Gospel and paprika

The sound of gospel tunes echoed in the small, small, blue church. The church rows were filled with Christian Antiguans vocalizing in unison, dressed in their finest clothing. The weather was warm and sunny, as per usual, the roof was covered with fans and the doors stood wide open – praise the lord! We were singing about Gods all mighty power and clapping our hands to the rhythm of the song:

“Way maker, miracle worker

Promise keeper, light in the darkness.

My God that is who you are!”

Afterwards, three busses took us to a ghost-like city called St Johns. With empty streets and closed stores there was almost a spooky feeling over it. Our plan was to go to the beach, but we only had two hours in the city until we had to take the buses back to the port. This meant that me, and approximately five friends, had to take on a mission; we would go to the beach and cool down, no matter the cost.

We started our journey by asking a security guard in the cruising ship area, near the docks, for some advice. According to her, the walk to the beach was too long and the area was too dangerous, she told us that she would strongly advice against it. We didn’t take her advice though and began our journey. It felt like the sun was 100 degrees and as if my body temperature was at least 64. But we had a mission to complete. As we walked further away from the cruising docks, our surroundings started to change. Our scenery went from being an idyllic destination created for tourists to relax, to an economically vulnerable area where people lived in great poverty. Strangers who walked past us asked if we were okay, probably because they weren’t used to tourists being in that area. The massive difference between the cruise ship area and this neighbourhood not even 500 meters away felt strange to me and made me feel bit uneasy.

When we finally arrived to our long-awaited beach, we got a bit disappointed, to say the least. The water was not crystal blue, and the sand was not white – the water was brown and the sand full of trash. We had walked for half an hour in the frying sun to a harbour mouth. Our mission had epically failed.

With semi-high spirits we began to walk back to the cruising ship area to look for some lunch. I bought an ice-cold Coca-Cola and was satisfied for a while. Then, we found our lunch place and I ordered a vegetable sandwich. “That sound wonderful!”, one might say. But no. It was filled with warm, green paprika, which is one of the worst things I know. It was inexplicably horrible.

Even though I might have described my day from a slightly negative perspective, it was a good day overall. It was both cool and interesting to go to a gospel church and I got to see a side of Antigua that was very different from the marina where we hung out for the rest of the time being. And it was still another day in paradise.

Ida Aderby

SAB 2124