My first year teaching at the Bequia Anglican High School was as a volunteer, and because I needed to be able to support myself I went to Canada in the summer to work as a waitress. The second year I was lucky enough to be given a Government salary, the princely sum of $235.00 EC per month. This amounted to $88.00 U.S., and while it may seem like a paltry sum it allowed me to dine out occasionally! The school paid for my housing, which I shared with fellow teachers from abroad.
When I first arrived on the Island I lived briefly with my sister Mary and her husband Dave at their house in Friendship, then moved into a house close to theirs which I shared with two other teachers. My housemates were an American couple named Tom and Cathy, who taught at the school for less than a year. They were friendly enough but I never really bonded with them.
The second year was different, I went to live in a house up Cemetery Hill with two young English volunteers named Grace and Helen. The house wasn’t great but it was close to the school and harbor. I would miss the view from Friendship Gap as well as the beaches, but Cemetery Hill was a convenient location. The best thing about the house was that it had an electric pump, no more pumping water from the cistern up to the holding tank by hand! The electrical wiring was faulty, we had to wear oven mitts when we touched the switch or we got shocked, but it was a treat not to have to pump the water ourselves.
I grew quite fond of Grace and we had some good times together. We discovered the Rum Dum Bar, and developed the habit of going there on Thursday nights before the Frangi “Jump-up”.
The Rum Dum Bar was a rickety wooden building situated in Ocar, overlooking Admiralty Bay. It was owned by an elderly American couple, Mr. and Mrs. Keith, who I never did get to know; Mr. Keith was quite ill and the couple were preparing to leave Bequia in the not-too-distant future. Their house was beside the restaurant, the two buildings separated by a wooden ramp, but I rarely saw them.
At the Rum Dum Grace and I would both order banana daquiris, which were served in large beer mugs, and there was always some left in the blender to top off our glasses. We ate delicious curried chicken or beef wrapped in rotis and they were HUGE, so big you thought you would never be able to eat it all until suddenly it was gone. Between the bananas in the daquiris and the large rotis we filled our bellies for $5.00 EC each, less than $2.00 U.S. From there we would stroll through the harbor to the Frangipani, where we would dance off all the calories we had consumed to the beat of the “Frangicans”. Thursdays were something to look forward to!