Reasons To Be Cheerful Part 3 (21/3/21)
Friday. Its Party! Party! Gros Islet.
Gros Islet or (Gwozilé in Kwéyòl)
To me St Lucia is the great mystery and illusion of the Caribbean. Being African, English, French, and somewhere in-between at the same time, while being so completely different from anywhere else on Earth.
St Lucia has a familiarity that twins with every heart and soul. And with that magical enchanting inviting combination of ardour and culture clash, St Lucia and Lucians can get the world party started, and will always take the lead to the dance floor.
Friday morning started with a beautiful rainbow over Rodney Bay, with the arch over Pigeon Island. Stunning! It’s Friday. Fridays do feel different in St Lucia. There is an extra buzz about the morning. The atmosphere is more upbeat. The Radio stations acknowledge that is the start to the fun part of the weekend.
Good Morning Rainbow
After Thursday night’s prequel boogie at the “Thirsty Parrot Bar & Restaurant on Pigeon Island” With DJ Collen Grant on the decks. Friday is sparked off with the promise of the legendary Gros Islet, Friday Night, Fish Fry, Street Party. This party is for tourists and locals alike.
Before setting off to Gros Islet. I had the chance to take in another mesmerising sunset and the start of the evening’s astral show.
Evening Astral Show
Gros Islet, Friday Night, Fish Fry, Street Party.
Gros Islet is a fishing village with beautiful local beaches, located in the north of the island.
It’s fantastic fun and the best way to chill-out after a tough or easy week.
Other towns in St Lucia: Anse La Raye & Dennery did have their own Fish Fry-Street Party, which was initially successful but COVID put a temporary halt to those festivities for now. But watch this space.
Lobster Supper, at Gros Islet
On Friday night the fishing village of Gros Islet becomes a melting pot for locals, tourists, and inter-island visitors. The neighbouring French island of Martinique our French cousins, are always well represented at the Fish Fry Party.
Eating, drinking, dancing, great friendships, and loving, are all made. It’s all part of the experience. It’s a street carnival every Friday night.
My Friends Ish & Karen Pointing The Way At Gros Islet
The bountiful delicious food is on the go! There are many places to sit, eat and chat. But food is mostly eaten standing up, and swaying to the music.
The local cuisine is wholesome and outstanding. The hallucinogenic heady smells from the ‘smoke,’ and the smouldering of the barbecue food, makes you feel hungry and draws you in. Fish obviously! Shellfish. If you like Lobster (when in season) then you are in the right place. BBQ, meats, Jerk Chicken, kidneys on skewers, the obligatory Mac & cheese, rice & peas, ground provisions, similar to potatoes, Yam, Dasheen, sweet potatoes etc, various salads, are all available. One can have a fabulous plate of delicious food for $25EC (about £8/$10US).
BBQ To The Ready
The electrifying party at the Main Street provides a thumping base and groove that involuntary moves your rib-cage.
One can avoid the sensory assault, by standing slightly back, up the road letting the volume naturally dissipate.
Also, standing slightly back provides a fabulous vantage point to see the party unfold, as the DJ and the music whip up the crowd.
Rocking At The Gros Islet Street Party.
This brings me nicely back to our cousins from Martinique. Please excuse me, but I shall get straight to the point. I have never in my life seen so much exposed flesh, heroically supported by such little material. And that was just the men!
Our French cousins have come to PARTY! They drink, sing & dance, with wild abandon. Their capacity and stamina, for revelry and merrymaking seems limitless.
I watched as grown men & women, of every nationality, shape and size, with eyes bulging out of their sockets, tripping over their jaws, which were scraping on the floor, while staring at these stunning ‘Martinique-cans’ who are clad in immodest attire, already straining at the seams as they continued to shake their funky curvaceous stuff.
Party! Party!
They danced uninhibited, with their revealing apparel straining at the seams, leaving very little to the imagination.
In St Lucia there is a style of dancing called “Whining or Slow Whine.” It’s the place where the lines between easy virtue and dance gets blurred. One will have to see it to believe it.
Putting modesty aside for a moment and being a person who can resist anything except temptation, I had to keep moving before one of these formidable ‘Martinique-cans” women “teeft a Whine” on me!”
On The Way To Gros Islet
Too late!
