So it was my first day in Barbados. The plane landed 17-13 minutes to midnight and I got home after 12am. I was happy that I had people I knew and was comfortable with in my roommates . What I was not happy about was the fact that I had an all-island trip to get up and prepare for in less than 8 hours after arriving. But the point is to make the most of this experience and, before I know it, it will be over. It’s really sucky to have regrets about things you did not do and wish you had. But , geez, I was TIRED.
All the same, I got up and got ready. We were told the trip was to begin at 10am. We reached school about 10:10. It’s a good thing we didn’t rush because that would have surely made us more upset when we discovered…..
ISSUE NUMBER 1- the late start to the trip.
My roommates and I went to greet the familiar faces that we knew from Jamaica and the few new friends that they had made in the previous week. It was smiles all around from my Jamaican colleagues as we all reunited. Skip to 50 minutes later when one female from the board of the Guild saw it fit to inform us that the buses would be coming “soon- at about 11”. Oh, because telling us this from before would have been so unnecessary, yea?
Anyway, the buses eventually came and we waited while the drivers sorted out themselves with the guild board or whoever. After 10 minutes, they let us on the buses and we discovered
ISSUE NUMBER 2- Public buses in Barbados do NOT have Air-conditioning
To say the heat was hot would be an understatement. The fact that Barbados was 3000 miles from Africa was not lost on me. While waiting on the bus, we became very annoyed at the fact that no one came to us to explain the reasons for these delays and then a guild board member eventually came and said that the buses were late because the Barbados Transport Board would only give them the buses at 11. Seriously, this is something that they didn’t know before?! ALSO, we were told that we were waiting on ONE female student who was late. Wow. 90 minutes after we were told to be there, she is still late? And we’re still waiting? *hums hymnal about Sweet Jamaica to calm my spirit*
Skip to the buses actually leaving. The tour was sped up and I attributed that to the very late start. We didn’t really get a tour guide on our bus either. A fellow student who has spent time in Barbados became our makeshift guide. We were told that we would be heading to a beach in Barbados after the tour where food would be provided. Alas, things just could not go according to THAT plan since they were not working in coordination with any of the others. At some point during the trip, after an hour or so, the buses stopped along the road in a residential area for us to have drinks. WHY?! We were finally beginning to cool down and the buses stopping just totally erased that. It took forever for the drinks to be distributed and not enough was sent around. It was all too clear now what was.
