Gender in bds!

This blog took a while for me to think about...The hardest thing was for me to take myself out of the situation and look at gender relations from a macro perspective. At work i wouldn't say that gender played that huge of a actor in our specific roles and responsibilities and for the most part there was an equal share of roles and responsibilities for both gender.

One thing that i did notice though is there is a huge TBLG community in Barbados. It is in fact so big that the first question a guy asks when he meets a girl is if she is straight or not. From my observation this community is really well accepted and well recognized in the country. It was a change from Toronto in the sense that the community is so well accepted and respected that, from my observation, there isn't really a need for a visible activist group amongst the community.

For the most part men in Barbados are very forward in their approach. I found myself being forced to be more docile then Ive ever been just to avoid being approached. Some friends came down for a week to visit and when we spoke about the gender role difference in Barbados we wondered if the attitude of the guys down here might have been a result of living in a tourism driven country. It was a long stretch but it made so much sense to us. Think about it like this: For a guy who is always used to meeting women who are only around for 10 days at a time, they would have to move quickly to establish any sort of relationship. Long shot, I'm sure, but that's the feeling i got while i was there. Its really interesting the way tourism affects the culture of a country and changes the social fabric of its people.

Going Green!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Just because you may not see a row or blue bins or compost bags any given Tuesday morning on a neighbourhood side street in Barbados it doesn't mean recycling isnt happening. Believe it or not, that is something that took me a while to figure out! Barbados is one of the many Caribbean Islands that does not actively practice blue bin recycling and in fact it took me quite some time to readjust to not recycling. However their are many ways that the tons of used plastic bottles are recycled in an informal sector. On any given day you could bus down to Bridgetown and see a man or woman with a shopping cart or a huge garbage bag picking up the used bottles and cans. This is because each bottle is worth about 5-10cents depending on its size. As the bottles are collected they are returned to a booth outside of a grocery store in exchange for a food coupon worth the value of the bottles.
I know in Toronto we have a similar service for beer bottles, milk jugs and filtered water jugs but its not as actively endorsed and accepted. Whereas in Barbados some people do this as a way of life.

Aside from the bottles Barbados generally seems to be well ahead of many countries in using solar power and having efficient public transportation. Solar powered homes is not a rare sight in Barbados. As you walk down any neighborhood you can look up on the roof tops to see a shiny panel working hard at harvesting solar energy. For the most part the panels heat the water tanks and provide electricity for the home owners. The panel cost around 1500US, but it is worth the investment, as the government assists those who invest in using solar energy and it saves the home owners some money in the end.

So even though the 3Rs are not yet a household activity, the country generally is still filled with green initiatives!

Culture Shock

Culture shock. The phrase itself sounds so harsh, so negative. When i think of the experience I had here I would more equate it with an awakening as supposed to a shock.


At first glance one would be quick to characterize all Caribbean countries as being the same, you might be familiar with the old "seen one, you've seen them all" expression. I must say in this case it could not be further from the truth. Please keep in mind that this is based on my experience in Toronto and Barbados, this is not inclusive of the entire population or Toronto or Canada and is certainly not a reflection on the entire population of Barbados. The organization I am working with is based on social and cultural development and so many of the families and people, associated with Pinelands, that I come in close contact with share similar warm familial characteristics.


When i think of 'Culture Shock" i think about the things that immediately popped out in my head as being different from Toronto. Ill give you a few examples of some of the culturally different aspects of my trip that were different for me. Take the children for example. You wont meet many children in Toronto who immediately greet you with a 'Good morning' or 'Good evening' every time they see you but a greeting like that is customary and is expected of the children here in Barbados. Not only are they courteous and respectful but they are also incredibly well put together (outfits cuter than mine lol). The young girls have their hair braided in a new style every few days and are always sharply attired lol. Its amazing to see the effects that a proactive community centre could have on a group of people. The support given to these children is beyond impressive and it seems as though the whole community truly does raise these children. Ive noticed that the children aren't afraid of 'strangers' the way they seem to be in north America. My first kindergarten lesson, right after say no to drugs, was don't talk to strangers but here everyone looks out for kids so much that strangers arnt seen as a threat. The difference is we come from a more individualistic culture while life here is more community based. Its interesting when you travel you realize for the first time that we are indeed all so different and the things we often take the most for granted are usually the things that make our lives the richest.

Where is the cane?

Working for Pinelands has really taught me so much in such a short period of time. Its almost as if im hesitant to continue to learn more, as the more im exposed to the inequalities and unfairness of the world the more i find myself resenting living in it. I was talking to Curtis, the Cultural Manager at Pinelands, the other day about the history of the Barbadian economy specifically the emergence of the Crop Over festival and the importance of the development of the tourist industry. (Crop Over is a festival to celebrate the end of a long and hard cane season.)

