With eyes warily glancing towards the sky, we watch the clothes on the line dry. No, I’m not trying to be a poet, I’ll leave that to my friend Terry E. Carter. However, hanging out the wash during rainy season can be a laborious activity with frequent touches for dryness and multiple looks at the ever-changing clouds.
Now I can understand why some people in the Caribbean have dryers. We don’t have one but It would decrease some of the activity involved with hanging out clothes. One day we had to run out to take the clothes off the line 3 separate times yelling “It’s raining!” Each time we returned the clothes to the line after the rain stopped and the skies cleared only to have the rain resume later. Last week we even got a few minutes of rain while the sun was still shining.
The official rain season coincides with hurricane season for the region and runs from June to November. Most major storms occur from August to October although hurricanes rarely hit the island because of a complicated combination of location, the earth’s rotation and the Trade Winds. The last major hurricane was Janet in 1955.
Sandra’s earliest childhood memory was nearly being swept out to sea when her mother lost grip of her hand as they struggled trying to reach the hurricane shelter during Hurricane Janet. Sandra’s mother had refused to leave their house but had no choice when the wind blew it down! A passerby had to save 3 year old Sandra from the flooding water while her mother tightly held her older brother Dick. They never made it to the shelter that day! They had to take refuge at a home along the way from a woman that witnessed their plight. The most recent hurricane named Thomas touched Barbados in 2010 but caused little damage.
For many the best time to visit Barbados is between July and November which is the rainy season when you can attend Crop Over Festival activities or Independence celebrations. Other than the special festivities the beaches, hotels and restaurants are not very crowded due to tourism being slow. For others, the best time to visit in terms of the weather are January through April, as they are the driest and least humid, and usually a couple degrees cooler than other times of the year.
The rainy season has good and bad aspects. The worst part of the rain and flooding are pot holes. I heard a radio host say “If you see a car weaving in and out traveling down the road, they are not drunk, they’re dodging pot holes. If you see someone driving straight, they are more likely to be drunk.”
When you get a lot of rain the potholes are virtually undetectable. I hit a pothole so hard one time that I looked back and asked my passengers in the back seat if they were ok. Sandra’s cousin said “I’m fine but I in sure which part de fishcake I had went, I tink it pon meh hat!”
The Ministry of Transport and Works (MTW) has made fixing potholes a priority. The repairs are expected to cost approximately $30 million. Hopefully the MTW Pothole Fix teams will smooth out the roads throughout the island.
There are some benefits to all the rain especially with the dry season coming right around the corner! Everything is lush and green during this time of year. You should see my backyard, the grass is a perfect green and we are picking more cherries than we can eat. The bananas, soursop, mangoes and breadfruit are all growing nicely. I am trying to learn the growing seasons as I prepare to start what is called a “kitchen” garden.
The daily forecast is scattered showers with periods of rain, so don’t be surprised when you see people walking around with an umbrella and towel during this season. The umbrella is for the rain or the sun and the towel is for wiping the sweat off your face as the sun comes back out bright, bright, bright as though it never rained at all.
why not just leave the clothes out and wait it out ??????
I feel your Pain. This was what I was doing last weekend. When it is raining and the sun is shining there is an old Barbadian saying which goes like this “the devil and his wife are fighting for the cou cou stick”.
I heard about Janet, I think my mother was pregnant with my sister Patricia. So Pat is a hurricane baby. Thanks again for the blog, I enjoy reading it.
I was four months old when Hurricane Janet hit and like Sandra’s, my mother almost lost my brother Michael! He was four years old and the water took him from my mother’s hand while she was trying to protect me. One of our neighbours had to grab hold of him before the water swept him away.