Dateline December 25
We flew into Maurice Bishop International Airport on the tiny little island nation of Grenada on Christmas night, arriving late at our hotel (Grenada Grand Beach Resort) to be told that our “special” Christmas dinner had somehow gone missing. What the hell, we ordered off the menu as the dining room was closing and we can report that we did not starve.
Boy, what a difference 38 years can make. Permit a short reverie, please. In my wayward youth, specifically, August of 1975, I sailed around Grenada with a bunch of twenty-somethings on a catamaran wearing only a teeny weeny bikini and not enough sun screen. (I don’t think sunscreen had been invented yet to be honest.) Grenada was then something of a banana republic although technically Grenada’s economy has never relied on banana production. During that period the politics of Grenada were unstable to say the least. Complete independence had only been granted the year before in 1974 with the usual hostilities arising between various machete-wielding factions in competition for control of the new government. As I remember that trip now, we were completely oblivious to the dangers, even after we’d been told sternly not to venture away from the tourist hot spots on the island. (Oblivion maybe-could-have involved the local rum.) Ah, youth! And, oh, to be so carefree again!
But, about Grenada: Just fyi, a brief history lesson: Like most of the islands in the Caribbean, Grenada had first been invaded in the mid 1600s by France. The indigenous Grenadians were understandably opposed to subjugation and so the French promptly set about annihilating them. Some natives fled to nearby Dominica (more about this place in a future postcard) and the ones who stayed behind were driven deep into the forbidding interior and “marginalized”. I know this makes it sound like the French denied the Caribes access to the good croissants, but what it really means is that by around 1700 the island’s indigenous population was completely wiped out. Next up, the British stole the island from the French in some Caribbean land grab in the mid-1700s and then the French briefly stole it back, then they lost it again. Both the British and the French colonials were huge fans of slavery and the vast majority of the non-European population on Grenada today are descended from those African slaves. (If all this is just TMI, the long story short is that the French influence was apparently too brief to impact the terrible legacy of English dietary habits. Let’s just say, even today, one doesn’t go to Grenada just for the food. Just imho.)
Oddly though, for a foreign tourist destination where our most memorable meal was at a little joint called New York’s Finest Bagels, for its size, Grenada is a pretty big deal in the culinary world. Why? One word: nutmeg. It turns out that while under dominion by the British in the mid-1800s, the non-native nutmeg tree was introduced and thrived so that today no foreign visitor gets off the island alive without touring an actual nutmeg plantation. (That might be an exaggeration.) In addition to the nutmeg plantation, there is a rum distillery tour and also a tour of a chocolate factory, all equally thrilling, as you can imagine.) I have nothing against any of those substances personally, but I don’t recommend doing all three tours in one day, unless of course you are a PhD in agriculture traveling on the University’s dime and your snorkel time is severely limited. (Re: that – decent snorkeling, not the greatest ever.)
Seriously, though, the importance of the nutmeg to the national economy cannot be over-stated. Tiny little Grenada, with only about 110 thousand inhabitants today exports fully 20% of the world’s nutmeg. (Indonesia exports the rest.) Think about that while quaffing your next eggnog, people! This humble tree is so crucial in fact to the country’s economy (only tourism is a larger product) that the national flag of Grenada features an actual nutmeg, albeit in a somewhat stylized fashion.
Unless they habitually cruise the Caribbean on the gigantic cruise ships, (that’s how most U.S. tourists arrive to the island if they get there at all), the average American won’t be able to tell you where Grenada is on the globe. Grenada does not enjoy the same tourist traffic as other, less beautiful, Caribbean destinations. Like, say, for instance, the Bahamas. This is my theory about that: Some will no doubt remember the “Invasion Of” in 1983 and I’ll let you do your own research and make your own conclusions about that little episode in our mutual military histories. Suffice it to say, it was abrupt and bloody. Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop got executed by members of his own party (or the CIA, depending on who’s telling the story). Bishop’s body, much like our special Christmas dinner, was never found. (On the upside, they did re-name the airport after him recently!) Because Americans have a penchant to name things (like colossal military fuck-ups that the rest of the world denounces), President Reagan nicknamed the invasion of Grenada “Operation Urgent Fury”. (Some say that’s when the term “clusterfuck” was invented.) Anyway, the history of the Invasion of Grenada is a clouded history at best and the invasion probably only came to be because Americans were all freaked out about the attack on Beirut which happened just two days earlier. We really needed to invade somebody, so… In the end we got spanked badly when the UN General Assembly, Great Britain AND Canada called Operation Urgent Fury a “flagrant violation of international law”. I suggest that because Grenada was portrayed during that period as “pro-communist” and “in bed with Cuba” to justify the invasion, to this day the island gets a bad, undeserving rap from some. Perhaps the Gipper oversold us on danger of the communist threat. What’s pertinent information to the international traveler there these days, especially Americans, is that the average Grenadian holds no lingering ill will for any of that. In fact, one of the largest national holidays in Grenada is “Thanksgiving Day” when the Grenadians thank America for invading their country. (Don’t even ask. We apparently have a great PR presence there.) On our island tour we saw handmade signs posted along the road saying, “Thank You, America!” We were told by our guide that the signs went up spontaneously to say “thanks for putting down the pro-communist military coup” and that these same signs have been up since 1983, but given the still visible damage from several pretty serious hurricanes since then, the latest being Ivan…you will forgive me, I doubt.
The bottom line is, we felt safe. You will too. But, take your sun screen. And, plenty of mosquito repellant. You will need them both no matter the season. That much hasn’t changed.
