Personal Impressions, Thoughts & Feelings, from the Isla

[Frank Tettemer]

Journal Entries while staying in Tobago:

March 31st, ‘03 ~~ Charlotteville, Tobago ~~

Sitting on the balcony of Moore’s Guest House, overlooking the rooftops of the village, nestled into the bowl-shaped mountains, surrounding the circular bay.

Evening has come, this holiday monday ... the national holiday of the Spiritual Baptists. Most of the country has closed it’s stores and businesses for the long weekend. People are relaxing, no fishing today, just ‘liming’ with freinds and family, strolling through the village streets, and playing at the beaches. More than half the village attended the foot ball game mid-afternoon, watching, playing, or cheering.

As the game ended at sunset, the crowds dispersed into the streets, to walk about, sit on the curbs or porches, chat and socialize in briskly paced Patois. There’s a couple hundred men, women, and children, just strolling. They’re moving slowly through the narrow streets, along the beachfront, down Bay Street, and on the pier, with dozens of ‘men-only’, sitting in the 3 or 4 beer halls, drinking “spirituos liquors”, posturing, roostering, and gesturing loudly to one another. To a Canadian like me, it seems chaotic, incomprehensible, almost as if they were shouting obscenities to one another, but on close inspection, it’s just the tone of the language that’s alien to me. They are actually all having a lot of fun.

Charlotteville and Castara. They are both, first and foremost, a Fishing Village. Here there are dozens of dories moored in the harbour, and a couple of seines, stored on poles by the beach, in the shade of the almond trees, waiting for tommorrow’s high tide in the morning for the daily quest of Jacks, Silverfish, and Kingfish. Truly a fishing village, but with one tentative foot stepping into the 21st century, reluctantly for some, awkwardly for many. Yet, a few forward-thinking villagers have accepted the coming of tourism as the next economic wave, and are wishing to build guest houses, like having a money-tree in their back yard. Some are brilliantly adapting, and becoming adept at the tourist business, all the while retaining a special respect for, and wisdom of, their Tobago Island Heritage.

April 8th, ‘03 ~~ Castara ~~

My greatest impressions to take home to Killaloe, Ontario, are of my sense of the social life of the village people. The sense of community among the village members appears to be strong. I feel that villagers co-operate with one another in a self-initiated way. Without waiting for decisions from town council, (they don’t have one), the beach gets raked and litter picked up, occasionally. The fisherman’s co-op gets cleaned, and sinks and showers are scrubbed. It appears that the facilities are shared at random, by all the fishermen, and by families and
businesses who rely on the day’s catch for their evening’s cooking.

The sense of community seems strong enough to overcome the differences and diversity of politics and religious groups. On one hand, there’s the Rastafarians, and the Seventh Day Adventists on the other, with Spiritual Baptists, Methodists, and other Christian groups all mixed together in a very small village setting.

How does this extreme mix manage to co-exist? At Castara, they somehow appear to work together well, united by occupation, fishing, and the sharing of the co-op building. And what of the Castara women? I saw too few on the beach, with their children. What social role is there for them? What gender biases lie somewhat hiddenfrom the tourists like me?

I love to cook, and learning to conjure up some meals using what ever is available here in the village has been an interesting challenge and learning experience. We ate Bonita steaks a couple days, bought from Wayne’s crew, the one with the red bottomed boat who seemed to stay out later, and bring home more, than most other fishermen. Somehow, everyone from the village seemed to know when to show up with their plastic bags to buy their fish, with their preferences for either Bonita, Dolfinfish, or Kingfish.

Pulling seine seemed to involve different individuals and different crews each day. Each combination of crew seemed to have a different person in charge, or maybe I should say that everyone was in charge. The catch each day varied immensely, from huge quantities of Jacks, to include small Squid, Round Robins, Anchovies, Yellow Fin, and Kingfish.

But my absolute favorite was the delectably sweet, pan-sized Silver Fish. Mary Anne, from the Naturalist Beach House, showed me her way of cleaning these fish and the Jacks, too. And we marinated them in a mixture of Green Thyme & Chives Sauce, fresh Lime juice, a boulion cube, and some salt. And chili peppers, habenaro, added some zing to the cooking.

