Week 19

Imagine, this is how stories begin in Dominica. Imagine, this post is late because yesterday was a holiday in Dominica, Pentacost Monday. Imagine, yesterday morning I went up to the garden (farm) to pick cherries and passion fruit. Imagine, this morning I woke up at 5 am to start my cooking. When the story is a joke though you begin with, let me give you a joke. This certainly makes it easier to know when to laugh.

Sometimes I have trouble laughing at the right time anyways because whenever someone tells me to imagine (some people say it as a command) I want to sing, “Imagine there's no Heaven, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky, Imagine all the people, Living for today.” Imagine, I didn’t know the lyrics until I looked them up last week and have actually been singing, “Imagine all the people living inside the world.”

Imagine, people are always telling me to “free myself up.” Which means a mixture of relax, have fun and stop searching for things to do. I’ve been working quite hard at freeing myself up.

This weekend I spent most of Saturday freeing myself up. To promote Salisbury’s Reunion (2 full weeks of events this summer which Salisbarian’s living in the diaspora are returning for) we had a Reunion Train on Saturday. The Reunion Train was a motorcade (about 20 cars) led by a dumper with huge speakers driving up the west coast of Dominica playing music, talking about Reunion, beeping and pulling up on the side of the road to dance. Mind you there is only one road up the west coast so Reunion may have made some enemies too. Some of the cars behind us did not want to free themselves up.

The Reunion Train ended with a party at the Reunion Bar (a fundraising bar for Reunion which is just 100 yards away from my apartment). Because of my location and my participation on the Miss Salisbury Reunion Pageant Committee it was requested that I make my apartment available for the contestants and their chaperones to change and reapply makeup before attending the party. Imagine 12 pageant ladies and me getting ready for a party.

I freed myself up at the party. It is much easier thanks to my new best friend, Sheriff. He is not actually the Sheriff. I think it’s his nickname because he bosses people around a lot. He especially loves bossing around men who try to talk to me. Imagine, a guy comes up to chat with me and Sheriff swoops in and tells him to stay away from me and stands there until the guy leaves. Sometimes he’ll even follow the guy and continue to yell at him. Sometimes he’ll yell at me to not stand in certain locations. This weekend he decided that when I’m helping in the bar I should only stand on the side away from the door because people can reach over the door to touch me. Sheriff’s knowledge about men in the community is spot on though. Imagine, I saw the guy who spent all Friday night telling me he loves me and will take care of me forever in church with his wife on Sunday morning. Sheriff told him never to look at me.

Me, Sheriff and Sheriff’s sidekick