Local and peculiar
5 June 2021
Visitors and those interested in Barbados will know the history and interesting facts about the country; its imported wildlife, plantations, sugar, rum, the origin of its name, that George Washington stayed here and more. However, having been here five months we have noticed a few things that may not appear in the guidebooks and that are peculiar to the island so I thought I would set down some of our observations here.
A door to nowhere — there is one peculiar feature that we have noticed time and again that forms part of many properties. That is a door set up high in an outside wall with no steps or balcony to walk out onto. We cannot see the logic and despite asking locals receive no satisfactory reply. Strange.
Patience — Bajans are a patient people and rather than cause a situation they will wait for something to happen. Here’s an example. Sitting on a bus full of people, the driver decides to sit under a tree reading a paper and eating a snack. Many minutes go by and we all sit patiently waiting. It’s hot and there is no AC in the bus. The bus should have left 15 minutes ago. The driver seems unconcerned. Eventually, a young woman, smartly dressed, has had enough. ‘Are we going to stand for this?’ she addresses the bus. ‘Well, are we?’ The seated throng begin to grumble a reluctant ‘No!’ The woman warms to her theme and when she feels she has our support she steps down from the bus and harangues the driver. He looks up startled, folds his paper, packs up his picnic and steps with alacrity into the bus and behind the wheel. Everyone is shouting now. The bus driver puts his foot down and we career down the potholed road as he tries to make up time.
The national dish — the traditional national dish is Cou Cou and Flying Fish. However, most locals will tell you it’s now Chefette. Chefette is the local equivalent of McDonalds. Every outlet always has a huge queue of cars snaking down the road and its products are consumed by all sectors of the population.
The murder rate — for a small country the murder rate is on the higher side, 0.02% of the population annually compared to say the UK at 0.001%. Historically, murders were committed mainly with knives but the American underworld has begun to realise that there is ready market here for guns ranging from handguns to AK 47s. There are over 10,000 guns on the island of which only 3,000 are registered. The issue regularly dominates the news in our local papers. Having said this, Barbados is considerably safer than many Caribbean islands and the criminal fraternity are general the targets.
Car cemetery — I’ve commented on this before but the island is littered with wrecks but these wrecks are not deposited in the countryside but are kept on the yards of people’s homes. Cars and spare parts for them are expensive here. Once a car has finally done enough miles, destroyed its suspension on the roads and suffered the ravages of the sun its ‘retired’ to the family yard and provides an ongoing source of spares from light bulbs to bits of bodywork until it has been totally cannibalised whereupon the carcass just sits to be consumed by creepers and weeds.
Mosquitoes — In the Far East and elsewhere I have been bitten numerous times by mosquitoes but in those parts of the world I have generally been aware of their presence through their size and the particular audible sound they make and they are easy to see and deal with. In Barbados we seem to have a silent assassin variety that is hard to see and makes no discernible noise. You only realise you have become a victim some time later when the skin begins to itch. They are hard to see and swat. I did some research to see if I could track down the local strain. It appears that out of the thousands of species of mosquito in the world only three of them exist in Barbados — the Culex, the Anopheles and the Aedes Aegypti. It’s the last which is our culprit and is the most common here. It’s small, between 1.80mm and 3mm in size and most commonly feeds indoors at dusk and dawn. This is the species that can spread dengue fever so we have to be alert and ensure as dusk falls, we close our outer doors, ensure screens are in place and have the necessary sprays, coils, plug in deterrents and citronella candles handy.
To finish I have also noted a couple of facts that may not be so widely known.
Apparently, Barbados, before it was settled by humans, had a population of thousands of wild pigs! How did they get here?
Finally, Barbados was the only holiday destination in the world to be privileged enough to receive scheduled flights from Concord. During the years Concord flew, it made more than 7,000 flights here between 1987 and 2003. The average flying time was three hours and 45 minutes compared to eight hours and 30 minutes today. Only 20 Concordes were ever manufactured. The 12th, a British Airways plane which flew here, is on display at a museum located beside the island’s main international airport, Grantley Adams.
