Making it Paradise...bits of Bajan life

Today, I revisit those million Kadooment photos to bring you fun scenes of the street party. Fo rmany including myself this is the highlight of Kadooment. If you jump in a band or party from the side of the road, you are guaranteed a great time. Kadooment Day street party cannot be bested :)! Let's make sure we have all the ingredients for an awesome party......... Drinks on tap....CHECK! Fully stocked bar.....CHECK! Sound system .......CHECK! :) Everything ready ....let's PARTEEEE......  If a woman can't find a man, well.......  People of every colour  Hands on your knees and roll it!!!!  Fag out..POOPED!  Bajan Yankees come home to shake dey bodies........lol  Pile up  Sandwiched !!!!  The young and the old  Til the stockings tear.  Put your cup in your mouth and free up ya hands!  This man seems hard at work! 

Over the summer while various family and friends were visiting from abroad, I picked up on a quirk I had not before as far as Bajans living abroad go. All Bajans vacationing will request two foods. The obvious cou-cou and the not so obvious soup! Reason being, when persons "over in away"  talk about soup, they are referring to some tidy broth featuring some one or two particular ingredients, you know, such as potato and leek soup or chicken noodle soup, split pea and ham soup etc. But when we Bajans talk about soup we are talking about a major cooking task! What Bajan worth their ID card would make a soup with two ingredients?  I swear I can almost hear an old relative turning in their grave at the thought. And no one just wakes up one day and decides to cook soup. Something this intricate must surely be planned in advance. And so, every house has their "soup day". For my mother that day is Wednesday! Ingredients are included on the shopping list the week ...

When was the last time you heard the word bittle? As a child growing up in agricultural St. George in the 70s, that word was used more than breakfast, lunch or dinner to describe food. I think it was used almost as term of endearment or a source of annoyance by my brother Michael , who would always inquire about his bittle in the evenings! much to my mother's dislike. She would always tell him to speak better as a young man in school. Almost unused these days, the word is traced back to the English surname Biddle which over time evolved into Bittle. I can only wonder as to why this family's name became synonymous with food. You can view the family's coat-of-arms here  http://www.houseofnames.com/bittle-coat-of-arms . But to the topic at hand. BAJANS LOVE FOOD! I mean seriously. There is the local joke that if you want people to turn up to any event just tell them food will be served. I also grew up hearing very true stories of men travelling with suits in their cars on S...

Three gabled chattel house.......beautifully maintained. I love chattel houses. I view them with equal amounts of admiration and envy. I often openly declare that any house I build will definitely be from wood and include features of the chattel house. Now ridiculed as the house of choice for the poor, the chattel house's design is ideal for our climate and to me personally, possess more charm and character than any structure built of cement.  On typically hot days their pointed and "louvred" roofs keep rooms cool. Shutter windows allow dwellers to see out but maintain privacy. And do you remember the doors that could be opened in halves just like the windows? You pushed the top half open with a prop stick while the other half remained latched!  I remember as a child laying in bed many a night listening to the boards of our home creak as they shrunk once again after a days beating from the sun. I also loved to look up close at the wood patterns glo...