Little Things about Home

Normally, when your visiting someones house you're greeted by a huge slobbering dog or a furry feline. This happened to be the case when I returned home to Barbados last week. Althougth there were two big hairy dogs (Van and Roxy) slobbering all over my cute puma shoes, there were also some nasty little monkeys dancing around our yard. These little ragamuffins are nothing like the monkeys you find in the Toronto Zoo. They come into your yard, steal any kind of food they can find, take one bite of it, then throw it away.Very wasteful creatures. On the weekend, I went into our gully (backyard) and there was a bunch of rotting limes on the ground with a bite taken out of them.

Since then, I have only had one other run in with the little beasts. Yesterday morning when i was sitting outside, a baby monkey jumped from the mahogany tree onto our roof and began dangling its tail off the edge, eagerly waiting for our dogs to notice it. Fortunately, Van was asleep, so they turned their attention to me. Inching closer and closer. Meanwhile, I was thinking about the time my brother had been chased by a pack of relentless monkeys. Anyways, our dog woke up and chased them off.

Aside from the monkeys, I must mention the mosquitoes. You mostly see them in the evenings, buzzing around your legs trying to suck your blood. These mosquitoes carry a deadly disease known as denge (not the same thing as West Nile virus). Anyways, becuase you can get dengue fever from the insect, we continue to put a mosquito net over our beds to prevent them from biting us while we sleep.

Okay, so besides some scary wildlife and insects, there are some other interestings things I noticed about home.

Firstly, the lack of clothing people tend to wear (not just in the heat) but even in the supermarket (grocery store). Yesterday, I saw a man walking barefoot through our supermarket. At first glance you would probably think he is some crazy homeless person. However, I remember when I used to live in Barbados it was common to see people walking around with no shoes or just bikinis when shopping. Definetely something you wouldn't see in Toronto.

Like my shopping list, the things I noticed could go on. But, I will stop there.