I landed in Barbados very late and very excited. After Matyas had been harassed at migration I was expecting the worst (they obviously don’t get a lot of Slovakian passports and he had to clarify multiple times that it is not the same as Slovenian). But this time I was lucky and a smiley young lady let me through. I got the official airport taxi service and was handed over to the gentlemen in the jacket (coz it’s winter remember), who was driving a big but old and rickety van. It reminded me of some of the vans my cousins drive in the Bosnian village – no working air con, windows don’t roll up…that kind of thing. This didn’t stop my driver from driving through the island at the speed of light though. The whole time he was talking to me and telling me about the island, where and what to eat, what to do etc. I must’ve understood about 70% of what he was saying, partially because of how noisy the car was and partially because of his super thick (or should I say tik) accent.
I asked him about roti and jerk chicken and some of my other favourites, which he assured me they have plenty of. He also recommended we go to the fish market and have his favourite dishes; dolphin (I was later to discover it’s not actually dolphin, the locals just call it like that), and flying fish (that one is actually a flying fish).
He drove through the island like an absolute maniac, and most of these streets are narrow streets, some with blind corners. He seemed to be happy just beeping along, and somehow everyone was giving him right of way. The thing, no one is really in that much of a hurry (London style) and most people are very polite so they almost always stop to let you pass.
As he drove along he beeped his horn at every car and pedestrian who crossed his path and most cars beeped back. ‘A little excessive don’t you think, and anyway you’re the one driving like a maniac’ I thought to myself.
But I was misjudging again. I was later to find out that in Barbados you don’t use your horn to warn people or when you’re pissed off, it’s just a way of saying hello to others in your path. And believe me these guys say hello to absolutely everyone. You just wouldn’t walk/drive past someone on the street in Barbados without saying hi to them or at least acknowledging them with a nod of the head. Cars say hi to almost all cars that cross their paths, even it’s someone they’ve never seen before (remember it’s a population of 286,000, that’s 720 people per sq km, making it one of the most densely populated areas in the world). It’s also apparently one way the Bajans identify foreigners, because we’re the miserable ones that don’t say hello! (Disclaimer: not me I speak to everyone!)
I arrived at the hotel and was checked in at island speed. After carrying up my heavy suitcase three flights of stairs (no lift and Marcus the luggage boy was lost chillin’ somewhere and nowhere to be seen), I needed to get a bite to eat before bedtime. It was really late so not much was open, except Chefette. Chefette is the main fast food chain of the island. There’s no McDonald’s or anything, just a few KFCs (obviously coz chicken is big here) and Chefette which sells a lot of chicken, some pizza and burgers and most importantly fast food roti. Actually really, really good roti. This is fast food roti heaven.
For those of you that don’t know, the Caribbean has a large Indo-Caribbean population due to the “indentured” East Indians that were brought over in the 19th century. They were bought to work on the sugar cane plantations, as after the abolition of slavery many Africans left the sugar plantations and the Brits needed new slaves…sorry labourers, for their fields. And if you’re wondering why indentured is in inverted commas, it’s because they were basically slaves but because slavery was now illegal the Brits needed a new name for their forced labour so they chose to call them “indentured labourers”. So they were shipped to the West Indies (not always by force but by false promises), forced to work, kept in awful conditions with extremely low and irregular wages and starved if they protested or refused to work. Sound familiar?
Hundreds of years later however, we can appreciate the positive influences on modern day Caribbean culture. There are now over 2.5m Indo-Caribbeans, mainly in Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana and Suriname. And the best thing they brought over was the roti. The roti is a curry stew, commonly chicken and potato, wrapped in an Indian roti bread. It’s eaten all over the Caribbean (although I’m told the Trinis make the best ones)
A spicy roti and a beer later (obviously they sell that in Chefette too) and I was ready for bed.
Waking up in Barbados the sun was shining so strong, it was beautiful and I was ready for action! I came down to breakfast expecting a platter of delicious fruits, but no- there was banana and some small little apples. Apples?!! I didn’t travel 4,200 miles to eat Britain’s most boring and common fruit (don’t tell Branko he eats like 7 a day). Where was the mango and the papaya and the coconut?! Turns out it’s on the other islands. Barbados is the only island made from white coral limestone (meaning it’s not fertile enough for certain fruits), while the other islands are made of volcanic rock which produces lots of delicious fruit. I have to admit I had the best coconut of my life in Barbados but it was imported from another island.
So it was time for our meeting and time for us to head into Bridgetown, the country’s capital. We got a taxi in so as not to be late for our meeting. The taxi didn’t have a receipt to give us for our expenses but he said he would drop by the hotel later on to bring one (that’s how things work here :)). Bridgetown is quite the capital; busy, lively, local; with beautiful colourful old colonial buildings and a pretty little river running through it. Bridgetown was actually named a UNESCO World Heritage site a few years ago and it’s been nicely preserved since. I’m telling you, it’s probably the prettiest place I’ve ever had any meetings before (with Malta’s Valletta coming a close second).
As for the meetings themselves, I’ll obviously save you the details of the actual themes but I will say that my biggest take away was that people here are very professional, very polite and most of all extremely extremely nice. Once again, my first impressions of “island time” were wrong. You might have to wait an hour for the bus which is supposed to come every 15 minutes but you won’t wait for a Bajan businessperson. Business is performed in a very organised and professional manner (and by the way Barbados has a 98% literacy rate).
After our meetings in the evening we decided to grab a local ‘Banks’ beer and so we sat in a tucked away terrace bar (pointed out by some locals we asked in the street after 15 minutes of looking for a bar). The bar was called “De office”, which brings me to my next delightful observation; about the names of the local businesses in Barbados. While many of the districts and streets of the island are clear reminders of the Colonial times (they have a Brighton, a Hastings, a Clapham, etc.), the businesses have very local names and I love the fact they 1. often have a “does what it says on the tin” approach, 2. They are often very “tropical” and 3. are written as pronounced. For example, there are countless restaurants with the word “grillin'” in their name. Other great names include “We Grillin'”, “Cool breeze barber shop”, “De nest bar”, “Chillin’ an Grillin'”, and my personal favourite was a food stand we stand we saw in the local market called “Mac.Dee’s”.
After meeting some lovely locals, and getting some more tips (must try the local Bread fruit) we headed off to “Just Grillin'” for a delicious jerk chicken dinner and went to bed ready to get up for our meetings the next day
