WINDIES DIARY 2013 PART EIGHT

ROSEHALL

Merlin decided to export his 'gift' from Mayreau to Rosehall. More of this later.


We are now in Rosehall. This is the village on St. Vincent where Trish's parents grew up and of course her mum is still living here. The journey to Rosehall is a precarious one whether you travel by dollar van, taxi or private car. St.Vincent is mountainous and the roads are narrow and old, often doubling back on each other with the most hairaising of hairpin bends which pitch the traveller either up or down at the end of them. Traffic coming in the opposite direction hogs the middle of the road as do we. The only way to avoid a head on collision and at times, a sheer drop into the Caribbean Sea, is the tactic of blowing your horn as you approach the bend. Thus the two drivers should always hear each other, as only the tough ride with windows up in this humidity. Indeed the horn is an essential part of the St. Vincent M.O.T. As are brakes and lights. But that's it. Approved for another year. Worrying. Especially as actually steering round these deadly mountain roads accurately is essential. Merlin is at this moment considering asking for a 'St. Vincent M.O.T. when his capacious Volvo is next due in Sweden. After about an hour and fifteen minutes climb, a decent half an hour shy of the Vinncy Van public bus/taxi record, held by an individual named Dan, you arrive in Rosehall.

The terror climb is worth it, for Rosehall is the highest village on the island and overlooks the impressive Mt. Soufrié volcano as does The O'Garro house, our home for the next few days. This means we have an unimpeded view of sweeping rainforested hills dwarfed by the slopes of the giant. Clouds come and go at its summit, some hug and swirl round the top of the crater, plugged since 1978, when it spewed forth flaming rock, smoke, and dust, while the lightning flashed, lighting up a false dawn. The occasional hawk rides the hot up currents circling with a very occasional flap of wing swooping and soaring, looking for prey on the ground and perhaps in the air.

Below the house on this side of the valley, a multitude of tees and bushes grow, tended by Cousin Elwin a gnarled almost toothless septuagenarian with hands as tough as leather and a handshake to match. He lives at the house and is part of the family. The greenery also produces a wealth of fruit and vegetables, mango, breadfruit, dasheen, coconut and plantain. It's as green and forested as far as the eye can see. It's also hot and humid. Even when the occasional rain arrives, the humidity afterwards saps the energy from the unready. The rain arrives now, rolling in from the valley between the slopes of Soufrié, warm and refreshing but bringing also the humidity that will follow. An inescapable heat which permeates every move and gesture, sapping not only strength but patience.

The house we live in is grand, but like all houses here, be they spacious modern homes or the ramshackle shacks that often stand next to them, the roof is made of corrugated metal. This gives the rain terrific amplification reminding me of countless camping holidays spent cowering under canvas as rain sheeted down. The noise is as intense here on our roof as that on a tent.

In the yard at the back of our house is the dwelling occupied by Claude, another family member. This shack belonged many years ago to the newly wed O'Garros, before they journeyed to England to seek a better life, before they returned after years of hard labour to build the house we live in now. The shack stands as a kind of reminder of the old days and to shelter Claude, a wild eyed rum drinking Vinccy, who can frequently be seen shouting at the fields at the front or back of our house. He is there now, dressed in grimy tshirt and cut off jeans, half empty rum bottle in hand cursing the wind and rain in the already incomprehensible dialect of the islands, made worse by the influence of the drink.
He ducks into his shack, a multicoloured one storey board house, the size of a decent garden shed back home, its rusting tin roof held down in places by chunks of stolen breeze block.

As soon as it begins, it is over. The sun breaks through the cloud and the rainforest steams. The steam rises and joins the other clouds in the sky and the Caribbean Sea re emerges from the haze and sparkles again, horizontal bottomed clouds scudding together along the horizon as if waiting for someone with a barrel bent rifle to take them down and win a fairground prize. A white sailboat rounds the corner where a black sanded beach, always deserted, juts out into the sea, ahead of a natural bay for which the boat is headed. The sounds of our village rise again, dogs bark, tied to winding backyard trees, small children and mothers refuse to yield giving way to high pitched raised voices, reggae throbs in the distance while a man sings and someone nearby is having their hair cut as the electric buzz of the clippers joins in the gentle cacophony. A small green lizard, yellow bellied and swift, appears on the balcony. It stops for a moment and hurries on, descending the wall and disappearing into the bush. A breeze whips up. There is more rain coming. The cycle continues.