Bunches of finger bananas on the trees

Eleuthera memories. Sunday August 22 2004.

Arriving in the Bahamas in 2001 after 21 years in London I could never understand it when family islanders referred to Nassau as ‘the big smoke’. Now I do. The city and all its stresses seems a lifetime away already. The most challenging thing I’ve had lately is keeping up with recipes for all the various fruits and saladings we grow. That, and making pints of jam and chutney with no scales to weigh anything and very few jam jars (luckily we found several on the beach. I hope that the boiling water got the salt and sand out, otherwise there will be an extra crunch to the mango chutney).

This farm really is a Garden of Eden. Along the with the rows of arugula, spinach, mixed salad leaves and watercress which Ian has planted for us and which is so plentiful we end up giving bags of it away we have so much more (one of my regular recipients just gave me (more) mangoes and a bag of key limes in return so the Key Lime Pie (non dairy version as I’ve given up dairy) is cooking as I type. We have fantastic fresh herbs, particularly basil, mint, rosemary and coriander. There are beds of garlic chives (like large spring onions), allspice bushes and hundreds of Noni trees (I’m drinking the juice daily, it is totally disgusting but it has had a noticeable improvement on my energy levels). The passion fruit, guavas and star fruit (carabolas) have pretty much gone now and been replaced by cherries which literally burst into life overnight covering two large trees with a tapestry of deep red (I pitted about 400 yesterday and made jam. Needless to say my false nail days are behind me). We also have sapadillies, grapes, pomegranates, grapefruit, red grapes, coconuts and just for good measure Mr.Pinder from Spanish Wells brings us a bushel (a cardboard box to you and me) of the most beautiful juicy mangos you could imagine every week.

There are also the flowers. Ian’s father cultivated this land originally as an orchid farm. Every day I really notice their beauty. Out of nowhere, whole carpets of colour just spring up. Today it is pink ‘wheat grass’ looking stuff and pink/white lilies. Recently it was purple and then yellow flowers (I must study my ‘Native Flowers and Trees of the Bahamas’ book soon. I can follow it up with ‘Plant Propagation – a beginners guide’).

Living on a farm really has been a culture change but I love it. Things I’ve learnt (the hard way) are not to wear flip-flops whilst gathering crops (I stood on an ant nest whilst inspecting the pomegranates – very painful) and to wear long trousers and long sleeves shirts due to the killer mosquitoes and sand flies. Another tip, don’t bend down next to a four foot high cactus as you can nearly lose an eye and the stab in one’s knee isn’t much fun. Also, a note not to walk around inside bare foot. I have now had to dig out two huge splinters in two days. Luckily a nappy pin with a quick wipe of Hydrogen Peroxide, a deep breath and I’m sorted. I’ve also had to fix repeatedly Rusty’s weepy eyes (too much sand) as the vet only visits once a month and missed August’s visit. The doctor has been out of the country for the whole time I’ve been here and there is no pharmacy or hospital or ambulance for that matter so you really do have to learn about first aid here.

In fact, I am very proud of my non-city-girlie coping skills. The first week here I was alone with just the dogs and cats. Alone in a house with no glass in the windows (we only have screens which give us great entertainment at night as we watch the underbellies of lizards darting across them to eat the flies and moths), and no locks on the doors. It has hand-plaited straw (palmetto palm) on the walls and bare flagstone floors. My washing machine and freezer are outside on the patio. Plus it had been empty for a long time and the nearest neighbour is about a mile away (apart from Anthony the Haitian gardener who lives on the property and whose Creole radio can be heard faintly on the wind at night along with the sound of the waves on the beach, the frogs, birds and cicadas).

I had wondered why there was a glue trap under my bed until upon closer inspection I found I’d caught a tarantula. I always check under the sheet before I get into bed but I did end up with a lizard for too close company a few days ago. At least it was a baby. When I was cleaning out the attic I came across two wolf spiders the size of small saucers and one night when I was here alone I heard the cats in an almighty fight. The next morning there was a nice dead snake about 10 feet from my bedroom door (I might need to explain that our bedroom is a separate building accessible across the patio outside the back door). I now let the cats sleep in my room during the day as they act as feline mine sweepers, killing all before them. You can buy huge glue traps for snakes in the local shop but I don’t fancy having to empty it if I catch one. I also had to cope with cockroaches and a huge centipede in the kitchen – it was by the ring on the stove so I turned it on and bbqued it. Cruel, but they have a terrible bite evidently.

All the excitement of the local wildlife aside, it is totally wonderful here. The beach is so beautiful as is the pink sand beach although we’ve now picked up about 20 bin bags full of rubbish. Clearly boat owners just treat the sea as a huge dustbin. I can’t believe how many light bulbs wash up along with assorted odd shoes, detergent and medicine bottles and other junk.

Every day I have a walk on the beach with the dogs. Tarpum (my Eleutheran potcake) now swims right out to me (enticed by a peanut butter dog biscuit) and stays by my side the whole walk. At first, a month ago, I was so fatigued from my radiation treatment that I could only manage half the beach but now I can walk easily to the rocks at one end of the bay and back again. I can also swim again as my radiation burns finally healed (on the outside at least) a few days ago. I think the sulphur smelling water we drink from our own wells has helped in the healing process (not to mention the constant fresh air, early nights and fantastic organic fruit and vegetables).

I’ve also started to find a good supply for fish. Surprisingly it is very expensive here. The fishermen know they can sell to the local hotels (there are a few, up market boutique type resorts), so they are really not interested in bartering with ‘locals’ such as us. Ian kindly bought me a hogfish last week. He presented it to me in my two outstretched arms and as he walked away the city girl spoke: ‘Ian, what do you do with it?’ To give him credit he managed not to roll his eyes to the heavens and then gave me a lesson in gutting, scaling and filleting a fish plus how to prepare fresh lobster (he had caught two earlier that day simply by wading out in the water of the bay with his spear).

One of the lovely things here is that we have no TV. No temptation to watch Raymond, VHI or The Amazing Race. Instead, we watch movies, play games, or I listen to BBC Radio 2 via the Internet. Last night we had a power cut so together with Austin, the carpenter from Harbour Island who is building us an office each, we played games by candlelight and listened to our wind up radio. Luckily it wasn’t too humid as the fans stop working. One big drawback is that we had no water as the well water is pumped via an electric pump. We went to bed nearly as ripe as two mangoes! Very native.
To be continued……….