The town is old French colonial. The early buildings here have remained, unburnt, unsacked and not demolished to make way for new Chinese financed football stadia. This impression is not diminished by the large hospital set up at the port, nor by the many modern condo complexes in the outskirts.
Last evening, Alicia and I went in to dine at a small barbecue restaurant by the port. Delicious spare ribs and crudités. Before dinner we walked about a bit and found a co-op gallery, artist in residence with his self published books of works. Alicia fascinated, of course. We have not checked in at customs. The office closed at 12:30 and we missed yesterday, so this morning we go in again to settle the formalities. The office is packed with people, speaking Polish and other indecipherable eastern European languages, all helping each other to peck through the computerized customs entry form. There are four computers and twenty people in the room. I am hoping that they all come from the same ship. Not the case. Eventually we get a seat at one of the machines and Alicia calls out the entries as I struggle with the non qwerty keyboard. French!
Once through the system, we are out on the streets of Malin again on a Sunday morning, not expecting much in the way of activity. In St Lucia, everyone would be in church. We were happily surprised.
Our stroll takes us to a large roofed in area, set up for a dance band. Its noon, but tables are set up, lunch is being served and bottles of whiskey and rum are arrayed on the reserved tables. Over a plate of crudités, including boudin and fish croquettes, the artist and designer otherwise known as Alicia and I enjoy the music of the band, jazzy and Caribbean at the same time.
Strolling on along the shore we came upon a happy and excited crowd. Today is race day for the traditional 30 ft. sailing canoes. These carry doubled masts lashed together for extra stiffness and bamboo sprits. Fifteen crew each manhandle a stout pole out onto which they climb to hold the boat down in the wind. Steering is with a long oar, much like the whale boat steering oars we saw in Bequia. The boats are all sponsored by local companies. Digicell is big, the local beer and bank interests all have boats in the fleet. The fleet sails off the beach, starting 50 yds off and sailing to leeward out to the entrance of the bay several miles out. Then they tack back to the rounding mark off the beach, great for the spectators, eating and drinking and dancing to the drum and chorus band under tents. Twice down and a final leg to windward, finishing off the beach gives us all a wonderful thrill. I am reminded of the Bermuda fitted dinghy fleet I sailed in for some years. Fourteen ft. dinghies with a keel bolted on taking on a crew of seven. These Martiniquais craft are far bigger, faster and more tender than were our dinghies. Tremendous athleticism in their sailing. Three men on the helming oar. But the spirit and traditions are the same. I am pleased to see the blending of commercial sponsorship with the traditional construction and rig of the boats. The sponsorship money has not changed this sport at all, only allowed it to flourish. The boats from elsewhere on the island are carried away on large flat bed trucks.
After plenty of fun for one day, we returned to Django determined to get a bit work done. The afternoon sun is just too much, we enjoy a quiet nap instead, rocked gently by the waves.
No comments:
Post a Comment