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| "Mushroom Rock", An original 16 x 20 acrylic painting by Mark Phillips |
Happy Easter!
At around 0230hrs this morning, I finally finished "Mushroom Rock". "Finished", might be too strong a word. I just stopped.
Today I will share you part of the work of literary artist Ian R. Clayton. This is the Bathsheba story. I enjoy his work and I hope that you do as well.
This is Bathsheba, a small community nestled about a thin
road that stretches for a few miles on the edge of a rugged coast. It lies at
the foot of a hill and three roads, like fingers, point up the steep incline to
the main connector routes the East Coast road and Horse Hill road. Horse Hill
climbs over the center of the island to the West Coast. It is so steep that the
older buses pipe blue smoke and can not go faster than a few miles an hour on
the climb. I know this because I tried to pass one in my mother's 16 year old
Suzuki, the one with the sewing machine for an engine. My top speed was 12 mph,
only slightly faster than the slowly moving bus.
The village has its characters, the local surfers and their
buddies like Horse, Snake, Smoky, Ace, Hoggy and Oz. World famous surfer Mark
Holder (The Boss) is my neighbour, living in a yellow chattel house with his
family.
I came home tonight before sunset and had to edge the car
around a bull eating the hedge at the end of the drive. Villagers bring their
cows, black bellied sheep and goats to graze wherever they see green. The soil
is dry and barren, grass is scarce. I walked down the lane a little later and
carefully passed the bull. It was still there, big, calm, happy, eating and
looking very much like a bull. I met Snake, we exchanged acknowledgements:
"Hi, hi man, howdy". "How is it?". "Good, man, and
you?". "Great". "See you". A car passed and blew its
horn at some lights on the corner. A busy night.
I was on my way to Round House, an inn and restaurant
catering to tourist and upper class Bajans. The boys, Snake, Smoky and the Boss
come here on reggae nights when their girls "from away" are in town.
The walk to Round House is about 1/2 mile from where I am
staying. It ambles along the tiny road which used to be a railway track. It's
twilight, I pass Smoky's shack where a young couple, tourists, sit watching the
sea. They sit at a lone table in a room with no front wall. Smoky has knocked
out the front walls to allow a better view of the sea. Some people say he
knocked down the walls because he likes knocking down walls, but it looks like
a creative and not destructive act. Smoky plans to make the shack into a bar
and restaurant, but the health authorities denied his licence three times. He
is still trying to get it approved; in the meantime you can join him and his
herd of mongrel dogs for refreshments, TV and a chat, almost anytime.
Past Smoky's is the Bajan Surf Bungalow, run by Melanie, a
world class surfer, who cooks flying fish lunches for her guests and runs the
place in between a busy surfing schedule. Surfing is tough she says, "I
get hit by boards, cut by coral and flung to the bottom by powerful waves that
will knock the stuffing out of the fittest of us. Then I have to deal with all
the guys trying to take possession of my waves and sometimes me. Some are just
not cool". She is off to Brazil to represent Barbados in a couple of weeks.
She is a pretty girl, in excellent shape from surfing and walking fast up and
down the hills. Anna from England is staying with her, recovering from a broken
heart. Bathsheba is a great place to recover, I think, from everything.
Round House is at the bottom of the North finger road which
winds down a very steep hill. The buses
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| "The Soup Bowl", An original 16 x 20 acrylic painting by Mark Phillips |
don't pass this way and my Suzuki, can
only make it with a running start. Round House food is wholesome fried fish
fare with friendly service. People come for the ambiance, the view and the raw
feeling of the place. Patsy the waitress, sometimes bar tender, cook and
manager is a great hostess. She has a lovely smile and a gentle, sincere way
with her guests. She loves Bathsheba, grew up here and never wants to leave.
Got herself involved with a couple of guys who played around. Now she wonders
what the hell commitments mean. She and her 6 year old daughter live just up
the hill. She wants a rottweiler to keep her company now instead of a man.
"I'll not trust a man again" she tells me. "I could not get
close to you, if you were interested, I just would never trust you, a dog I can
trust, a man, who can?". Hard words from such a slight and gentle person.
But hurt will turn a warm heart cold and rob it of all feeling. Betrayal is a
wretched kind of hurt. Playing around is part of the nature of many of these
fun-loving Barbadian men. It's a game, a sport that becomes an addiction,
almost a definition of who they are.
There is a church by the sea just down the road from a baker
and rum shop. It is right beside Rest Haven, a rustic and overpriced apartment
guesthouse. It is a community of traditional chattel houses, about four in all,
close to some of the best surfing on the island. The chattel houses are old,
and mostly held together by paint. Termites have half eaten them. Each house
has a central room that acts as dining room, sitting room and an extra bedroom.
