Dumanddummer

LQ I am in awe I don't know where people find time to finish a book or even read espeacially for pleasure After a long day of work PTA school IZ all I want to do is lie on the couch and watch House MD The OC Laundry piles up floors get dirty spare time clean cook wash press groan Don't know 'bout politics economy world issues fashion new music lit Don't know 'bout philosophy history science geography The more I learn about the bible the more I realize I don't really know anything 'bout that either Let alone contemplate translating in Greek Hebrew Latin researching in French German.

I feel like I'm drowning in a world of smart idiots.

I can hear an icecream truck.

Snozzle and the Grimsby Pentecostals

I rushed from work yesterday to get to IZzy's school for I had been told that we were hosting a group of Canadians with puppets. Remembering the good old days of "From my head down to my toes....my body my body belongs to me", I wanted to see what our Canucks would do for de Bajans. Well rotting potatoes and defective merchandise is not the only thing us Third World are stuck with; we get a 1/2 dozen dirty, dischevelled fat folk with hearing aids screaming "I say foundation- You say Jesus!" Blame it on my Protestant education but I have a hard time with my gag reflex when it comes to evangelicals.

They stood there with two skinny sticks each and did a skinny stick dance which ended with them making a 1/2 dozen skinny stick crosses then brought out Snozzle the homemade puppet who spoke in a Southern Hick trying to be Bajan accent: "Wait for I. I going to school too!" (note: bajan "Wheighht for muh nuh, I wahn guh tu-ee school tuh.")

The icing on the cake was "You know kids, you here in Barbados are superduper lucky. Where I come from in Canada we aren't allowed to speak about Jesus in school. Can you imagine that?"

Oh Canada! I forgive them for bad mouthing you behind your back. Be comforted by the fact that as God is made in our image, he was able to turn down his hearing aid.

Elmer's Enema

Doing my crossword puzzle, the police roll up.
In typical bad speaking cop bad mute cop style I am chastized in a passively threatning manner for the delay in getting PTA paperwork in order.
I feel like a convicted fellon.
Police brutality and scare tactics exist everywhere but in BIM it reeks of post-colonialism.
In order to remove the crate of misguided power lodged in our force's intestinal tract I propose that Elmer the Elephant swim south and give our boys an enema.

The Man Eating Snake

Fund-raising, Educational Programming, Installation Service of Officers, Expansion of School Library no nothing can rouse the PTA executive committee from boredom. I stare at their faces- a cup of apathy with a dash of disdain- any questions any comments? Do You Speak English? OVEN O-V-E-N. Nothing. I say my bit. A moment of silence and then SLAM!!!! Two fists on the desk. "I have something very important to discuss!- Shut up! Listen. There is a snake in this area and I can't leave home after 5pm."

Yes, there is a snake as big as a bus pole in the neighbourhood. Chickens, lambs, whole cows even have gone missing. It has an insatiable appetite and craves human flesh. The lives of our children are in danger. The PTA awakens- NOW we have something worth discussing. 45 minutes pass. I interrupt.

"So what about that meeting with our parliamentary representative?"

"Is it after 5pm? Sorry can't go."

New Year Same Old

BIM is a magical place where time is suspended. Things happen slow not because of the heat or the culture but because the clock here forgets to tick. Maybe father time is too busy drinking rum. You can leave here a year and be gone a day and everyone is right where you left them. There's Henny chauffering the boar to do his service, there's the ugly-crazy man on the corner making tourists pay for directions, there's the pregnant girl still pregnant again, there's the old red man with the stick starting out his daily pilgrimage to the shop. One day I'll wake up and the youths will be calling me mums, then again and I'll be gran but one thing's for sure 2006 is waiting for Days of Our Lives 1989 to finish and anyone trying to rush her gets swept with the tide.