A three-mile drive out of Christchurch in search of Saturday
morning’s newspapers brought me to an all-purpose retail
place in St David’s where, at first, I could picture
myself in Carnbee, Tobago.
Under a beach umbrella outside the mini-mart, village limers
were lolling about observing the customer traffic. Empty brown
bottles of Bank’s and others of white rum recorded progress
of the morning lime.
Just two newspapers remained on the counter inside, but pudding
and souse was in good supply. In the ten-dollar styrofoam
basin I ordered, pig parts swam in the lime-and-cucumber water,
but the special feature was the rock of pudding also standing
in the stream.
Black pudding in St David’s, Barbados, is a more jelly-like
substance than that familiar to a Trinidadian consumer. The
Bajan’s is like souse we know in St James. But the skinless,
dark-brown mound, made with sweet potato, tastes like a peppered
blend of Trini black pudding, cassava pone and bread pudding.
This weekend Bajan dish is also the title of a newspaper gossip
column. Pudding and souse, as cuisine and as media fare, may
be holding its own in Barbadian consumption patterns.
Official economy watchers are expressing alarm, however, that
appetites and tastes have expanded and diversified as increased
disposable income has lengthened the pockets of Barbadians.
Some may still drive out to find pudding and souse. Apparently,
more are flocking to counters such as Bridgetown's Soup ’N’
Sandwich bistro. Here, they can choose from English muffins,
croissants with scrambled eggs and sausage; tomato, basil,
pumpkin, ginger and split pea soup; Italian breads and bread
pockets--panini, ciabatta and gyro wraps.
They want the good things of the international world, and
they so want them now that they will shop till the economy
drops. Or this is the fear voiced by Prime Minister Owen Arthur
and by Central Bank Governor Marion Williams.
Over a long Barbados weekend of newspaper reading, looking
and listening, I gained the impression of a country enjoying
a boom at least relative to the debt-driven, structural adjustment
gloom of the 1990s.
Barbados has paid down its debt. It has since 2002 raked in
foreign exchange by attracting nine per cent more long-stay
tourists and 25 per cent more from cruise ships.
About half a million tourists annually descend upon the Tobago-size
island of 270,000 people. An environmentalist last weekend
estimated tourists annually leave behind 150,000 tons of solid
waste.
The permanent population is set to grow. As historian Karl
Watson observed, “We have people coming and falling in
love with the island, building houses and staying here.”
It’s not the influx of tourists and migrants, with their
dollars and euros, that Mr Arthur and Dr Williams see as too
much of a good thing. Rather, it’s the outflow of foreign
exchange as Bajans splurge on imports.
Variously connected with all this, Trinidad and Tobago looms
surprisingly high in the Bajan consciousness.
The West Indies cricket drama was reported in page-one headlines
that progressively said “Lara OK,” “Lara in,
Six Out,” “Lara Axed,” and finally, “WI
Team Lara-less.”
In other ways, T&T names appeared large on the scoreboard
of the Barbadian field of play.
Ronald Harford, Republic Bank chairman, came to Bridgetown
to launch a new branch of the Republic-owned Barbados National
Bank. CL Financial chairman was in town for a Clico staff
long-service ceremony. Maria Rivas McMillan, Guardian Holdings’
public affairs vice president, and Liat regional manager Paula
Benjamin were both also photographed handing out awards.
Meanwhile, at Cave Hill, Trinidadian writer Elizabeth Nunez
was criticising Caribbean universities for not doing enough
to promote the region’s writers. They are still teaching
Jane Austen, she was quoted as saying. “Jane died long
time.”
Even a T&T no-show made the news in a big way. The tanker,
Lucy G, loaded with gasoline, arrived from Pointe-a-Pierre
a day or two late, the papers said, causing rumours of shortages
and panicky line-ups at gas stations.
Meanwhile, too, Carnival 2005 soca was being pumped up by
Bajan radio stations. Surpassing any similar T&T efforts,
one station produced an impressively well-informed profile
of Tambu and Charlie’s Roots, after doing the same for
David Rudder the week before.
Migrating once again, flying fish have left Tobago waters.
But Barbadian groaning boards were last week complaining of
no shortage of the national fish.
Groaning sounds related to T&T came instead from the Central
Bank Governor, pointing to a US$300 million decline in Barbadian
foreign reserves in 2004. Dr Williams worried aloud about
the foreign exchange outflow on “imports, in particular
from Trinidad, (which) have grown tremendously.”
She was referring not just to T&T brand names packing
Bridgetown supermarket shelves. Personal shopping trips to
Trinidad by ordinary Barbadians now engage the attention of
the country's leading money watcher.
“Shoppers are buying not only Trinidad-produced goods,”
she noted, asking why Barbadian traders could not themselves
“source” the same non-T&T goods. A weekend’s
observation suggested the easy answer: those goods will still
be cheaper in Port-of-Spain than in Bridgetown.
Last weekend, too, the Barbados Advocate carried full-page
colour ads, promoting “off shore” Easter bargains
at Francis Fashions and Detour in Port-of-Spain.
Bajans may be reading and responding to those ads more than
to the macro-economic admonitions of Dr Williams and Prime
Minister Arthur. One Bridgetown economist, telling me about
a Port-of-Spain business meeting she is to attend next month,
said she planned to come with two empty suitcases.
A T&T businessman was even available to give economic
advice. “We have to increase local levels of productivity,”
said Robert Le Hunte, referring to the island where he heads
the Barbados National Bank. “This in turn can lead to
lowering the cost of goods and services in Barbados.”
Until then, perhaps, the TT equivalent of ten Bajan dollars
will buy maybe far more black pudding and souse in St James,
Port-of-Spain, than it does St David’s, Barbados.
