First Impressions
It has been over three weeks and I am still pinching myself. We live in Barbados. We have a lovely house. We can swim in the pool in our backyard or walk to the beach and swim in the sea every day. Roosters and monkeys roam free on the side streets in our neighbourhood. The weather is pleasantly hot and the local people are generally nice and polite. What more could you ask for? It feels like the opposite of our first impressions when we landed in Honduras.
Security
On the house, the windows and doors do have bars and grills but this appears to be more for show than to actually ward off any gun toting gang organized kidnappers. Out of habit, I still lock all the doors to the outside at night. We then noticed that many of the bedroom doorknobs had locks on the inside. So I started putting the keys away in drawers to avoid the the kids playing with them and locking themselves in their rooms by mistake. Well, one night the strong wind blew and shut the office door, oops! The door to the office was now locked… from the inside. The three spare keys were sitting in the top drawer of the work desk. Along with my laptop, the iPad and all my work things. We tried to wiggle the door -to no avail. Eventually, we had to call in a locksmith, he could not even unpick the lock on the door. The professional ended up removing and replacing the entire doorknob. From then on, I made sure to store all the spare sets of keys in the same safe place.
Help in the home
We wondered who could help us take care of the garden since many of the plants I had only seen in the Biodôme and did not know how to prune or when to water them. We also wanted someone to show us how to take care of cleaning the pool and monitor the PH level of the water. Our queries went un-answered. Then one day I hear the buzzer for the front gate ring. I walk to open the gate and find three men dressed form head to toe in old overalls peering through the gate. Two of them were sporting noisy weed wackers and lugging large gardening tools. The eldest starts off:
-I’m here to do the gardening. I have a key, can I come in.
-Ok, who sent you?
-The landlord.
-Ok, how do we arrange the payments?
-The landlord takes care of it. We come to do the gardening every Thursday.
-Ok. Thank come in! Would you like a glass of water?
-Good to know.
A similar story with the pool lady. I was reading in the living room one afternoon when I hear
-Hello anyone home?
-Hello?
-Hello! I’m Sandra the pool lady and I’ve come to fix the pool. She wore a collared sports shirt with a pool logo on it long jeans and boots in this 30C weather. Ms Sandra drove a large pick-up truck with the bed filled with pool cleaning supplies.
-Hello Sandra. Nice to meet you. We really enjoy swimming and we’re wondering how to take care of the pool?
-Yes, please I come clean the pool every Friday. I let myself in with my key when you are not home.
-Good to know.
A few days later it was the man for pest control who came by to spray the inside and the outside of our house in order to keep rodents and insects at bay. But I’ll spare you those details.
This Monday the children and I counted 8 different people, all strangers, who came into our house. In one day. Unannounced. There was the man to replace the drinking water, which comes is large containers. There was a handyman who was sent to fix the cracked bed frame (the house came furnished.) Don’t forget Sandra the pool lady. Followed by two men who came with a pick up truck to take away the broken dishwasher. They left empty handed because the previous dishwasher technician had not disconnected said appliance. One week later, we still don’t have a working dishwasher, the old one sits useless in the middle of our kitchen (time to get the kids started on doing chores and earning their allowance!) Next was the kind lady who stopped by to deliver the groceries from a cooler plugged into the trunk of her car. After that, a young man spent some time setting up the new alarm system which proceeded to go off several times. Finally, two men from the car rental company to deliver our new rental for the week since the previous one had an accident (more to come about that unfortunate event in another blog post.) My son showed the plumber the blocked toilets in the kids bedrooms, apparently all they need is a good wiggle. It’s nice to have all the help. It is also a bit invasive to have lots of strangers enter your house.
New friends
The second day my son went to school I heard him exclaim and point out the window looking wide eyed. I was sure he was nervous about school and that he was expressing his desire to stay home with me. It turns out that he had seen some monkeys run across our yard behind where we were standing. We have monkeys in our yard! Real green monkeys, loads of them. I let them eat the soursops that grow on our fruit trees, but I’m kind of partial to the guavas and it’s a race to pick them from the low lying branches before all the monkeys get to them. This means picking the fruit when it is green and letting the guavas ripen in our house.
It is truly amazing to watch the fifteen or so monkeys parade around our yard everyday. There are young teenagers leaping about from branch to branch. There are mums carrying their babies (some so young and fresh they don’t yet have fur) on their tummies. We watch the little babies as they grow into playful children and then rough and tumble teenagers. Finally, the large males with blue bums and long upright tails finish up the pack and round up the stragglers.
“These are Green Monkeys, they are not native to the island” my five year old daughter informs me. “Don’t get too close, they have very large sharp teeth” adds her older brother. The children are both amused and nonplussed by these primates who share our backyard. The story goes that the monkeys were introduced to the island by pirates. But today they are about as common as squirrels in Canada.
It still feels strange to overhear people saying how this vacation is the best week of their life, I have to pinch myself and realize we will actually live here for the next three years. There are a lot of adjustments to be sure: new house, new school for the kids, new job and added responsibilities for my husband. We are slowly settling in to our second posting. It seems less exotic and less exciting than Honduras. Are we more experienced the second time round? Are we adjusting quicker since the language and culture is similar to what we already know? We are bound to make comparisons with previous experiences. Either way, it is a fresh adventure which I hope to document through this blog. Stay tuned!
Beautifully written Amy well said ! Mum
Keep us posted on the rest of your adventures! 🥰