One day last week two guys came to the door selling lobster tails. I bought a bag of 12 for $20 and they are very delicious. Another day, a different fellow brought us this red snapper as a gift from our landlady. She is the best!!!!! We ate two last night for dinner and again, they were very delicious!!!
These are some of the students from the Beacon School for Handicapped Children. Judy and I went there one afternoon to help make costumes for Junkanoo. What is that you may ask and I am still asking!!!! It is something like Mardi Gras, a great excuse to have a parade with lots of whistle blowing, drum banging and loud music. Great fun!!! We stuck little gold balls on the pants that had already been covered with crepe paper. Don't ask. They looked fantastic until I saw them in the parade and couldn't see one gold ball as the kids were moving so much and having a great time!!!
These are just a few of the many "hats" the kids wore to match their costumes. They really looked wonderful as they marched along the route.
A glorious afternoon with a picnic lunch was spent at Gold Rock Beach in Lucayan National Park. You park across the road from the beach. On this side of the road their are caves that we are going back to do another day. As you cross the road there is a vendor selling everything from icy cold drinks to shirts from the back of a truck. You walk through some mangroves on a boardwalk and over a bridge where you can actually feed the fish with bread purchased from the ticket people. Surprising to me as normally one is not suposed to feed anything in a National Park or take anything out like pretty flowers or plants or shells. It was grreat fun watching the feeding frenzy as the many varieties of fish competed for lunch. The book says it takes about 25 minutes to drive there from Freeport but it took me a lot longer as I tend to really take my time. It isn't just the driving on the left it is also about the roundabouts.I remember roundabouts from my British childhood as being all black and white and very scary. For anyone who doesn't know how they work this is the basic rule: the guy going around the circle is "it" and your job is to get into the game and become "it". Once you have dashed into position, you could stay there all day just circling around should you wish or you can leave the circle generally by 4 different exits. Everyone sitting at the exits is waiting for you to leave so they can get into the game. At first I found these obstacles to driving to be really scary but now, I think they are fun!!!!
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Here's the Golf Guy doing his thing. We have been here for 11 days and Ray is off golfing right now for the third time. He's having fun. I went last Friday to drive the cart, offer advice, mark the card according to Ray's instructions of how many strokes (I never know. I'm bird watching or taking pictures or drinking a coke!!!) and even to pass him the right club once. It was a putter!!!
Saturday night we took a cab into Freeport to participate in Junkanoo. We paid $10 each to get bleacher seats and what a wonderful experience it was. I have never seen such gorgeous costumes in any other parade. I should mention this was the Junior Parade comprised of all the local schools. There were 20 of them and it took three hours!!!!! Lots of big spaces but so worth the wait. By the end, I was frozen. I kid you not. It was really cool sitting for so long. We have been loving the daily temperatures so much nicer than the heat and humidity of Mexico last November.
Here's Judy holding hands with her charge. You can see she was having a great time. The school's theme was about flying free and they all had their arms and hands going to some great music coming from their own band. Proud moments!!!!
We asked our taxi driver to come back and pick us up and when we explained that we didn't have a cell phone, much to her surprise, she told us to just ask a policeman and they would call a cab for us. "Sure!" I said in great disbelief but after the parade when I asked two police officers where I could find a pay phone they asked if they could help and then called us a cab!!!! Now, that is "To SERVE and protect!!!!"
On my Bucket List was to go to a really sensational black church where there was great music and lots of "and the people said amen!!!" so Sunday we went to St. John's Native Baptist Church with Judy and Anthony as it had a reputation for being the church of my dreams. It was quite the experience. The people of this church couldn't have made us feel more welcome. Lots and lots of hugs and welcomes. Yes, we were the only white poeple in the congregation!!! Yes, there was hand raising, singing, dancing in the aisles and lots and lots of amens and praise the Lords but........ Next Sunday we are going to try to find another church with faster music. I hear there are 300 churches on the island so we will find the church of my dreams I'm sure.Please note the woman on the right above. Notice the camera? Well, she took more pics of us leaving the building and getting into our car than I did. Wonder what she wrote in her blog this week? A miracle, a miracle...........................................
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