Elvia in Montserrat - 12th July
(Houses at the foot of Soufriére Hills Volcano in Monserrat)
I’m really enjoying being here. It’s just a pity my family isn’t here with me. Saturday 6 July was a busy day. First I went with Ravo to KJB radio where she was being interviewed about the Summer Holiday Rocks event that she and Erika had organized. This was an opportunity for me to talk publicly about IVJ. I didn’t know until I got there that this was going to be live, which is probably a good thing because I wasn’t nervous at all.
The afternoon was spent watching cricket, Antigua V Montserrat. That was my first experience of a live professional cricket match. There wasn’t a huge crowd but enough to create a good atmosphere. Montserrat weren’t playing so good, they were fielding and kept dropping some easy balls. It was funny watching some of the crowd getting frustrated.
Later that night we went to a party at the Cultural Centre. It was supposed to start at 10pm but it didn’t, it was about midnight before anything happened. Anyway as the night went on things started to bubble, there was a nice atmosphere and the people were friendly. I didn’t see people standing around with vexed faces or giving people dirty looks. Sad to say this is what happens in the UK. Black people seem to have forgotten how to enjoy themselves and each other. Well that was my first proper night out in Montserrat and I didn’t get home until 4am.
I’ve spent a couple of days with Mappi, the head gardener of the National Trust. I was planting flowers, doing some cuttings and pruning the roses. Mappi talked a little about medicinal plants, but I will learn about those properly another time because there is so much to take in.
One afternoon I went to get some lunch and I got chatting to a top business man and his friend. He showed me a picture he had taken recently of the house he lived in when the volcano erupted. I said that he must feel sad looking at the property. He said “No not really, we just move on”. I asked them how comes no one seems to feel sad about something so devastating and his friend thought about it for a while and said, “We see ourselves as strong people and we just move on”. I’ve spoken to a few Montserratians that say they always walk with their passport and important documents, so they are ready to go. It really made me realise how so attached we are to things and property in the UK. That’s a whole heap of STRESS right there.