Paradise Here We Come – But It’s A Bad Day For The Two Goats.

An Ambulance turned up and parked at the end of the jetty. Mike took pictures until the battery in his camera died and before long you could make out the wake from the boat coming round the point past Sandy Island.

The boat was full with people waiting to disembark. On deck was a double bed all wrapped up to protect it from the wet conditions it may have encountered on its trip over. Someone will be sleeping comfortably tonight! The woman who the ambulance was for was safely removed from the boat by stretcher and whisked away, nobody seemed to know what the problem had been. People greeted and hugged each other as the boat slowly emptied and finally Neale and Eileen could be seen being helped onto the jetty. The boat journey had been rough but both had survived without being ill but said they are definitely taking the plane back to Grenada!

We all walked back down the jetty and across the road to The Town House, cousin Denise’s apartment building. Neale and Eileen left their luggage in their room and we all went for lunch at Ann and Sharon’s (a little shack with 3 tables) we ate chicken roti, delicious!

We spent the rest of the day at the Jacob family home catching up. The young children from the primary school across the road are so polite, dressed in their green uniform, girls hair plated in cornrows, small school bags on their back. You hear the school day pass with the melodious sound of children’s voices and the bell which rings for lunch or recess.

We walked back to the Green Roof Inn before sundown.

Saturday we left the Inn, getting a taxi into town, and moved into The Town House. Different kind of noises here, traffic, people and the occasional vehicle with its sound system turned up so loud that The Town House windows shake but the wind and the ocean can still be heard. Our room is compact, has a huge bed which could easily accommodate 3 people, kitchenette, bathroom, wifi and air conditioning. We look out onto Main Street and over the shops we can see the turquoise sea.

Everything is laid back here, the heat of the day makes it so. We go to the pharmacy for medication for mosquito bites and a few provisions then walk up to the family home saying hello to everyone we pass.

Mikes cousins, Gillian and Sandra arrive from London and they will be staying in the family home. Food is cooked and eaten. Sitting outside on the veranda, the talk of days gone by when S C Jacob (Mikes grandfather) was alive and all the children were young. Cars pass and people wave to say hello. Sometime during the afternoon a crew arrive to put up a large gazebo on the front lawn.

We head back to The Town House and turn in early but the noise of the bar across the road keeps us awake for a time. Sunday morning 6.30 am, all is quite outside, no cockerel, just the sound of the wind and ocean. I get Breakfast in bed, cheese and bread, I’m hungry and it tastes delicious. I listen to my weekly fix, The Archers Omnibus, I’m in need of decent coffee but all we have is vanilla flavoured cappuccino which we purchased yesterday, yuck! Denise knocks on our door and we head to the supermarket for provisions for the family household. Lots of water, soft drinks, ice in large bags. I get coffee, coffee mate and washing up liquid.

We spend all day at the family home. Sometime in the day two goats arrive and are tied up at the side of the house, I watch them, they look cute, they have no idea what their fate is, sometime today they would be slaughtered.

Thinking about this kinda upset me and I try to put it out of my mind.

The arrival of the boat brought Cliff, Mikes youngest brother and Shaun, Mike’s cousin, the pork and flowers for the funeral. I was looking for something to do to take my mind off what was going to happen and Beryl must have read my mind and asked if I wanted to go for a ride as she needed to go home to change clothes after church. She lives up the island near Windward, past Dover school. As we left a jeep pulled in to the house. It was the man to take care of the goats!

I have been told the roads in Carriacou have improved greatly in the 46 years since Mike lived here. The roads are now made of slabs of concrete about 4 meters square joined together and every now and again you find a sleeping policeman which is very effective in keeping the speed of traffic low.

We travel inland, the earth is very dry, stray goats look for food at the side of roads, up and down steep hills Beryl drives cautiously as roads twist and turn. We drive on past beautiful looking houses, some built on stilts on the side of hills with long steep drives.

Beryl herself has a beautiful home set on the side of a hill, the property is a bungalow with the back of the house having two floors. In her back garden she has banana, coconut, plantain and bread fruit trees. We sip ice cold ginger beer whilst Beryl changes then we are back on the road and arrive at the family home just in time to see the jeep pulling out.

The goats are no more, there are now several women under the gazebo with big pots preparing the meat for cooking on Monday morning. The kitchen is full of women baking for tonight, the Wake starts at 7pm, we head back to The Town House to get a bit of shut eye and change before this evening.

I’ve never attended a Caribbean Wake before.

Later
Katie Crunch