Maryhelen Shuman-Groh
I’m staying south of the capital city of Roseau the seat of government and all the related offices. Getting around this side of the island is fairly easy with mini buses running regularly. They are $1.75EC from here. You wait on the road and signal them as they approach. If the vehicle isn’t overflowing, and sometimes even if it is, they stop and you climb in. Whoever is stuck in the ‘door’ seat gets to jump in and out with every stop. It is a wild and woolly ride in the packed minibus to town where everyone unloads in the area known as Old Market. I am obviously the ‘visitor’ on the bus.
From Old Market I make my way to the waterfront and find the Information Center and Dominica Museum directly across from the cruise ship dock. The Info Center has a large service desk to accommodate the masses when the ships dock. Today there is one staff member and only 3 of us tourists wandering around looking at maps and advertising. The museum costs $8EC. It is a small facility on the second floor of the Info Center. The layout follows the island’s geologic beginnings to early known settlement by Arawaks then Caribs, the colonial period through independence in 1978.
Roseau Cruise Ship Dock
Geologic Formation of Dominica
Carib Hut
Flourishing Creole Culture
Fading Colonialism
I locate Digicel by looking for the ‘big red roof’ as I am told when asking directions. Yes, the large building with red roof has a large banner reading Digicel but none of the 4 doorways around the building indicate which is theirs. I venture through one that at least has phones among the displays I can see from the street. I learn it is The Muslim Store, its actually name, and the nice woman tells me that they do sell cell phones but I am most likely looking for Digicel which is upstairs and accessed from the unmarked doorway outside her store. Like everyone else, she can tell I am a ‘visitor’ although from what I have seen of Dominica, her tradition Islamic attire stands out as well.
I obtain the phone and cell service with SIM card I need at much less than the cost of similar service at home and even more welcome, with no sales pitch whatsoever. I actually just told them what I needed and they gave me 2 options then signed me up – no two year contract required. Take that, Verizon!!!
On to Dowasco. It is a short walk but very hot. I am feeling first hand the Urban Heat Island Effect we studied last term. It is an amazing contrast – I am roasting on the narrow streets of Roseau. As soon as I step out onto the waterfront, the temperture seems to drop 20 degrees and air becomes breathable again. I take the long way around to High Street using the waterfront road. Even for such a small country, I somehow expected their national water company headquarters to be larger. Today’s meeting turns out to be a formality in order to set up a meeting for Monday.
DOWASCO
There is a nice gallery and restaurant at the bus stop where I rest for a while and have a local dish – curried goat. This is a dish I have had in Tampa and found not too appealing but this version comes highly recommended so I opt for it. As I enter one of the cooks pops out and takes me by the shoulder and says laughing, “I was on the bus with you this morning. If I had known you were coming here, I would have brought you right away! Did you get lost???” The setting is lovely and the food delicious.
Talipot Gallery & Restaurant
Curried Goat with Coconut Chutney, Curried Chckpeas, Mango Chutney, Saffron Rice and Lentils
The trip home is longer. Three full buses pass before I am taken onboard the fourth that seems just as stuffed as the first three. I somehow manage to squeeze in and the driver asks my destination as we bounce down the road. There is one more stop to take on a passenger before we make any significant progress south. At one stop an elderly woman gets out and people from the rear of the bus pass up her groceries – it appears each person has been holding one of her parcels. She lines them up along side the road as a couple of kids run out of a nearby house to assist and the driver calls out, “You all set, Mama?” checking to be sure the woman is all right before zipping back into the traffic.
My stop comes and another passenger gets out as well. We are not next to house, though, but left off in a rain gully an foot wide and nearly knee deep – behind us, vertical wall, – ahead a wall of speeding cars. The other passenger walks south in the gully. I stand waiting for a break in the oncoming cars then have to spring up and run for it – not fun as I don’t spring quite the way I used to.
Today’s major water observation on the streets of Roseau: I passed several hydrants and everyone one of them leaked:
Leaking hydrant along Roseau waterfront
The trip home is longer. Three full busses pass before I am taken on-board the fourth that seems just as stuffed as the first three. I somehow manage to squeeze in and the driver asks my destination as we bounce down the road. There is one more stop to take on a passenger before we make any significant progress south. At one stop an elderly woman gets out and people from the rear of the bus pass up her groceries – it appears each person has been holding one of her parcels. She lines them up along side the road as a couple of kids run out of a nearby house to assist and the driver calls out, “You all set, Mama?” checking to be sure the woman is all right before zipping back into the traffic.
My stop comes and another passenger gets out as well. We are not next to house, though, but left off in a rain gully an foot wide and nearly knee deep – behind us, vertical wall, – ahead a wall of speeding cars. The other passenger walks south in the gully. I stand waiting for a break in the oncoming cars then have to spring up and run for it – not fun as I don’t spring quite the way I used to.
Very happy to be back at the Office at the Bar. Already the crew here knows that I am ‘working’ and they leave me in peace to get in at least a few hours of writing until sunset when it is time to order dinner after which I will be very happy to go to sleep.
Sunset from Castle Comfort Lodge