Six Words: Timetable, Cancel, Relaxation, Housing, Angel, Direction
I was looking forward to a week of relaxation in a cottage along the beach in the Hawksbill area of the island nation of Antigua. I had no intention of canceling this trip. I’d been there twice, many years ago, and wondered how much the housing experience I’d had then would be different and how much it would be the same. Things move and change slowly on tropical islands.
My timetable included getting to the airport in Austin, changing planes in Miami, and flying into the renamed airport on the island. While I was flying into Antigua the first time, I sat next to a woman from there. I asked her how to pronounce the name of her country. I’d heard it pronounced Anti-gwuh and Anti-guh. In her Caribbean accented perfect English she said: “You would say Antigwa. Because of my accent, I would say Antiga. But you are correct!” I was amazed at that self-effacing, cordial reply. I’ve said Antiga ever since.
I’d had several other memorable experiences on the island. One of them was when we rented a Moke. A Moke is a small, jeep-like car and their maintenance was often, what we might say, creative. You can’t get too far from anywhere on an island nation that is only 14 miles long and 12 miles wide, although it has 365 beaches. Never-the-less, we were looking for a specific place and were lost. As we stopped on the side of the road to look at a map, a car with three very large men pulled up next to us. We could see that one of them had his forearm wrapped in white bandages and blood had soaked through. They asked if they could help. We told them where we wanted to go and they said they were going in that direction and the place we wanted to go was only a little out of their way and to follow them. With a certain amount of fear, we did follow them. In a few minutes we got to a fork in the road and they stopped. The driver pointed and said that our destination was a short way in the direction he was pointing and they went on their way. Without those three angels in disguise, we might still be driving around on the island.
There are worse places to marooned.