The conductor slides open the bus door and steps to the road as it rolls to a stop. The bus is basically full, but he folds down the aisle seat behind him. Stella hops into it. I get into the front bench seat where the conductor was sitting. He gets in crouching and facing backwards, basically on my lap. We both look out the windows as the bus zooms forward, swerving around a slow vehicle. This is normal.
The bus driver stops to chat with an oncoming bus driver. They gesture arms out their windows and laugh. Cars honk. As we drive off, I pay the conductor, and he reaches for his zippered purse to give me change.
Stella and I get off at the Food Fair stop. We walk up the steep hill past the roadkill mongoose. Her legs are feeling yesterday’s Kung Fu class, she tells me. I drop her off at her hilltop school, then walk down and turn up a steep road for my new favorite walk home. It takes me up a steep winding hill through the fancy Mon Tout neighborhood. Pretty houses. Gorgeous views.
Then I walk further up—so steep the concrete is cut with horizontal grooves for traction. At the top, I stop in the shade, letting the wind lift my sweaty hair. From here, my view is houses among trees sloping down and down to the turquoise water that wraps the curving coast and stretches to the horizon.
At the intersection, I turn down a dirt road, zig-zag over to a paved road past the golf course, then thread through a tight neighborhood of overlapping houses. Beyond the bar at the top of that road, I pass patches of cabbages and bananas and pigeon peas. A man balances on a steep slope above the road to water his young pineapple plants. White goats and black sheep nibble the brush, tied by a rope around their neck, always in slightly different locations.
Everywhere I go, I watch Grenadians greet each other.
I appreciate how most Grenadians greet me with a simple “Morning,” or “Afternoon.” When I lived in San Jose, Costa Rica, in college, I walked around clenching my jaw. Even dressed like a nun, I had to ignore cat-calls, hissing, and Hey Baby. Grenada was different.
Recently, though, men started engaging me. A lingering greeting. A fist-bump. A handshake. An invite to get my number. They were not deterred by the fact that I sweat profusely and wear a big floppy hat and walk way too fast for casual conversation. One guy came at me with open arms that I dodged and parried with a too-polite, “No thank you.” It was getting annoying and slightly unsettling.
Then I realized: I have been walking around grinning.
I am smiling at the bright bougainvillea, lizards posing on fences, hens and their clutches of chicks. I smile at the bus conductors stopping traffic to help little schoolkids across the street. A guy selling fruit or standing in the gutter, shoveling it out. I even beam at the loose dogs and say, “Are you a good dog doing good dog things?” I’ve been meeting everybody’s eyes and lighting up my face.
It finally occurred to me that grinning everywhere might give the message that I am open to interaction. So I have decided to experiment. I still smile at children and old people. I smile at women, who rarely smile back. Most Grenadian women do not walk around smiling, and it seems to work. So when I see an approaching man—from puberty to middle-age—I fix my face. It’s working.
This morning on my walk, a young man is walking towards me. So I check my body language. I square my shoulders forward. My cheeks drop. I focus on my feet or stare into the distance. I scowl. When he greets me, I do not look at him. I give him a grumpy, toneless, “Morning.” He walks on past me. I smile.
There are so many layers to the culture of a place. I am not privy to the deeper layers of what it means to be Grenadian, but I soak up what I see in the streets. Concrete walls are covered with bright murals. Gates and doors display no-nonsense signs. There are people cleaning out gutters and trimming back weeds.
Down on the busy Kirani James Road—named for Grenada’s accomplished Olympic sprinter—bus drivers shout teasing jabs at each other as they pass. Pedestrians get a ride when a friend stops for them. Two men yell escalating curses at each other, then bust out laughing. Elementary-aged children in pressed uniforms hold the hands of small siblings as they catch the public bus to school. A well-dressed woman loudly chews out a local guy for whatever reason. It’s a small island. People know each other.
I am wrapping up my morning walk by turning down Belmont Road. On this road, there’s a jerk chicken place and a guy who washes cars in the street and a tiny porch bar built on a retaining wall made of tires painted in many colors. I lift my face under my hat and greet a tall girl in pleated navy skirt and cravat as she arrives at her school. “Morning,” she says. She almost smiles.
