You Gotta Be Prepared

“And I'm not talking boyscout prepared. I mean big time prepared. This is El Carib, the Caribbean, home of voodoo and whodoo and all kinds of weird ….” The preceding was a quote from the movie Captain Ron. I open this post with it because the fact is he had a good point. Now, we did our homework, made friends before coming down here, and did a whole lot of checking before we came. However, there are often things that slip your mind or things you wish you'd known before you make such a dramatic change in lifestyle with your wife and seven children in tow.


So, what's so dramatic? Well, we don't have a car yet. That's not really that big a deal, but we're living in the village of Soufriere and, although we can get things like bread and eggs without any trouble at all, you have to go in town if you want something like a phone. Now, it's only a little further from here to Roseau than it was from my old house to down town Williston and even closer than it was to Barnwell or Akien (for those of you who don't know those are cities in South Carolina that are a good bit larger than Williston). However, the difference is that the ride from here to Roseau is about 30 minutes and if you don't have a car of your own you have to catch a mini-bus cab. Figure round trip to run up town, buy a phone and get home would be about an hour and a half. Plus you have to pay cab fare. Still, considering the fact that it's EC$5 each way that means you only pay around US$3.75 round trip. I'm sure I never got to Aiken and back for so little money.


Either way, when you go to town you want to do your best to get everything you need. This can be difficult considering you have to pack your stuff into a cab full of people to make the trip home. The other side of that coin is that the cab men will pack almost anything into the cab for you. Yesterday on my ride back home I was seated beside four tires and four lawn chairs. The Dominican motto for cabs is: “There's always room for one more.” So, when you go to town go make a list and really put some thought into it as you make it. You don't want to get home and remember you've forgotten something.

For those of you that will find it interesting I want to give you our grocery list and the prices for our first trip to the grocery.
Dish washing liquid: EC$6.17 / US$2.31
Close up toothpaste: EC$5.65 / US$2.12
Coke 2L: EC$8.44 / US$3.16
Instant Coffee (50 grams): EC$8.85 / US$3.31
Powdered Milk (Makes roughly 0.85 gallons): EC$10.90 / US$4.08
Eggs (Dozen): EC$9.90 / US$3.70
Toilet Paper (12 Rolls): EC$21.92 / US$8.20
Peanut Butter (18 ounce): EC$15.99 / US$5.99
Grape Jelly (32 ounce): EC$25.37 / US$9.50
Ketchup (14 ounce): EC$5.95 / US$2.22
Margarine (1KG): EC$23.86 / US$8.94
Sandwich bread: EC$4.02 / US$1.51


We've bought more since then and I can tell you that it's very expensive to move down here and try to eat US style. You can live here well and cheaply from a grocery point of view (at least so they tell me) if you learn to eat local. Food does literally grow on the trees around here. Dilian walked us down to the beach yesterday (three blocks) and found a fresh mango on the ground beneath a mango tree. The tree was loaded with them. There are actually bananas growing in the yard of the house we're leasing. The real moral of all this is that you should learn to cook like a local before you come here. Know what fruits you want to buy. Get an idea of what to cook and how. You don't want to do what I did and walk through the grocery store wondering what you wanted to buy because you have no idea how to cook the many varieties of fish for sale. (They also eat a lot of chicken, but we haven't bought any yet.)


Now, before I give any of you the idea that the island is too expensive to live on I did want to point out that electricity is affordable and many people pay less that EC$200.00 / US$75.00 a month. I also managed to buy a cheapy phone for EC$30.00 / US$11.24 which isn't too bad. The thing is the cost of living is kind of what you make it. Either way that's enough for the moment. I'll try to do a post tonight about what we've done over the first couple of days later tonight.