This absolutely beautiful woman approached me wearing what I shall courteously call a “bikini.” She looked like she had been waxed to within an inch of her life. She even had false eyebrows. (As a man I cannot imagine the pain and humiliation of sitting legs akimbo while a perfect stranger, pours boiling wax near my Gentleman’s equipment; then, to compound the pain, by ripping off the hair and my flesh beneath it.) She came closer, my Piton-beer warming in my hand, her perfume bewitched me. The shape of her coming towards me intimidated me. The smell of Rum on her breath intoxicated me. I was a gonna. I recited St Augustine’s plea. “Lord, give me chastity and temperance, but not yet!”
Leaving a perfect moist lip-print on my ear, which sent a frisson of excitement and anticipation down my spine, freezing my dancing feet, she whispered “lent.’ (Slowly.) But I was going as slowly as I could. So slowly, we could have been captured in oils.
Readers, for research purposes, I held on for all I was worth, in the knowledge I was taking one for the team.
I’m told. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” But I know, I shall never be the same again. I can describe “Whining” as an out of body experience, of enchanting, sensory, delicious, scrumptiousness. Of which, I shall never ever forget.
Gros Islet In Full Swing
The Gros Islet Street party normally goes on till daybreak.
Top Tip: It’s easy to overdo the party atmosphere. The rum punches are lethal. The locals pride themselves on the generosity of the rum punch they serve, which is fuelled with local overproof White Rum. So – pace yourself!
Top-tip. If the sensory assault gets too much it’s a 1-minute walk from the centre of Gros Islet to a mystical, enchanting and cool place called the Ire Bar – where “Sweet reggae music will make you feel “Ire.”
This is where party music really works. Outside in the warm night air, with the fabulous cool breeze, a drink in one hand, gently swaying to the magical beat of the most “eclectic musical sound known to mankind!” Not my words, but the words of Grammy Award-winning, Ivor Novello-winning musician and producer. Dave Stewart.
The Ire Bar is the most wonderful place to dance, eat drink, and make friends. It also has a few tables to sit at and relax, and an open-air dance-floor. AKA the street.
The dance-floor at the Ire Bar
The Ire Bar is 100% exposed to the elements – except for the “members enclosure.” So, the sorcery invoked in generating and conjuring an intimate party atmosphere is magical.
The Guv’nor, DJ, and mine-host Andy is one of nature’s finest – a true gentleman with an impeccable taste in music. If he wasn’t already a living saint, we would have to make him one – for his heroic endeavours and wizardry every Friday evening alone, would be enough to qualify him. He runs this amazing place with his lovely partner Anna, who provides the delicious local BBQ food – “Ire Grill.”
At the Ire bar, one dances in the street, which is cooled by the magical evening sea breeze, under the stars, to the sound of vintage and modern reggae music of every genre, through every generation. No matter what the record or beat, the dance floor moves in harmony.
Ladies First: Anna Working Her Magic
Andy At The Helm (Running Tings’)
Taking a stool at the bar and engaging in conversation with some of the colourful interesting locals, or a visitor to the island. Or resting one’s dancing feet by taking a seat at one of the tables while enjoying a refreshing libation, with some delicious food from Anna. Or owning a piece of the dance floor, rocking to the sound of reggae music, which floats above the sound of the waves of the Caribbean. The Ire bar is where all are welcome and everyone leaves happier than when they arrived.
After The Dance
Back home after the Street party. There is still time to admire the gift that keeps on giving. The beauty of nature, and the enchanting composition of St Lucia.
It’s a beautiful full-moon night. I head towards my balcony. I light a citrus candle and put on some jazz. All 10.44 seconds of John Coltrane’s “Blue Train” is needed at this moment (there’s only so much thumping bass a man can take in one night)
I fix up a rum and coconut water and I gaze at the moon and the stars. I hear the introduction to that jazz masterpiece {ba-ba-ba-ba-naaa-daa-na.} It’s one of those moments that you catch oneself! And you give thanks for the privilege of just being, and living!
Gros Islet & Pigeon Island At Night In Full Moon Glory
Fridays in Gros Islet really does show off the vivacious and energetic beauty of St Lucia. It really is a vibrant, peaceful, beautiful island – full of questions, contradictions, pleasures and answers.
The splendour of St Lucia speaks for itself. And the beauty, humanity and compassion of the people, resonates through the soul of the Island. There is something for everybody – no matter who you are or where you’re from – you are always most welcome.
Reasons to be Cheerful. End of Part Three
If you liked or have any comments that you would like to offer. Please share.
Thank you.
Thank you Tony Nayager for your skill and patience
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