Bathsheba up in the north on the Atlantic coast - waves and surf, magnificent wild scenery, a slight sense of danger, even pirates maybe - seemed very remote. It was the sort of place anything might happen. I sat on the beach and sketched the rocks and then got a beer from a nearby rum shack playing Bob Marley. The mini-moke I was driving had no brakes or suspension, but the roads were just potholes and it was cheap to hire.
As the years have passed (this is my fifth time here) affluent beach houses have sprung up along the beaches and they, once pure white sand, are covered in washed up weed; a problem that is growing as a result of global warming. Yes, once, as a young man, I sat on the beach and painted a watercolour of the rocks. Now, half a lifetime on, I can't even manage to pick my way down through the mountains of kelp to find the coral sand that lies beneath, my car has aircon, and the smart restaurant plays cafe jazz - nice.
Down South and to the West the same is happening and the East is all holidaymakers. Only the far Northern wilderness remains relatively empty. Build, build, build seems to be the order of the day. The beachfronts are crammed with condos and mansions, and the wooden tumbled down shanty houses stand empty waiting to be sold by developers to developers and then on to bigger developers, then demolished, and lost for ever. The new houses are generally described as colonial style, but just whose colonial is hard to imagine. They are a mix of Spanish Hacienda, Miami glitz, Glass penthouse and massive mausoleums. The wonderful brightly coloured chattel hoses are fast vanishing from the coast and even inland.
Of course the investment is mainly American. There’s a KFC in most biggish towns, US realtors, Pizza, the US buck is accepted as currency (but not the pound), and a lot of the tourists - once predominantly British - now wear baseball caps and long white socks with sandals on the golf courses.
They say change is for the good and that we should embrace it. Sadly for many Bajans that isn’t true as they are forced away from the shoreline by multi million dollar plot prices and forced to move inland. They haven’t been slaves for a hundred and fifty years, but so many aspire to the US way that they are caught up in a ‘must have’ status driven whirlwind society where the old easy-come ways are not their way any longer.
Easy for me I know - outside looking in over half a lifetime - to bemoan the rapidly passing and decay of a comfortable culture. But, yes, it makes me sad. I guess at least the gangs and the gun shops haven't arrived here yet, but it’s just a matter time I think.
Barbados seems to be a country trying to reinvent itself in the shape of something it isn’t.
Paradise lost? I hope not, but I fear probably.
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