June | 2014 | island life

Bahamiana is a word my friend Susan Koster uses to describe interesting,funny happenings here in the Bahamas. I call them adventures. Life on an island is always an adventure to me! Building again here is a huge adventure and every day I wait on pins and needles for John to return from the site to show me the progress with pictures and tales. He has been busy coordinating workers and deliveries. If not done in the right order there could be a problem-or even when done in the correct order there could be a problem!

The area where the driveway was to go in had to be cleared first, all the bush hauled away, rocks pushed aside and quarry laid down on the road to make it hard and drivable. The area for the house had to be cleared the same way but no quarry laid just a trench for the foundation. John has explained these steps to me numerous times and the next few days work also but when I examine the pictures he has to explain again usually! ( in a week or so I will be on site in the afternoons when I bring lunch for the crew and move rocks or be the go-for, but right now we are down to one vehicle and I am catching up on things here at our cottage before the work really begins. Besides I get bored up there after about an hour. I don’t vision things as John does and it is hard to walk around and there is just nothing I can do physically yet! So better I am here where I can get my things done)

Yesterday was delivery day for sand,cracked rock, cement and block. He got everything but the cement….that is another Bahamiana……..

The crane to lift 4000 lbs of cement block appeared in the driveway on time-sort of. John needed the crane to go all the way into the drive as close to the work site as possible but as soon as it began the ascent up the hill it started to spin and roll backwards.

The truck was a 1990 and showed every bit of it’s age! (this sticker is inside on our dashboards to show who is the owner)

As soon as he stated rolling backwards down the drive, a barefoot Bahamian jumped out of the passenger side and began to throw rocks behind the tires to stop it!

The hydraulic arms the crane placed down to steady itself while off loading sank into our road-it’s not packed hard just yet! The guy had one piece of wood to keep it from sinking, but there are 2 arms-(wouldn’t you want to carry 2 pieces of wood?) John tried to give him more wood but it didn’t help any so the barefoot Bahamian ran into the bush to retrieve a large rock to steady the other side. STEADY is the key word here……..as the belted pallet of blocks twirled from the truck, the barefoot Bahamian stood underneath it to steady it. John wondered from the side lines who he would call when the whole thing collapsed on our barefoot Bahamian- 911?? ha! Why, you ask, would John be worried about the frayed belt around the pallet or the frayed cable moving the whole thing?