We arrived with our 6 suitcases, et al in Barbados about 2 weeks ago, and are in the process of getting settled. Our home is lovely and we are very pleased with it. The neighborhood has many Embassy families which is great in terms of car pooling since we will only have 1 car (the motorcycle is more M's toy than transportation!). We were given a "welcome kit" full of kitchen items, sheets, towels, and other such necessities to use until our own stuff arrives. It has been interesting to live on limited belongings and start life anew. We decided to rent a car until our own car arrives; Barbados may be small but it's not that small and one must have wheels to get around. You can only rely on (or bug) neighbors so often. Although we were duly warned, it has been quite a shock to go grocery shopping and see the prices. We have easily spent $100-200 on each trip and not managed to get a week's worth of meals, and it's just the 2 of us eating! We are now members of the Costco-equivalent store here because it is slightly cheaper than the regular supermarkets and every little bit helps. Diplomats can also get refunded the 15% VAT charged on everything after filing for reimbursement. I don't know how locals do it since they don't have such an option. Stay tuned for a future post listing specific prices for your amusement/horror!
A major hassle is the lack of Internet at home. We have been told it will take 2-3 weeks and we are waiting impatiently. Having Internet at home is key to feeling like we are still in touch with our family and friends. There is no Skype/Vonage/Facebook/Gmail without it! I have access at work, and M can come to the Embassy too to use the computers, but it's just not the same thing. We also only get 1 local channel while we wait to have our cable hooked up (expected to take 3-4 weeks!). We lived on basic cable for years in the US and for some reason, cannot wait to get all these extra channels here... funny how that is. Then again, if you saw the interesting programming on the 1 local channel, you would sign up for cable too. There is nothing wrong with it per se, it's just an odd combination and dated. For example, in the past week, we could have watched Days of Our Lives from the 90s, Oprah from earlier this year, Reba from who-knows-when, shows whose names I've forgotten because they were cancelled in the US, old music videos (remember En Vogue?), etc. The upside is that we have learned all kinds of interesting things about our new country thanks to good local programming featured on this same channel.
We have only done a little bit of sightseeing because well, we have only had our rental car for a week and I do have to go to work! What we have seen is beautiful and we look forward to checking out all the major and minor points of interest here. We do have 2 years, so no rush!
S is doing very well. He is 4 months old as of yesterday, and the same happy, smiling baby he has always been, perhaps more so. Our UAB (= stuff from the Virginia apartment) arrived in country last week. After clearing customs and all that, it was delivered to our house today. I can't wait to unpack it and have more of our own stuff to use to make life feel a little more settled here.
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