Well – it’s neglected because I’m writing the book. Yes, the actual book. So blogging is taking a bit of a back seat.  Still there will be lots to post and for now a picture. The fishermen in Governor’s Harbour land their catch just before sunset.  You mosey along, choose a fish, haggle over the price and then they get out a machete, scale, gut and fillet it for you.  I once purchased a whole shark for $20 (Bahamians don’t care for shark).  Nassau Grouper is excellent as is my favourite: Hog Fish (like sea bass).  Enjoy x

Buying fish for supper - Eleuthera style

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Nassau: 2001

At least there is always the beach

So what else has been happening?  Well,  we have just witnessed the most interesting election in this small country’s history.  A fiercely fought election campaign resulted in a landslide victory for the opposition, the PLP (Progressive Liberal party – don’t be misled by the name, it is a left wing, ‘party of the people’ which had ruled for 25 straight years until two terms ago when mounting corruption made the people turn against it).  Rather like New Labour it has used its time out of power to renew itself and done a cracking job at winning around the young and popular vote.  Consequently the old Government was really caught napping and went from thirty odd seats to seven.  Perhaps the London PR agency the PLP employed (don’t know who yet) also had something to do with it?

I went to one of the rallies, which has to be on a theatrical par with any large-scale event I’ve ever been to.  Imagine a hot evening and about 10,000 loud and brightly attired Bahamians, in high spirits, drinking gin out of coconut shells and eating anything that could be battered and fried whilst dancing to very loud rap music.  Booming music blasted out for a gaudy stage and every so often a wave of rash promises would come from some candidate or other who would then sling a load of mud at the opposition (libel seems a rarely used legal device).

It was a blast.

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Now it is cool at 7.15pm.

I’ve been for my beach walk with the dogs. I’m slurping a huge ripe mango as I walk down the beach (I am now covered in mango stains on my top and shorts).  I can’t believe it is so utterly fantastic here. I feel too lucky and can’t start to tell people how amazing it is.

I felt quite the recluse when I went into town earlier, I can’t decide if I’m just rediscovering my true self or that really I am a recluse at heart. Weird thoughts as I ran a top London PR company and had an 8 bedroom house, nanny,driver etc.  And now, after slipping down the ‘no status’ slippery pole in Nassau (i.e. I went to dinner parties where no one asked me what I do/did/think/thought and the men talked and the women share choc cake recipes -  help me! Betty Crocker?) I start to put my ‘former life’ more and more into some contex.   (more…)

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Thanks a million to Perry Joseph for reading and loving my blog and also for sending two of his beautiful photos taken in Eleuthera – Lighthouse Beach and Double Bay.  I will try to get more for future blogs as they are stunning.

Double Bay Eleuthera, Bahamas

Bannerman Lighthouse in South Eleuthera

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Not every day is sunnny in the Bahamas...Tippies before the hurricane

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Saved by the blood of Christ………

Thursday is the best day of the week in the Bahamas. Friday has its charms as everyone shortens their normally hectic four hour day to well, three or four actual hours, but Thursday is the day of the Nassau Tribune Supplement ‘Obituaries & Religion’. You hardly need get past the front page to know it will be time well spent. The cover illustration of a dewy dove taking flight from an outstretched hand sits above an advert for Video Solutions: “When LIFE throw’s that unexpected “death” curve at you, taking away your loved one, throw one back at LIFE by capturing their last moments on earth by video taping their final journey. R.I.P”. Now there is a film to remember.

The Obituaries are the cornerstone of Bahamian life, status and religious dedication. No time better than in death to show how well you are connected and just how good a sending off  your family will stump up for. Bahamian fervour for religion is poised delicately against deep-rooted superstition, class structure, tribal affiliations and a Constitution that protects not the freedom of speech but the freedom of worship.

In a country where there are as many churches as bars and where gay cruise ships are not permitted to dock as God fearing folk block the quay side, there is a scrambled love for religion.

Endless hours of Sunday morning public broadcasts still drone on with spoken obituaries listing every single surviving extended member of the family. And by family Bahamians mean both ‘inside’ or legal family and ‘outside’ or adopted families (mistresses and their children from the adulterous husband).

It is an honour to be invited to a funeral. Once you get past the three-hour sermon the drama can challenge East Enders any day. Sadly I missed the one where the wife was so enraged by the brazen behaviour of the mistress and her ‘outside’ family at the graveside that she grabbed the machete from the gravedigger and chased the strumpet around the graveyard. A policeman finally arrived and whilst wresting the machete from the wife fell into the open grave and broke his arm. A good funeral by all accounts.

Full-page obits confirm that the dearly deceased had status. On page five, Terrell Antionne R.

Island Graveyard Bahamas (usually near the sea in soft sand.....)

is only 41 and his smiling photo sits amongst a sea of text. There is a night of tribute for all friends and family, the funeral and two days leading to it in which they may pay their respects at the Funeral Home and crematorium. Like Northern England years ago, a good laying out and being seeing to pay your last respects is still important. Even in the heat.