We cooked a lot of rice and pigeon peas to go with our daily fish, and added what ever vegetables were available at the market in the centre of town. We’d cook the rice with the chopped vegetables to form a kind of Pelau, with onions, garlic, ginger root, green peppers, christophine, and green beans. I’d always cook up more than enough, and we’d save the leftovers to form our next day’s picnic lunch.

That kind of ‘self catering’ left us prepared for each next day with out having to spend too much money at the few restaurants. Our savings left us with enough money to rent a car for a week, and do day tours, with our picnic lunch, to a different exploration point each day. After two weeks of Tobago, we had spent time at all the leeward bays and beaches, from Castara, Englishmen’s Bay, Parletuvier, Hermitage, Cambleton Beach, Charlotteville Bay, and Pirate’s Bay.

This was a delayed honeymoon experience for Cheryl and myself. It's been grand and glorious! We've managed to get away from the pressures of the work-a-day world in Canada, and the constant challenges of parenting.
The relaxed pace of being a tourist in Tobago allowed us to spend communicative time with one another, re-affirm our love for each other, and share much intimacy.
At the moment, I don’t know how we’d finance it, but a return trip to Tobago sure seems like a plan.

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[Steve Wooler]

Thanks, Frank, for taking the time and trouble to share those lovely thoughts with us. Let's hope that you are able to return to Tobago soon.

You comment about seeing too few women and children on the beaches. I suspect this is more about taking everyday things like the beach for granted, rather than any gender bias. At weekends, and on Sundays in particular, you will regularly see lots of local families at the beach.

Yes, it is a somewhat male-dominated society, typical of all Afro-Caribbean countries and this does largely mean that the women tend the home and nurture the children whilst the men chat about more lofty intellectual matters (cricket in particular) with mates down the rum shop. There is also an economic factor - there happens to be a lot more work for women than men in Tobago and in the tourist industry in particular - waiting, cleaning, etc. As everywhere, this means that very many of the women not only have to keep the house (and the vegetable garden) and bring up the kids, but also have a job. Not a lot of time left to go to the beach!

Having lived and been brought up in the region before I returned to England, I can assure you that there is certainly no gender bias hidden (or unhidden) from tourists. Tobago Man may not exactly be New Man, but society in Tobago is much closer to Canada than repressive cultures in the Middle East, for example.

[Frank Tettemer]

Hi Steve,

You have done a fine job of organizing the forum into topics such as “Accomodations” and “Food and Drink”!! And it is clear that these topics are a important priority to most visitors, helping them to plan the nitty gritty of their intended vacation.

However, I’d really like to be a bit daring, and set a prescident for a new topic that many readers might enjoy. “Personal Impressions”. This is a topic dear to me.
Are there any readers out there who would share their thoughts and feelings from their Tobago experience? Something just a bit outside of the practical and the nitty gritty.

For example, are there any readers who could tell about their experience of how their own children interacted with local school kids from one of the villages? Or how their guest house landlord needed a plumbing part, and they thought to pick it up for him on their trip through Roxborough. I would love to hear a story about how someone assisted the fishermen with pulling seine and how that developed into a form of brief friendship. And how about the time a visitor helped out a stranded motorist, and ended up having an informal dinner with his family?

These are the kinds of sensitive material I am interested in, the “meat and potatoes” of great story sharing. (Or should I say “Fish, Rice, and Peas”???)

I would love to invite readers to share their most sensitive, or embarassing, or humourous, stories. Is there anyone who would like to continue this thread, and share their personal impressions of Tobago?

Thanks for your kind indulgences.
Frank Tettemer
Killaloe, Ontario, Canada

[Steve Wooler]

Hello Frank

Not a bad idea, actually. What does everyone thing. I'm conscious of not wanting to confuse things by having too many forums, but if there's a demand, I'm more than happy to provide the facility. Just let me know everyone.

[Ann E]

Hi there Steve,Yes I think it would be a good idea, I'm sure most people would find it very interesting, that's providing you don't mind the extra work setting it up.

[Niki Byrne]

Personally I think it would be better left as a topic in the forum rather than a separate forum. If you are not very gifted at expressing yourself and writing 'stories' (like me !) then it is a difficult thing to do I think, and it just adds another forum to the list already here. I personally wouldn't add to it, but would be interested to read others points of view - but I would have thought people could just add to this topic.

Sorry - bit of a garbled message but I hope it is understandable

Niki