Everywhere you look in the Barbadian country side you can see cane fields for miles and miles. Why is it then that the local people find it so difficult to find a piece of raw cane to enjoy? When i first started to read up on Barbados I was looking forward to having a piece of cane at my side as a staple side dish, little did I know cane comes more easily accessible in Canada than it does in this cane producing country. I enquired with Curtis because i couldnt stand not understanding where the cane gone. What i had learned is that because it is cane season all of the fields have been cleared mainly for export to the EU. It turns out the EU has a arrangement with Barbados which entitles the Bajan government to meet a quota to export enough cane sugar to the EU, and if the quota is met and their is not enough cane left for Barbadians, they then have to import lesser quality sugar from other sources.

After talking to Curtis and other Bajans about my cane cravings i began to realize how deeply rooted the situation really was and it had me thinking about 'developed' vs 'underdeveloped' and privileged vs. oppressed . To me it didn't seem right that this stipulation caused such a backwards effect on the Bajan community. It was interesting, though that after i spoke to many people about this issue i began to realize that though some were informed none were really upset about it. It had me wondering why the heck i was so bothered by the situation and it donned on me! For the first time i was in a position to see and feel the effects of our desire to have it all on a country that we're taking it 'all' from. It was an interesting perspective of our and my privilege and position in the global community.

My first thoughts of Barbados assignment #2

I'm staying in a guest house with one other girl, Samantha aka Kandi. I have my own room and share the bathroom, kitchen and laundry room with her. I went grocery shopping yesterday and went home to cook and then remembered i only know how to make salad and cereal, so i poured the milk and cut up some lettuce. Things are going really well! I love the place, the girl i live with is a fashion designer, which is just wicked. The place is also ideal because it's literally three minutes walking distance from where i work.

Today was my first day of work and I just got out of a meeting with Mr. Grant and Shelly, my supervisor. PCW is actually the most perfect place for me, they do everything that I once did or am currently doing ie.dance, drama, youth entrepreneurship, community development, housing initiatives etc etc. I am primarily working on their housing project, the main thing that they want me to focus on is developing a education program for their clients to teach them about the different stages of building their house, the financial commitment involved, how to read a blue print and the new challenges involved in having a mortgage etc etc. I am also going to be developing a format to track the project status against baseline information, developing financial systems and developing project status and reporting forms. Sounds hard huh ya i know..i really really know lol. I also have to learn how to use SPSS, which is a data management system for project planning as well as Microsoft Project software.

Both my supervisors are amazing people and guess what everyone here has dreads! That's a huge bonus as in the Caribbean people sometimes look down on you if your hair is locked but at PCW its all love baby. The community centre has its own social enterprise, bicycles sales; They have their own costume room for all their productions; they have rehearsal space, offices a meeting room and even their own staff run community bar! I have my own office space here as well.

Tomorrow marks the first day of crop over, which is a three month long festival with a huge dance celebration during the last few days. It starts off with soca performances from upcoming artist held in each of the 12 parishes. This weekend I'll be going to some of those with Samantha, the girl i live with, and her non-boyfriend 'friend' lol. We are also going to two of the three big parties this weekend: a soca fete and a reggae club. Samantha seems really cool and responsible shes 19 and goes to the technical school down the road.

Mrs.Davis, the landlord, is "a christian first and foremost" lol. She's madd cool and helps me out with anything i need. I think shes a little funny about wearing shorts though. Last night I was asking her what she thinks i should wear for my first day of work and i laid out a white tee and jean Capri's (that go past my knees) she said the pants were too short. LOL oh man all I was thinking is wow its going to suck when you see the shorts i was questioning haha.

In any light this is a really good opportunity to see cultural differences in this new community. When i arrived at Pinelands i was plesently surprised to meet a vintage looking building instead of the typical highrise office builiding i've come to expect.

Culture-More than a Costume

Written April 29/08

So for a long time I thought about what I would write for this premier blog and I thought about how I could really capture the total essence of “my culture”. Thinking back to grade school I vividly recall teachers holding up flashcards of different traditional and"ethnic" clothing or foods and asking the room of fellow wide-eyed grade-'threers' to identify the cultures in the pictures.
In hindsight a task that appeared to be overly simplistic and straight forward now appears to be far more thought provoking than the answers on the back of the flash cards suggested.

The more I thought about it the more abstract and confusing my thoughts became. I saw my culture as a black woman, I saw my culture as a student, I saw my culture as a community worker, a youth advocate, a global citizen, an entrepreneur, a young person etc etc. I listed and listed and did not see an end in sight. Each time my pen hit paper and i in scripted another juicy aspect of my culture down I thought about how I see myself, how the world sees me and how I want the world to see me.

I came an almost startling conclusion that culture is almost in a sense based and defined solely on perception. The way I might define my culture wouldn’t be the way my mother might define it, a friend, a teacher or even a complete stranger. It then began to beg the question whose perception overrides and overrules whose? and if that is so the case where does my understanding of a true ‘cultural identity’ fit? And if we do have a ‘true identity’ are we then not enforcing the same social labels we as ‘enlightened activist have been working so inexhaustibly to obliterate? I didn't have the answers to these question so I’ll just leave these questions to linger in your thoughts as they have in mine...