A five hour flight after a one hour delay, and a 20 minute taxi ride and we arrived at our airbnb in Fitts village on the west coast of Barbados.
Davette owns a beautiful 3 bedroom home with a patio in front, a roof deck, and a yard full of fruit trees: mangoes, limes, pomegranate, tamarind. There's a mom cat and her kittens running around the back. Davette grew up in queens, went to a neighboring high school, and lived in bed-stay until she moved here 6 years ago. She worked in education administration, and as such, she was excited to have a couple of New York teachers in the house. She greets us with a rum punch and says "my teachers!" and tells us to go across the street with them to check out the beach. ACROSS THE STREET. "Is this legal?" We ask. "Everything's legal in Barbados," she replies.
This is a good sign.
Davette made us a lovely curried chicken with quinoa and kale, special for us (because we're teachers,) but mostly because there's nothing really open close by on a Sunday. Within the hour, we're absolutely in love with her. She is lovely, radiant, warm, spunky and funny. She offers to take us out with her to holetown, for Sunday night drinking, dancing, and karaoke.
1st street in Holetown is a small street behind a large mall filled with big, American brands like Louis Vuitton and Michael Kors, and some diamond companies... The kind of place you'd expect to see in a fancy island resort destination. But 1st street is a little place with local places, and street food, and an outdoor karaoke bar that runs every Sunday night.
Miss Davette is like the mayor. She shows up, and all the gentlemen at the place clamor to her to say hi. The thing to do, according to Davette's friend, is to order 4 beers for $5. Davette orders a fifth of Absolut vodka, a bottle of soda, and gets a styrofoam bowl of ice. For herself. Cause that is also how it's done, it seems. So as I wasn't about to Joanna and I get a fifth of Mount Gay Barbados Rum, a bottle of ginger ale, and a bottle of ice. Bottle service, Barbados style, about $6 for us both.
We sit down and Davette introduces us to her friends. We got there on the early side, and it's Davette and her friends, a couple of drunk local dudes and A LOT of middle aged, overly tanned British people. It seems that this island is full of them... A lot of people come back year after year. I guess the Brits have a hard time letting go of their colonial past, but they did all seem very respectful and loving of all the Bajans at least. Everybody talked to everyone and seem to get on fine. The karaoke is run by the DJ, who intermittently interrupts the karaoke singers with the PEOOO-PEOOO-PEOOO air horn that is always blasted on morning Caribbean radio and in soca and dancehall music. The book is completely disorganized, and all I find that I usually sing is Rihanna. I CANNOT come to Barbados and sing Rihanna. They will boo my ass out of this country trying to singe Barbados' #1 export. Some older, bleach blonde Canadian lady sings some rock song. She's good. One by one, all of the regulars start singing... Mostly soca hits and American standards by Sinatra and Elton John. I guess Sinatra knows no intentional bounds... Karaoke people LOVE singing "my way." I finally find my go-to "total eclipse of the heart" in the disheveled mess of a songbook, and place my order.
The soca music is infectious, and Joanna and I start to dance. Everyone is watching, and one of the young, hip, local gay guys (who plugged his fashion line in the middle of his karaoke song) starts dancing with me. Miss Davette calls me over and says, "don't take this the wrong way, but you don't dance like a white girl. Are you Puerto Rican?"
This is a variant of my favorite compliment... Telling me I don't dance like a white girl and asking what flavor of light-skinned Latina I am.
And then the hot-pink colored Brits start coming over to ask me if I was a professional dancer... Which is ludicrous but is often asked by people who have no semblance of rhythm whatsoever.
All of this has lead me to the conclusion that no one in this country has ever seen a white girl who can dance before.
Joanna and I talk to everyone. Everyone is super friendly and just lovely. Someone remarks that we're really nice for Americans. This is not surprising.
My song comes on, and at this point the street is packed full of people. I don't need any courageous, liquid or otherwise, to sing... I can sing this song in my sleep. I get about 10 bars in, when I turn around (no pun intended) and the local drag queen is right up on me singing backup for me. Amazing.
Joanna and I are tired, but we can't let Ms. Davette outlast us. She nearly did.
A guy named Boston takes us in his cab. I say I'll get in the front. He says, "ok, but you keep your hands to yourself." I shake his hands, and he comments on how small my hands are. He says "ooh you have small hands. You know what they say... The smaller the pincers, the wider the air (ear?) holes."
Yep. Boston suggested I had a wide vagina.
Davette is impressed that I understand Bajans as well as I do... They often speak in idioms that I've never heard before, and some of the accents are very strong. Very colorful. She said that once, when she first got here, a gentleman was eating a mango off her tree, and he said something to her, which she didn't understand, so she just said "mmmmm-hmmmmm" in agreement. Turns out later she found out he said, "this is as sweet as a woman's pussy" and she just nodded in agreement.
Thank god I knew better than to agree with Mr. Boston.
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