Left to cherish Terrell’s memories are a cast of thousands with fantastic names. His wife and daughter (and her son), son, mother, father, three brothers, three sisters, father-in-law, mother-in-law, five brothers-in-law, six sisters-in-law (did they lose a brother in law I wonder?), three uncles, 12 aunts, a grand uncle, two grand aunts, nine nephews, numerous cousins, other relatives and friends are all named – all 141 of them (not including ‘and family’ or ‘neighbours’ or ‘and numerous friends’. Everyone from Rashad, Tyisha, Paris, Reudon, Reumae, Coolie and Miea are named. But connections are important and poor Terrell was obviously a clever and successful man so endless work and business colleagues are singled out too. Worthy of a special mention are Anthony Longley and the Toastmasters Club International 600, Nassau Christian Academy graduation class of 1987, Northern Caribbean University (formerly West Indies college Class of 1992), the management and staff of First Caribbean Bank and The Hon. Kenneth Russell, M.P and Minister of Housing with responsibility for the Bahamas Mortgage Corporation (BMC). Religious connections include Deacon Cordell Roberts, Rev. Merian Roberts J.P; Rev. Dr. Philip McPhee, Bishop Neil Ellis and the Mount Tabor Family, Pastor Mark & The Dominion Community Church family, Pastor Elva Johnson and the Amazing Grace Missionary Baptist Church family, Pastor Wilber Outten and Pastor Karol Roache and the Freeport Bible Church family and Father Rudy.

49-year-old Wilson Z (‘affectionately called “VINCE’) displays in his quarter page obit on page 9 that he was not so well connected as Antionne in either life or death. Along with the cast of family, extended family and loved ones, his ‘Other relatives and friends’ include: The Mudd, the Peas, Muphy town, Dundas town, Marsh Harbour, Hope town and Guana Cay communities. Relatives and friends may view the remains at the church in Abaco’.

But such status is of little matter to God. Well according to hundreds of sermons that will stupefy the congregations on any given Sunday, as the superstar ministers arrive in their fleets of limos to talk of equality and good living. Stay tune (sic), as there will always be a good few editorials at the back of the Thursday supplement. This week, along with 20 pages of obits, news of the enthronement of Bishop Laish Zane Boyd and a summary of the final sermon delivered by Bishop Drexel Gomez is a hard hitting piece on gambling in which Pastor Matthew Allen hopes that he: “will upset the religious mindset so badly that within the days or weeks to come their religious ignorance or hypocrisy would compel them to respond and stop crying and fighting against gambling and remain silent on casino gambling for the tourist as..you are nothing more than a big hypocrite”.  Who needs soap operas hey.

More to follow…………watch this space for news on the exorcism course I attended…

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Well here is an old entry I had totally forgotten about.  I was asked to plant a tree at a local school (clearly they couldn’t get anyone else so choose me!)

March 13 VIP tree planting at H O Nash school.

An indolent and yawning Sherry S gave me jumbled directions on the phone and said I’d be billed as a “corporately minded citizen”.

After driving around guided by her rough notes and the compass on my Ford Explorer I finally arrived at the school to find thousands of kids drifting around, all very casual and chaotic as so much of the Bahamas is (can’t actually detect any order or sense of anyone in control).

The broadcast began (we had all shaken hands so that was the end of the formalities),  Rev shortman blessed the tree (live on air, what magic at drivetime), Sherry said some words (and froze and forgot all the names etc) as I huffed and puffed with the big shovel and threw in some dirt and debris around the twig. Then a parent – another small man of about 5.3 with silver hair, a moustache, white hat and striped golf shirt with badge proclaiming ‘Proud to be a parent at HO Nash’ grabbed the shovel, the Principle jumped in and snap.  There was the shot for the newspaper photographers.  I was told my words were wonderful and invited for lunch.  I left.

Is this what the Queen has to do?  As I drove away I saw two wizened old ladies walking with umbrellas in the sun and listened to a news story in which the police spokesman described the man at the centre of a double murder and suicide as someone: ‘who lack conflict resolution skills’. You don’t say.

What a Bahamian journey this is proving to be!

Back in my 'island unifom' of halter neck and shorts

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Sunset in the Bahamas

Nassau 2001……..

So here we are, six months in already.  Finally felt at home last weekend when over the bank holiday weekend it rained non stop for five days. There must be a special Bank Holiday weather curse, which works throughout the world.  Difference here is that it is still humid and in the mid 80s (which means in a clever, adjusted, sort of way it is really about 99 degs), and I am constantly getting caught out without a brolly or so much as a piece of paper to hold over my head so impersonate a drowned rat on an almost daily basis.

As I start to type this I am watching the golf course being bulldozed.  It now resembles a sort of desert oasis.  There is sand and soil everywhere, much of it in large dune-like piles and the one remaining lake in the centre of the course has had all the palm trees deposited around its edges to keep them alive before they are moved back into place.  No prizes for guessing how it has affected the mosquitoes.  The noisy frogs are also pretty unsettled.   The constant sound of diggers has followed hot on the heels of the disruption caused by the building of our new conservatory and the major renovations on the entire block we live in.  Not very conducive to writing a best seller I must say.  So….we are moving at the end of June to a fab five-bedroom house that is literally on the sea.  I kid you not.  When you look out of the lounge and back bedroom windows all you see is turquoise sea, it is like being on a boat.  When the sea is rough it splashes up onto the patio and hits the lounge windows and leaves behind a film of salt when it dries.  Needless to say it will be horrendous in a hurricane which is why our rent agreement has a clause that the landlord has six hours in which to board up the entire house once a hurricane warning is issued and we get to move out to a hotel (they do special hurricane rates here and evidently it is quite a laugh being hauled up in a Key Largo sort of way for days in the howling wind and rain). No doubt a later letter….. (more…)

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