I interviewed a guy who wanted a job as a kitchen assistant today.

“You give me a joint and I’ll clean the shit out of your kitchen.”

So I hired him*. Our kitchen isn’t much cleaner but there’s funky green stuff in all the soups and the guests sure do leave happy…

Photo from Zobeiry

*Before I get fired: I’m KIDDING.

More hiking!

This time up the south side- we went to the highest point in Bequia, Mt. Peggy and got this amazing view almost of the whole island. Just in front is Admiralty bay with Lower bay beach (1st beach) followed by Princess Margaret beach and town just down after that. Behind us was the airport (to the left) and to the right is Friendship (Home!) and that's pretty much all of Bequia.


It was an easy walk up, but then we decided to walk along the spine of the mountain in the direction of the airport. No path? No problem... Donnaka was armed with his machete and we whacked our way through the bush (and a million spiky things) down to Paget Farm and back home for a relaxing drink on my balcony, and then an afternoon of lazing around and snorkeling on Lower Bay.


Oh, and the snorkeling... not too shabby. About a million different colors of fish plus eels, lobster, sea urchins, tiny see-through jellyfish and even an old shirt.

Sexy Banana

EVERYONE on Bequia has a nickname. If you know someone by their real name, chances are nobody else does. And its not just things like Suzie for Susanne or Nick for Nickolas… oh no. Our bartender is officially called Sexy. I interviewed someone called Banana. Yes, it was hard to keep a straight face.

Our electrician is called Cry cry, and he will be Cry Cry until he dies of old age. Yep, some are lucky and some not so much…

Photo borrowed from carf

To Hope

The other day we decided to escape civilization- we took our hammocks and our packs and hiked to hope beach to spend the night. It was amazing.

Hope is my favorite beach on Bequia. Its not the most beautiful, but it has great crashing waves, the softest sand and the best part is that its completely deserted. There is not one house or person on the beach, just nature. And its so close to town- its maybe a 30 minute walk from the harbor and an hour hike from home.


When we arrived we searched for a good spot to set up and ended up finding a breezy and shaded patch on the beach and we tied our hammocks between 2 trees. We were in such a rush to start doing nothing. And that’s how the afternoon went- swimming, laying on the beach, reading or dozing in the hammock, opening coconuts and just generally basking in the natural relaxedness of it all.

So how is Europe this time of year? :P

(Our shoe-flag)

Well, thanks to the wind this time we didn’t get massacred by mosquitoes, but it did make it impossible for us to start our dinner fire, meaning we were relegated to eating cold sausages, beans and half-cooked potatoes. Also it got really cold during the night, and even though I followed Douglas Adams’ wise advice about towels it was still chilly enough to be uncomfortable (yep, these Caribbean winters are harsh), not to mention the torrential rains at 5 am giving us a nice wake-up call.


But it was still awesome, and the next morning we got to see the most amazing sunrise right before packing up, hiking back home in more pelting rain, showering, and heading off to work.

About Steel Pan

Is it a pan? Is it a drum?

Yes. And I love them.

Pan (or steel) drums are as Caribbean as… umm… I don’t really know where they originated, but Wikipedia probably does. But they’re THE Caribbean instrument. It sounds like a mix between the piano, a xylophone and a drum. Originally hammered out of old oil barrels (and in Bequia they’re still like that) these pans have an amazing sound.

(photo courtesy of Loulou who has many holga and polaroids worth drooling over)

So I started taking lessons about a month ago, with a guy called Elvis, the only pan-drummer on the island. He’s good. He teaches all the kids in the school and plays in a couple of bars during the week. I have my lessons in THE Bequia high school, which is an experience in itself, with concrete classrooms adorned with scattered half-broken desks and chairs overlooking the town, with a great view of the harbor in the background.

I thought since I already played drums it wouldn’t be so hard to pick these up… umm… yea… See on drums you just hit the thing and you’re good. On pianos you have the notes in a row, so you logically go from Do to Re then Mi… well it looks like the creators of the Steel pan were either evil geniuses or completely stoned. I’m gonna go for the latter. The notes are scattered in a circle in a completely random order and instead of using just one notation system we’ve gotta use them all- so instead of playing only Do-Re-Mi sometimes it magically shifts to C-D-E or 1-2-3. Yea.


So every time I have lessons I get extremely frustrated and my brain starts to hurt, but I’m actually making progress and last time I learnt my first song! Ok, so its silent night… but still.

Now my mom’s scared I’ll start growing dreads, quit the hotel business and set up my street-side steel pan and jam my days away. Aah, that would be the life.

A Number of Distinct Moments in Time

#1. lettuce shopping. I go to find king, this old guy that hangs out at THE bus stop every day. He takes me to his house on top of Level, it pours torrential rain as we reach. He wants to wait until the rain subsides before searching for the lettuce. We talk a bit and then sit there and wait in the mule, air and rain pouring all around us, in serene and pensive mood. Its quiet and fresh. As the rain starts to end he takes me back through the grass to his lettuce beds- a little corner of his land plot with a ramshackle construct of raised dirt- where 30 lettuce heads lay. I watch him slowly pry the heads from the moist dirt and scrape off the roots, clean each head, wash it in water and bag it all in the constant drizzle and quiet up on this hill in the middle of nowhere. It was so peaceful and natural and different from any kind of life I have previously seen or experienced.