View of St George’s

This morning I was leaving the house for work.  I locked the front door and turned around and for a moment I was awestruck by the vista in front of me.  The morning sun was coming up over the mountains, bathing the Town of St George’s in a warm, golden wash.  Living in the Caribbean we are often immune to the sheer beauty of the islands we live in but this morning I got my reminder of how lucky we are to live in Paradise.

The southern part of the Town of St George’s – Lagoon Road in the forefront and the Carenage in the background.

The inland mountain ranges, northeast of St George’s.

Enjoy!

Friday Lunch

This is what I had for lunch on Friday. Steaming hot, delicious lambie waters! (Conch soup for allyuh dat ent know what lambie is)

Mmmm! Just the thing to prepare the body for a round of pre-carnival weekend festivities.

Grenada – from another perspective II

Blogging is still relatively uncommon in Grenada so I am always on the lookout for blogs that do originate from here. Previously I linked to a blog from a friend of mine who is an American living in Grenada. I recently came across two more blogs also by Americans in Grenada – allow me to introduce them:

On The Reggae Bus is written by acrooms, the wife and self-professed “housewife” (lolzz) of a St George’s University student. I enjoy that fact that you can see from her posts that she is embracing life in Grenada, something that is not very common with SGU students as many of them appear (to me at least) to be disinterested in experiencing Grenada on an personal level. acrooms’s Random Stuff page just cracks me up – the Things That Grenadians Do Not Like list is hilarious mainly because it is so very true.

Cats [Yeah, I dislike them myself]
Smoking Cigarettes [As a smoker I will attest to this]
Drinking Coffee [The tide is turning though, especially with the proliferation of Rituals kiosks everywhere]
People who do not return their Carib bottles to the store they bought them from [For REAL! Shop owners are very fussy about their empties]
People who take their photo without asking permission first [As Paul Keens-Douglas once said, "we natives doesn't pose for free no more!"]
People who start a business transaction without saying “Hello” or “Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening” first
Beggars/Panhandlers

The second blog is Life On A Rock and is a little different because the writer is not yet in Grenada but will be here in August ‘08 for the start of the fall semester at the SGU Veterinary School. Little does Dr Leah know, but my canine child Darling will be a visitor to her clinic in September! Looking forward to reading her observations and impressions and hope you will too.

Direct from Facebook

I’m a teensy bit bored as it’s Saturday, it’s rainy, and I’m stuck at home until the gardener finishes what he’s doing.  Boredom = totally useless blog posts (see below).

Imported from my responses to the Interview Facebook app questions:

What is your favorite song of all time?
Changes depending on… love anything by Dido, Alicia Keys though. Am only just discovering Macy Grey.

What is your favorite kind of cheese?
Currently it’s Swiss

What do you want?
Health, wealth and happiness

What was your SAT score?
1410 I think. Who can remember back 20 years?

What is your ideal pizza?
Rick’s Cafe mushroom and italian sausage

Apple juice or orange juice?
Cranberry

Sex before marriage or after marriage??
*dies laughing*

Biggest regret?
Something to do with marriage

Two sports I played in middle school?
Sports? Wah dat?

Family or friends?
Family. No matter how they bug me

Are you self obsessed?
Um… i hope not

What I dislike most about the general public is…
They revel in their apathy and ignorance

What is your biggest turn off?
A pussy ass man

Looks or Personality?
Attitude

East Coast or West Coast?
South Coast

What is your biggest turn on?
Self confidence. Not to be confused with arrogance.

Would you reither be stabbed my a knife or a sword?
I’d rather NOT be stabbed or sworded

Rap or Hip-Hip?
Dancehall

What motivates you?
Pressure

Vitamin Water or Gatorade?
none. plain water.

Have you had a beer in the last week?
Oh yes!

If you could have one super human power what would you choose?
Invisibility

Juice and crackers or milk and cookies?
wine and cheese

Who are you going to vote for in 2008?
Not NNP chuckle

Firefox, Internet Explorer, Netscape, or other?
FFox…. sweet

Water or 100% Juice?
Wine see a trend here?

What size shoe do you wear?
8

When do you plan on getting married?
Never the f**k again

Do you have any tattoos, and if so what and where?
Not yet but a Gda flag soon

Who do you admire most?
I am so disillusioned that I dont think I really admire anyone

If you were an animal in the wild, what would you be?
A lemur! original king julian…

What is your favourite word?
fuck

If you have friends coming for supper what would you cook?
Depends on who. Probably lasagna

If you were one word, what word would you be?
I would love to say a bitch but I am far too wussy to be a real bitch.

What sort of character would you play in a comic book (hero, humorous sidekick, villian, that abrasive newspaper guy, etc.)
Um..hapless victim?

Do you believe in heaven and hell?
Yes.

Do you believe in ghosts?
Why not?

Religion?
Reluctant Anglican

Do you say “I love you” in the relationship?
Yes. To my detriment

What attracts you most?
I have always been suckered by men that consider themselves attractive (even if they aren’t) because that kind of confidence is sexy. Obviously this is a flawed philosophy on my part.

If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be?
No one. It’s hard enough being me

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
Somewhere in the Caribbean. I’m a Caribbean girl at heart and I think I would be unhappy anywhere else.
_____________
There ya go. Now you know just the littlest bit more about YingYang! Have a great weekend.

All hail the Queen!

No, not Elizabeth Two! I’m referring to Queen Macoomeh, a Toronto-based Trinidadian writer and well-known [to Caribbean people] internet personality.

I became familiar with Queen Macoomeh from her posts at the SpiceIslander Talkshop. Her posts are witty and funny, yet many are very thought-provoking and truthful to the core, particularly pertaining to West Indians in the diaspora. Today I came across a link to QM’s website, Commess University – which ” is not a ivy league university eh? It more resemble a solo an roti wid slight pepper university”. The word commess, of course, is a regionally recognised word meaning “confusion or controversy”, or better yet “cow mess”. (Yeah, we Caribbean people are ALWAYS scatologically incorrect)

The misson statement of Commess University is defined as:

De purpose of Commess University© is to promote understanding of de Caribbean, expressly Trinidad and Tobago and de people. All yuh hatta read dis site and bookmark it and come back offen. All yuh hatta laugh buh yuh hatta tink too. Yuh hatta realize is not only wine and gallery we good for. Yuh hatta know it have some Caribbean people who ha’ more talent in dey lil finger dan some’ah dem big pappie stars. Yuh hatta know my people sweet too bad even in between we commess. We heart in de right place and doh mine we islands small, we have a place for everybody.

All yuh go fine out what is like being an ‘away Trini’.

Emphasis mine. I love it!

A little Googling then revealed that Queen Macoomeh – aka Nathalie Taghaboni – wrote* a regular column in the Share Newspaper, a publication serving the Caribbean and Black Canadian communities in Canada. (* I say wrote because I can’t verify if Share is still in operation). QM writes in West Indian dialect, which serves to heighten the passion and sharpen the satire of her ‘tories. She’ll make you laugh out loud while shaking your head – especially as she serves up the incongruity of the Caribbean way of “being” as it relates to the North American lifestyle.

At the urging of her fans, QM took a selection of her columns and published them in 2007 as Tales from Icebox Land. Tales was an instant bestseller and as it turns out it will not be reprinted so the books are now a collector’s item; QM is considering publishing a second book however.

You can check out Queen Macoomeh’s stories, some dating back to 2002, at the Mauvais Lange faculty of Commess University. Enjoy!

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