Small Days - Barbados

I spent a year living in Barbados with my parents and siblings . I was about eight to nine years old. The most memorable time in my life in Barbados was going to the beach which was not far from our apartment, moving to a farmhouse in the country area and Crop Over. The farm house also know as a Chattel House we moved to belong to my Dad's friend, it was a small two bedroom cottage made out of wood and it was old and smelt like rotten cucumber and breadfruit. The windows were few, made out of wood and was falling apart, there was no kitchen sink or

refrigerator just a small kerosene oil stove and worst of all the toilet and bath (outhouse) was outside under a large Breadfruit tree, I never like going out there in the night or early morning because the fallen rotten breadfruits attracted slimy, yucky slugs. Nevertheless I loved our little farm cottage because after spending an hour being home schooled by my mom we were allowed to spend the rest of the day roaming neighborhood farms of fruit trees, bringing home at the end of the day ochroes and breadfruit for my mother to transform into some wonderful dishes. The best part of living in Barbados was the Crop Over (Carnival), my dad would set up a large watermelon stand along the carnival route and the revelers would stop by to buy the sweet juicy watermelon slices. We would spend the day at the stand looking at the revelers, the parade and dancing to the soca beat of the bands passing and at the end of the dad my dad would pack up his stand and we would head home tired and belly filled with watermelon.