Stay at Home

 I am starting a Stay at Home Club.  A bit boring, but much better than the alternative.

  Everyone welcome

Anthony and Savanne

 

May 5, 2023 the Stay At Home Club has been doing well.  I managed to stay at home 4 days out of the 7 this week. 

 

 

Pomegranate

Three pomegranates fell from heaven.  One for the story teller, one for the listener and one for the world. 

LONI, LENE and FLU

So here it is April 6 already

Lene and Loni have come and gone.  It was a wonderful 6-day visit. They enjoyed their time here and I think they were able to do, see, and meet everything and everyone they wanted to. I enjoyed them.  The whole thing was a pleasure. The Sunday luncheon was a success.  McDowell prepared a delicious salmon.

Then I was brought down with the flu.  I felt it coming on all through lunch on Sunday.  I went to bed that evening, coughing, sneezing, stuffed up, sore throat, aching bones, exhausted, but no fever. I wasn't able to raise my head until Wednesday. Ibruprophen, Ferrol cough medicine, sleep, and water were the remedies.  I am still coughing, and not yet fully recovered although this is the first day I actually felt like I might recover.  

Now McDowell has it and is sick.  Luckily it is the long Easter weekend so he can rest and not feel he has to open the Bar. Poor man.  I don't think he has ever had the flu.  He is completely baffled by how awful he is feeling.  He'll sleep his way through it.

For an explanation of who Loni and Lene are see blog entry April 20, 2017

APRIL 12 Saw the Doctor yesterday.  BRONCHITIS!  Amoxycillin, Prednisone.  I am already feeling better.  Definitely on the mend.  McDowell has recovered and is back in the restaurant at work.

 

UPDATES TO THE UPDATE: MARCH 2023

Can that be true?  No posts since 2020? Well, there have been many developments and events since. I won’t be able to report on them all.  I trust that most readers will know anyway and if not you can ask.

Covid restrictions were dropped a while ago.  It hovers, of course, but is under control.  People do keep their distance and sanitize, but otherwise, life has returned to what they call normal.  No one even mentions it.  Financially though, it is still felt hard.

We are cozy in the old house.  We had to move quickly because the building we were living in was sold.  We have been here for 2 years and it is home.  It is still a work in progress, of course, and will be for a long time yet. Painting, refurbishing, mending, repairing, but functioning.  The roof doesn’t leak, for which I am grateful.  Some of the windows do, depending on how the wind blows and how heavy the rain is, but not a real problem.  The garden grows.  The sea wall is strong and doing its job. 

People are travelling and we are having a good tourist season.  This year we seem to have young families sailing with their young children.  The Bar and Restaurant are busy enough.  I have been selling some paintings from time to time.  McDowell makes a wonderful coconut sauce.

My only complaint is the noise.  We are in the center of town and beside the bus terminal.  It is never completely quiet.  There is always someone on the street singing or ranting, or shouting, loud music, traffic, and dogs barking.  Whatever noise ordinance there may be is not enforced.  Sometimes it is in the background but mostly it is just plain too loud with no letup.   Right now the sea is surging and so it has its own loud rolling sound. 

Life is good.  We are both in reasonable health.  The speed with which time passes astonishes me.

Plus  ca change, plus c’est la meme chose,  So I will be writing Portsmouth vignettes…

………

 dates 

UPDATE to Covid

Nothing really to update. 

Dominica has remained Covid 19 free, although I think this is about to change as we are poised to reopen August 7.  We have been repatriating citizens during July.  The entry protocol is very good, but many repatriated people have not been complying. The Government has heartily reprimanded them.  I hope it will be different for foreigners.  Well, we will see.

We have made very little progress in rebuilding the Peter House and won't be moving in, as planned, this summer.  It is plumbed though, water, shower, toilet functioning well.  Now it needs to be wired, and stove, and fridge bought and installed.  If we get any tourists when the borders open next week we may make a little money to do this. 

