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Grenada: Spice Island Redux
From Crosswinds Weekly, March 2002
By Richard Mahler
How far we have come. Less than 20 years ago, our country stared down Russia and its allies in places like North Korea and Nicaragua. Today our Cold War enemies help us fight terrorism in Afghanistan.
I marvel at this ironic turn of events while seated in the shattered shell of a Soviet military aircraft parked alongside a bullet-riddled Cuban troop transport. These rusty and abandoned planes, still adorned with fading red hammer-and-sickle insignia, are among the few visible reminders of the military showdown between the United States and its communist bloc foes in Grenada (pronounced Gren-AY-dah), a tiny Caribbean island nation with fewer people than most Los Angeles suburbs.
“Mind da goat, mon!” a smiling Grenadian yells in her lilting Creole accent as I clamber off the jet’s broken wing. “He like to bite da Yankees!” The young woman’s long-eared goat, tethered to the tail section of the Air Cubana relic, eyes me with hungry relish. The cracked tarmac is now foraging ground for livestock and a makeshift soccer field. At the far end of the weed-punctured runway lies the cobalt Caribbean.
“Welcome to Grenada,” the goat lady says, with a bell-like laugh. Given her age, she probably remembers nothing of the brief war that overtook her homeland 18 years ago. But for many older islanders, recollections remain vivid.
"No one truly understands what it’s like to live under Marxism unless he has been there -- and we’ve been there," Royston Hopkin tells me a few days after my visit to Pearls, the main airport at the time of “the U.S. intervention,” which is how most Grenadians refer to the events that began on Oct. 25, 1983.
"More than 90 percent of our citizens of Grenada welcomed the Americans," declares Hopkin, a distinguished-looking man of about 60, with curly silver hair and a tennis-player's trimness. Although never officially communist, Grenada was ruled briefly by the Revolutionary Military Council, a left-leaning group that developed close relations with Cuba and the former Soviet Union.
"We wanted the chaos to end," Hopkin tells me, choosing his words carefully. "This was the best way."
Since coming to Grenada, I have heard variations on this theme, even from those who don't have the obvious self-interest of Hopkin, who owns Spice Island Beach Resort, one of the country’s fanciest hotels. Tourism suffered and 18 years later the most common question asked of travel agents remains, "Is it safe to go there?"
The answer is an unequivocal "yes.” The shooting war lasted only a few days and Grenada quickly returned to its old ways. Visitors find a laid-back former British colony with a diverse economy, stable democracy, and low crime rate. Unlike some over-visited Caribbean countries, with their mega-resorts and jaded locals, this island has an unspoiled quality and a mood of genuine friendliness.
"We are like one big family," explains Edwin Frank, better known as Mr. Lotto, the burly man who appears on Grenadian TV each Wednesday night to announce winning lottery numbers. "We may not know the name of everybody we run into, but we can usually have a connection to someone in their family."
In the span of only a few hours, I come to appreciate what Frank suggests. Grenada’s main island is so small that you can traverse every paved road in a day. The red-roofed capital of St. George’s is the only real city, where about half of the country’s approximately 100,000 people live.
During the half-hour it takes to drive to St. George’s from Point Salines Airport, a newcomer takes in everything that's essential to know about Grenada. The airport itself is a symbol of the intervention, since it was built with Cuban aid. Beyond the airstrip is St. George’s University, whose several hundred U.S. medical school students provided a pretext for the arrival of our armed forces.
As one heads north, the broad expanse of Grand Anse Bay appears, showing off its sugary beach, turquoise water, swaying coconut palms, and upscale hotels. As a dramatic backdrop, towering thunderheads shroud the thick forest that lies inland, carpeting the long-dormant volcanoes that form a jagged spine cresting at 2,750-foot Mt. Catherine. Look closely and you will see the groves of fragrant trees responsible for Grenada’s nickname: the spice island.
"Nutmeg is our single most important crop," declares Catherine Duprey Joseph, a supervisor at Dougaldston, a plantation in Grenada's northwest corner founded more than two centuries ago (shortly after the English drove French colonists from the island for a second time). "After Indonesia, Grenada is the second-largest producer of nutmeg in the world,” says Joseph, handing me a fruit with the look of a ripe apricot. Introduced in 1843, it long ago replaced sugar cane as Grenada’s biggest cash crop.
If you like nutmeg, this is heaven. Besides the powdered nutmeg familiar as a baking additive, you will find the spice sold in every imaginable permutation: whole, chopped, scraped, as an oil, in a syrup, and as a key ingredient in salad dressings, desserts, marinades, chutneys, herbal potions, and even cosmetics. A companion spice, mace, derives from the lacy fiber that covers the nutmeg seed pod. Jams and marmalades are flavored by a fleshy outer skin that surrounds both mace and nutmeg.
Rum distilleries are another worthy distraction. My favorite is River Antoine Estate, which claims to be the region's only fully organic processor. The afternoon of my visit coincided with that of Ray Edgar, the Grenadian investor who owns Antoine. Edgar but lives in London.
"Try it neat," Edgar commands, pouring a smoky liquid into my cup. I steel myself and down the shot in one gulp. A fireball of sweetened alcohol scorches my throat clear to my stomach, where it smolders like an ember.
"Superb!" I proclaim, with a sputtering cough.
Edgar smiles impishly as he dilutes my second shot of Antoine’s Rivers brand with Coca-Cola. The flames don't burn so brightly this time, but beads of sweat form instantly on my forehead and tears seep from the corners of my eyes. I am feeling no pain by the time I tumble into the car. Thankfullly, Mr. Lotto, a teetotaler, is driving.
We wind our way along steep roads into Grand Etang National Park, a lush preserve that averages more than 150 inches of rain per year. A misty hike rewards us with a view of a serene volcanic lake, one of several flooded craters that seem as quiet and undisturbed as the beginning of time. A troop of Mona monkeys, descended from animals smuggled by slaves from West Africa, scutters through the treetops. Our footfalls have disturbed these shy creatures because our trail is covered with empty nutmeg shells, which pop as we step on them like the bubble-wrap used in packaging.
Our car descends from the rainforest following cascading streams that are lined with tree-sized ferns and thickets of bamboo. Within an hour we reach the secluded coastal inlet where my hotel is tucked in a luscious maze of hibiscus flowers, bougainvillea vines, and banana trees. I take a twilight siesta, enjoy a refreshing swim in the waters of Morne Rouge Bay, and dress casually (as is expected) for dinner at Sur La Mer Cafe.
After dessert, I recline on the restaurant’s verandah, which juts above a moon-washed, surf-caressed beach. “When you hear that sound, doesn’t it make you want to stay forever?” asks owner Miriam Nedeau, who, like many islanders, is of mixed African-European descent. “I’d stay here in a heartbeat,” I murmur, my words carried away by a languid trade wind. The wars of super powers and terrorists seem impossibly far away. On this balmy night in Grenada, a tropical island feels like paradise.
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