My Neighbours

On one side lives a family of women: a mother, her two grown daughters and the female infant of one of the daughters.  Another sister and her 3 children live across from them.  The sister is deemed to be “crazy”.  I don’t know if, or what kind of “crazy”, I’ve never had a problem with her.  These women regularly have screaming fights with each other, and in particular with the “crazy” sister.

There had been minor rumbles throughout the day. Last night (Saturday, March 16), whatever it was burst into flame, and the women were out in the lane in full voice.  The neighbour upstairs and Sono and I went outside as spectators. When one of the girls went for her cutlass, Sono quietly intervened and took it.  The shouting continued until we all got tired and returned to what we had been doing.  The 3 sisters retreated. 

Not even half an hour later we heard police/ambulance sirens.  The phone upstairs rang and the sister who was up there was crying. The father of her child had just been shot dead.  This happened at a bar on the beach, just around the corner. The upstairs neighbours heard the shots. We put the sisters in the car and drove them to the hospital, passing the site of the shooting.  News travels with remarkable speed in Dominica.  When we got to the hospital (10 minutes) there was already a crowd there.  The dead young man’s father is from the village of Guillet, and it seemed to me that the entire village turned out and was at the hospital door. 

How did you spend your Saturday night?

On The Side of the Bourne Road

 We were out searching for a part (some kind of bolt) in cars that have been abandoned on the side of the road. There I was, standing on a hill, when a rickety pick up truck  towing another crippled pick up truck came, full speed, around the bend, and of course, in the middle of the road. As it passed me the tow rope snapped, the crippled pick up began to roll back down the hill gaining speed as it went.  The men who had gathered around our parked car on the other side of the road  raced after it, caught it and brought it to a halt…all this on the side of a mountain! After much loud discussion about the quality of the rope, they simply retied it and sped off.  No big deal…all in a day’s happenings!