Painted plywood tables and hard upright school chairs suggest fast food and
heavy drinking rather than gourmet dining. It's a surfers den.
Sea-U Guest house, just up the hill on the South finger, is
the most upscale accommodation in the neighbourhood. It really is in Trents, a
fishing outpost just to the south of Bathsheba. Beside Sea-U is Atlantis, a
rather ugly concrete structure with a wonderfully authentic old-world feeling.
The food is good local fare: pudding and souse, peas and rice, plantain, stews
and fresh catch of the day. The dining room hangs above the water where
fishermen land their catch. The wind blows strong through the open veranda.
On the North border of the village, above Round House, is
Edgewater Inn. It has endured a multitude of owners and neglect. Wind and salt
have taken a toll. Nothing survives the constant salt-abrasive wind. Rust seeps
through cement walls and drips down painted wood. Cement structures decay from
the inside out. Their reinforced iron rods rust, expand and crumble. Rust,
wood, cement and strips of metal hold structures together by accident, it
seems. Yet it is utterly charming and real. You sense a history and a past,
rich with experience. The old buildings have a raw charm and fit perfectly into
place.
It's a raw place this Bathsheba, but Bajans and tourists
come here to escape and to recuperate: to breath the invigorating air, clean
and fresh from its passage over thousands of miles of open sea; to feel the
wild, moist wind on their faces, blowing all cares away. Many affluent Bajans
own holiday homes here. They come for weekends and for vacations. They rent
them out to friends. At Catllewash, half a mile north of Bathsheba village,
there is a community of these holiday homes.
Cattlewash Holiday-Home owners are mostly white Bajans. They
are not necessarily racially divided, just miles apart in culture, interests
and lifestyles. On weekends and holidays they entertain at Catlewash with fish
and chicken BBQ's, gourmet dinners with fine wine, and rum punch parties in the
day. Cattlewash homeowners don't know Snake or Oz and have no interest in these
lives.
Bathsheba is where the Cattlewash community buys bread, rum
and other necessities. It has several rum shop-stores, a baker, an art studio
and fruit and vegetable stalls. On the hilltop there is a surprisingly good
mini supermarket that sells a variety of wine, food and provisions. The service
is friendly and warm, with great attention to detail. I nearly bought
vegetarian bacon, but the owner came over to show me the finest local bacon. If
you want a local breadfruit, just ask and she get someone to pick a fresh, ripe
one for you.
Stores are not just places to buy things, they are social
clubs. People meet and chat even in the supermarket. Every corner store is a
rum shop where talk and rum, good company and sharing are dispensed with candy
bars, soap and cooking oil.
It was different in the old days when the trains ran along
the coast to Bridgetown. The Gibsons came with picnic baskets, suitcases, the
children and the cow. There was no store selling fresh milk and Mrs. Gibson
knew that fresh milk was important for the family, especially the growing boys,
so they always tried to bring Nelly the cow. Each year, when Mr. Gibson took
his month's holiday from the sugar factory, they came by truck, packing cases,
Nelly and the boys piled into the back. Sometimes Mrs. Gibson and the boys
came by train for just a week, sometimes they came just for the weekend. There
were always friends and families in the nearby homes; the children played in
the Gully, caught crayfish in Joe's river and picked sea moss from the rocks.
Mrs. Gibson boiled the sea moss and made it into a jelly which they ate. It
did not taste so great but it was good for you.
It was before Surfboards had been, but young Bathsheba boys
still played in the waves, without a thought of being stars. They stared at the
families getting off the train and piling into donkey carts for the ride to
Cattlewash; white ladies in white lace, elegant and upright under straw hats
and parasols. They were in different worlds, much more so then than now. Beach
boys in the early 1900 could not be stars, they could not hope to mix with the
ladies or their children. But the worlds have changed. White boys today ride
the waves with Boss and the gang. The mothers and the boys dance reggae in the
same crowd on Fridays at the Round House, while Mrs. Gibson turns in her grave.
( TITLE: WorldSagas.com-6-Bathsheba: Life in a fishing village. AUTHOR: Ian R Clayton)
As always, thank you for reading. I apologize for the length of this post. However, it is Easter and we can all spend some extra time relaxing. If you would like to read more of these types of post rather that having me drone on about myself, please leave a comment. And I will really appreciate if you share this post with your friends. And to make sure that you don't miss any future posts, Please enter your email address in the subscribe by email box on the right. Please continue to enjoy your Easter holiday.
Mark Phillips
Artist
Email:- mark@phillipsbajanart.com
Website:- www.phillipsbajanart.com
Online Store:- PhillipsArtStore
