Dominica - chapter 3 - pollo. oh no.

At the dive shop I have to wait a quite a while for the cruise ship to dock and some stragglers to join the boat. When the gargantuan vessel docks, white people belch over, "looks like pouring milk into coffee," I quip to some hang-arounders, they dig the analagy. I repeated it a few times to new audiences, and I think they could sense it had lost its luster.

Big Dave takes us out (he is very big) and the diving is amazing, but we come back one short.

Some may remember a rubber friend joining my father and I on our Machu Picchu trip, well, sadly he did not feel quite himself one fine afternoon, and took a beak-dive off the end of our sunfish in Turks. We were worried for many months, but being optimists, we knew that he would be happy swimming with the fishes. To all of our surprise, he found his way to Green Team just days before this Dominican voyage. Some naysayers said that he looked different and “he’s a changed chicken,” but I knew better.

Well, after traveling thousands of miles more, above sea level, the search is back on. Volunteers should start down-current of Champagne, Dominica.

* * *

Everything takes three times as long here because you have to say “hi” so many times. It's the 4th day and I now have about 30 people on the island that I say “hi” to. It’s quite inefficient, hence the New York method of ignoring even loved ones.

In Dominica, the horn is never used for evil, only good. Everyone honks hello, but locals can have full conversations while traveling in opposite directions:

One beep = hey.
Two beeps = hey, good to see you.
Three beeps = hey, good to see you, call me.
Two beeps and a honk = hey, wassup, see you at the party tonight.
Four beeps = I didn’t understand your last communication, please repeat.

Today I had the best juice of my life, guava, a.k.a. the sweet, sweet nectar of an angel’s teat.

Some Kung-Fu movie tucks me in at night.

We head up the coast in the morning and I fall asleep in the car as usual. There’s something about a bumpy car ride in the heat that puts me into a pre-natal coma. When I come to, I startle Clem to stop the car. He does, and I hop out to take some pics.

We enter “The Lab.” A very local rum stop with a few bumps-on-a-log in their normal positions (I can only assume). “Ya want buy some propaty?” the wiser looking of the 3 asks. I quickly counter with what I’m sure was a witty retort, even though I would love some (it is a defense mechanism that I learned from my father). Turns out he’s one of the richest guys in Dominica; he has a 16 bedroom house and when he needs some more rum, he sells a piece of land. I now call him “The Scientist” and yes, I am trying to get a hold of him, but his sidekick must be turned off.

It’s 5pm and I just realize it’s the Fourth of July. Yay, America.

Pearl’s (Clem’s suggestion) is closed, so I find some crap dinner spot that’s empty, but has a nice outdoor area for me to write all this stuff down. I ask the waitress to turn off the TV so that I can just listen to the crickets chirp for a while.

Ahhhh. Wait, those aren’t crickets, they’re squeaky fans above my head.

You’re 30 and…

The 30th birthday. One that many women dread. Not only do we face the same life-evaluating questions surrounding our careers, our futures, our past, our very souls…but we, I suspect more than men, get obsessed with the aesthetic implications of age: wrinkles, cellulite, cellulite, gray hairs, arm fat, saggy breasts, cellulite, dull skin, looking old, and cellulite.

I turned 30 on July 14th. While I am a relatively laid-back, sensible girl when it comes to what I deem to be “superficial” ways of looking at beauty…I admit the barrage of 30-related comments and questions started to get to me.

“Ooooooh 30, that’s a big one!”
“Happy 30th birthday! Do you feel old yet?!”
“Wait, is that a wrinkle there?”

Over the course of the weekend and celebrations of both my and my friend’s birthday, I started to head-spin a little bit. The interior-monologue went something like this:

Damn. 30 is old. Well, no, not that old, I mean in this day and age, you’re going to live at least until 90. Not if you keep sneaking cigarettes your not. And they’re giving you wrinkles. Clearly I’m not that wrinkly, I keep getting carded. That’s just because it’s law. Whatever, I am a vibrant young woman with years of cuteness ahead of me. Yeah, yeah, how about you go to the beach and forget the sunscreen again? That was an accident. And the [number censored] jackncokes the other night? Accident again? I am NOT a lush. Mmmhmmm. How about you refrain from being such a social butterfly and start doing something with your life? By the way, you really should get that butt to the gym unless you want to start to look like [name censored].

SHUT UP.

By Sunday, my sister and my friends were collectively birthday-ed out and in an effort to beat the humidity that descended upon the city we fled, by train, to Long Beach. With everyone else, their mother and their 2nd cousins.

The beach was wall-to-wall people when we arrived, despite the fact that it was almost 4 in the afternoon. The late-afternoon sun was just as strong as we wove our way through the colorful variety of glistening bodies of every size, shape and color imaginable. We sweated our hangovers away and went swimming despite there being just a little too much seaweed (the wispy, frond-like kind, not the slimy kelp-y kind).

As 7 approached, I decided to take one last swim before heading up to the train, but was thwarted by the lifeguards keeping everyone out of the water. Sharks? I peered intently looking for fins or other signs of Jaws lurking under the waves. Nope – nothing so exciting - merely the lifeguards leaving for the day. Apparently their last act is to shoo everyone out of the water, and then everyone hops back in.
I stood near the waters edge people watching, when a child decides to hit on me. Okay, not a child, but definitely a teenager. His post-pubescent ‘stach gave him away.