This is also high season for storms, tropical waves, tropical troughs, hurricanes.  Last night the sea was very high.  It brought us some nice pieces of driftwood, but not stones and, happily, no rubbish.  We had put up a galvanized barrier along the fence to protect the plants and the patio.  It will stay up for the next couple of weeks adding to the construction site ambience of the place!

DOMINICA STRONG

COVID IN PARADISE

There are certainly worse places to be. Definitely not 'stranded'.   Dominica is the place to be.  To date, we have had 0 active cases for four weeks.  Public education has been excellent, not frightening, but clear and intelligent and based on science.  I continue to be impressed with the level of health professionals and professionalism.  A word about education as well. Schools were immediately closed and The Ministry of Education organized its teachers and administrators to deliver the curriculum online and offline with support to parents. 

Dominica closed its borders swiftly after the first 2 cases came in from England with Covid.  The Caribbean was Covid free for the very early weeks; all cases through the Islands were imports.  Quick and complete closing was not an easy decision with so many from diaspora wanting to come home, with this island being a prominent cruise ship destination, with Guadeloupe and Martinique as very near neighbours and with a large number of sailboats and yachts looking for a safe harbour or already here.  Other Islands were beginning to close so alternative ports were now limited.  Tourism is a mainstay, closing would mean real social and economic hard times. As tourism came to a sudden, jarring halt so did most everyone's livelihood.

For us, Marian and McDowell, it has not been as bad as it has for others.  Liquor licences were suspended and all bars and restaurants were quickly shut, and still are, so we now have no income.  Lots of time, but no money to buy materials and lumber, or to finish the plumbing in the old house.  McDowell was able to reorganize his kitchen, move the Bar to the outside, expand the Bar area all with found posts and boards which had been stacked under the house.  It looks really good and will be an asset. He has used the many hours under curfew and lockdown to practice his guitar and to plan. He is forever the Sagittarian optimist. I painted, crafted, read, cleaned,  cooked, wrote, took a webinar in Caribbean bird watching and practised social media whatever the opposite of distancing is!  Boring but not difficult.  It is getting harder though.  We drank and ate everything that was in the bar when we had to close.

My biggest fear is not getting sick, but that Dominica, and the Caribbean, will rush into reopening the tourist trade, thinking we can just pick up from where we left off.  This is the time to rethink it, to understand the trade-offs, not make the same mistakes.  I hope we listen to Mia Motley, the Prime Minister of Barbados and Chair of CARICOM on this one.  Since the Caribbean is the largest tourist destination in the world we could be a leader.

I used to benignly roll my eyes when Dominicans would proudly proclaim how resilient they are, how they can overcome anything, how much they have endured, how determined to rise above bad times they are.  Well, not any more. It is all true and that is what Dominica is. The population understood and accepted what is at stake and, except for the always present rotten apples, have complied with the regulations without too much whining and complaining and too many unrealistic expectations.   Lockdown, curfew, loss of jobs, income, livelihood, places of business, the line-ups, and social distancing has its own horrors.

I do believe Dominica can rise again, hopefully, improved.

See you at the beach!

Nine Drunken Hungarian Sailors

Saturday night, pouring cold rain.  Dark.    We were just closing when we saw a group of men wandering around the street.  McD called them over offering food, drink, shelter and music.  Who could resist that!  We sat them down under the shed at the back and they ordered a round of rum punch, beer and a Sprite.  Three rounds later they were warm and happy.

 

One was a drummer and asked if he could use our drum set.  Of course.  And he was great, easily picking up the reggae beat while McD sang.  Then McD put on Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water and they all rose up and sang and rocked out.  None of them could speak English or French, but they certainly knew their vintage R and R.

Addison came to pick them up, they had no idea where their boat was or where they were.  They had just flown to Martinique from Hungary, chartered a boat and its captain and are touring the Caribbean. 

 

On the way out they all kissed my hand and bowed from the waist. 

Too funny.