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!

A Hospital Experience

Not as bad as I expected!

Sono was working on his boat at his house.  Suddenly he came driving furiously up the drive way yelling, “Come!  Come!”  His left forearm was wrapped in his shirt and dripping blood.  Off we flew to the hospital/health centre.  Luckily he knew what to do because the process was out of my experience.  There was simply no one there to receive in coming patients. However, we were quickly seen in a little messy room with several other injured men.  A Cuban doctor came by and gave a cursory glance at the gaping wound and pronounced, “Only muscle”. A huge, silent, clumsy nurse stitched it together.  I estimate about 15 stitches, dressed it, took his name, handed him a prescription for an antibiotic and told him to go home.  He spent a very bad night. 

We went back this morning.  The dressing needed to be changed and he was having a reaction to the antibiotic.  We arrived at 10:30 and were seen at 1PM.  Not that unusual I guess, but it was eerily quiet.  We sat on a bench by what was once a fountain and is now a pit with plastic bags, card board boxes and other unidentifiable bits and pieces in it.  Nothing was happening, no medical personnel in sight, only the ambulance driver and the orderly walking in and out.  Other clusters of patients were waiting.  It seems that when someone needs to go to the health centre, the entire family goes.   I thought we were about 10^th in line, but actually we were 4^th.  Later 4 or 5 policemen arrived to question the family of a man who was beaten up last night.  When we arrived, the man was passed out on the bench by the fountain in the foyer.  We got the dressing and the prescription changed.

NOTES and IMPRESSIONS:

• The hospital itself is at the top of a long steep hill.  The halt and the lame, the sick and the injured walk up
• The confidentiality cult has not hit Dominica.  Everything is conducted in the open corridors.  But, why not? Everyone knows everyone and/or they are related.  You know the concept of 6 degrees of separation?  Well, here it is 1 degree! 
• Sterilization hysteria is also not a part of the ethos in the Portsmouth Hospital!  It is dirty, run down, chipped paint and lifted floor tiles, bucket and mop propped up in the corner of the treatment room, cardboard boxes on broken chairs.
• The ‘reading’ material is a WHO booklet on Control and Surveillance of African Trypanosomiasis, the Dominica Chief Medical Officer’s report of 1996, and several pamphlets advertising the North Eastern Funeral Association.
• People will not help each other.  An old lady, in a red sequined cap, couldn’t push her even older husband in his wheelchair up over a bump in the floor.  No one helped her.  However, when they loaded the beaten up man into the ambulance, everyone was up and out the door to watch.  Whenever a door opened or someone came by, all heads would swing around and gawp.
• Prescribed drugs are cheap. 28 erythromycin cost about $5.00 Canadian. 
• The health system is 2 tiered.  You pay to go to a doctor in his/her office, and you pay for the medicine OR you go to the local Health Centre and see a non-local doctor (usually Cuban),  and free drugs, if the hospital pharmacy is open. 
• The institution does not keep records.  Each individual has “a book” which is an ordinary school exercise book and keeps it for themselves and their children.  When you seek medical help, either at the doctor’s office or the health centre, you are expected to produce ‘the book’.  “Where’s your book?” is the first question asked. The doctor or nurse transcribes what the complaint and treatment was and what drugs were given.

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FISHING

 It's raining on land, but not at sea

 Guadeloupe in the distance

Fishing

In my several years here in Dominica I have gone out many times to fish with Sono.  I enjoy the boat ride along the coast, watching the sky, waving to the other fishermen out there, seeing the yachts in full sail, watching the frigate birds, but I do not understand the excitement of actually snagging a fish.  Take today for example. The weather was fine, the sea was calm.  We went way out, and after 2 hours bouncing up and down on the waves, we caught 2 little 2 pound tuna. Sono was thrilled.  Frankly, I would have preferred that they stayed in the sea where they belong.    We ate one for supper. 

The afternoon was well worth the price of the tank of gas. 

Coming in at sunset

Moving and 'Flu

We are going to move. Sono was varnishing 10 chairs on the veranda and Mr. Pedro, the landlord who lives in the basement, had a hissy fit and told us we had to ‘get out’ by month’s end. This came as a surprise to me, but not to Sono. It is true that Pedro has been hostile for the last couple of weeks, but I was overlooking it. It turns out that Pedro has made enemies with everyone around him, no one will deal with him, everyone has banned him. The news traveled fast and our neighbours came with all kind of horror stories. “If he fall down in the street, no man would pick him up.”

However, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining, every misfortune is a blessing in disguise. We found a fantastic place, just down the road, on a side road. It is huge, bright, veranda all around, and NEW. 2 bathrooms and a second really nice big bedroom for visitors. Yes, it is more expensive, but still within my range. The view is great and there are grapefruit trees that reach up to the veranda. You just have to reach out and pick one.

Meanwhile I have had the ‘flu and it has settled in my chest. It has been a long hot couple of weeks (32 degrees C today) to spend with coughing fits and aching bones. Tylenol 3 and trips to the sea have made it tolerable. I think I am getting better.

I’ll have photos of the new dwelling and surroundings after we move at the end of the month. Here are some if the tables Sono made for a bar in Marigot, near the airport.

African Descendents

It is well known and documented that the Carib and Arawak Indians are the indigenous aboriginal people of Dominica, but it is not as widely known where the black population come from. Relatively few are the descendants of British owned slaves. Columbus found a black population on Dominica. During his second voyage in 1493, Columbus was told by the Indians of Espanola (Haiti), that Black people had been to the island before his arrival. Where did they come from? How did they get here? They came on rafts powered by the trade winds and the main stream current. Coming from West Africa they simply sailed directly across; coming from East African they came around Cape Horn and caught the trade winds taking them to the Caribbean Ocean and Islands. There is also a population with very deep French roots. These people came to France from French Africa, and from France they emigrated to the French owned islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique as Frenchmen. Guadeloupe and Martinique are within easy reach of Dominica. French surnames are prevalent in Dominica. Dominicans proudly identify themselves as “African Descendants”.

The Garbage Truck

Do you take your garbage pick up for granted? I never will again. It is frightening, anxiety provoking, nervous making when it is 80+F degrees for 10 days and the garbage truck hasn't come to your neighbourhood. It's been seen elsewhere, but not up here.

Anyhow it came today, much to my astonishment because it is "Good Friday" and Dominica closes down for the long Easter holiday. I was so sure it would sit there in the 80+F sun for another 10 days,feeding all the stray dogs and chickens.

The truck couldn't (wouldn't?) turn down to my house. When I heard it I went out and stood over it, hands on hips glaring at the poor over loaded truck. The man came and said he would take mine, he was doing me a favour and would find room. HURRAH! He didn't take Ma Pinney's from across the street. Sometimes it pays to be a white woman!