“Hey girl can I holla at you for a minute?” He blatantly looked me up and down and his skinny sidekick grinned.
“Um, actually, I’m going to go back to my friends over there.”
“That’s okay, I got people over there too but I got my priorities straight, you know what I’m sayin’? We’re just lookin’ for some interestin’ conversation.”
“Ummm.”
“What’s your name girl?”
“Roxie.”
“Roxie, my names James, but my friends call me Supreme and if you hang with me for a bit, you will understand why. So what do you say, you want to hang for a bit?”
[stifling giggles] “I am way too old for you.”
The man-child looks me up and down again. “How old are you? You can’t be that old.”
“Trust me, I am too old for you.”
“How old are you?” he insisted.
I sighed. “I’m 30.” It was the first time I said it out loud.
“DANG girl!” Supreme looked me up and down again – ewe. “No WAY you be 30.”
“I promise you, I just turned 30.”

He licked his bottom lip LL-Cool J style, and with that he said magical words that both horrified and flattered, dissipating any lingering 30th-birthday doubts:

“You’re thirty, and I’m dirty.”

Dominica - chapter 2 - Why so blue, Panda Bear?

“The Fort Young is the nicest hotel in Roseau,” Dominica Tourism reassured me, “You’ll be right next door.”

The Garraway is supremely adequate and just around the corner from my hotel, I discover the perfect pastry shop. Normally that's the sort of thing you figure out on the way back to the airport, but I had plenty of time to sicken myself of its delights. Some fantastic banana bread and some Local Juice, mmm... passion fruit (slightly too sweet, but I'm a positive person).

The weather is hazy all over the island so I get to know my guide, Clem. Educated at Cambridge, he has almost no Caribbean accent, but bumps it up when talking to the street, much like I would probably convert “sure” to “sho” when talking to a black guy, we all want to fit in.

I later realize that he studied in Cambridge, not at Cambridge, but he’s still a very smart bloke.

The island is amazing to explore, but the best part of the day comes at lunchtime in the Botanical Garden. After a huge shower forces us to cut the tour short and make a run for the restaurant, a fantastic Callaloo soup makes it all better like mommy would.

The day with Clem ends uneventfully as the light wasn’t great and I haven’t found my groove yet. I take a walk around town solo and pick a shady pool bar to wait for sunset. Quickly I figure out that "shady" does not exist here. What would be thugs at home are teddy bears here. The people of Dominica are friendly and welcoming, even when a white man landing on a foreign island usually means the locals will have to convert religions and learn a new language.

“Those are the greatest jeans ever! I would have taken you for a 31!” is something a Dominican would never say. I leave the Creole restaurant before ordering, but after drinking a glass of water, assuring myself that not all Americans are like that. How could I even let that bother me in this Post 9/11 world?

There are fewer tourists in the Chinese restaurant, but that’s probably just because it’s empty. The fried rice is terrible, the shrimp is whatevs, the Kubuli is warming quickly, the salad was stupid, but the egg rolls are to die for.

I don’t want a cigarette.

Dominica - chapter 1 - God's Day

I can never remember which car service I like and which I hate, so I go with instinct and dial the sixes, 666-6666. A friendly voice reassures me, later confirmed at 4am by a cheery Indian driver, go with the six, seven is weaksauce.

Falling asleep thinking of how to waterproof my underwear. 4 hours later I awake unprovoked, 45 minutes early. Thinking of waterfalls.

1st song on the iPod (shuffle all songs) is Road Trippin.’ Second song is PYT.

I did everything in my power to avoid American Airlines, short of swimming to the Caribbean, but they seem to have a monopoly on this route. So I’m stuck in a terminal at 5am that has locked down any outlet or internet signal in order to make $5 each 15 min. It's like my dad cutting the cable feed after being sent to my room. Checking out a website of monkeys doing it is almost worth the quid, but I pass.

Flight.

I meet a Dominican guy, his sister, and his friend (whom I later realize is his “friend”). He is about 32 with braces and his family lives in Grand Bay; maybe give him a call for some photos on Friday.

Martin Tavernier’s name sounds classier than the man himself looks, but the quasi-rasta turns out to be a cool brother. When the Ministry’s driver doesn't show up at the airport it commences a bidding war among the cabbies. “Someone wants to speak to you,” announces the fattest of the gang as he shovels his cell my way.

“Ello mon, you da one 'aitin for da Mistry?” I am.
“Well, he ain’t comin’ cauz it’s Sunday, das Gods day.” Silence is usually the best answer if confused.
“So my man will take you and you just gib dem da receipt.”
Nice try chief, I'll go with Martin Tavernier.

It’s an hour drive so I’ll give it about 45 min before easing into the ganja conversation, although it hardly seems like a subject that will be difficult to breach with a guy in an matching jersery outfit that would fit Shaq, two cell phones, dreads tucked into a do-rag, and a song on the stereo chanting “Maa – ri – waaaana, I love it. Maa – ri – waaaana, I miss it. Maa – ri – waaaana, I need it. Shez mine.”

Turns out they have it here too.

At the spectacularly adequate hotel I try and figure out if I like cricket: The match’s focus has been turned to an inflatable object that has drifted onto the field, and tracks it for 47 seconds in silence. On the other hand, it’s tough to dislike a sport where Austrailian commentators say things like, “I bet his first cry, just out of his mother’s womb, and onto dry land, was...”

I order the roti. I guess it’s Domingo Loco here.