The deal I have with Geo is that when he starts his water scooter business, he will let me serve at his beach bar. Or when he goes to visit his family in Bahama. For the longest time, I have thought that it would be a dream job for me to do for a couple of years.

I passed his test when he showed me a bottle and asked if I knew what it was. (It was Mamajuana)

Almost three out of four American tourists we met are from New York!! I now have a friend whose mom lives in Haiti. Need to plan a trip there now that I know a local person!

Feast of blue colors

The sands were as fine and white as talcum powder!

PLS was very smooth for immigration and customs. Out in 5 minutes.

153 is an Armstrong number, by the way. The cubes of the digits add up to the number!

Steering wheel on the right side and driving on the left side. If only I can stop myself from starting the wipers every time I want take a turn, I should be in a good shape.

Saw these lanterns after a long time. They were at our dining tables by the beach. I have seen some of these put up for decorative purposes in many places before – but none in actual use.

In the village, we grew up sitting with family members in the evening by these things chatting away to glory. Later, in Durgapur, during those days of “loadshedding” (rolling blackouts), we did our homework and studies by these lanterns in the evening.

I asked the waitress if there was a special name for this in the island. There was not. They are simply referred to as a “lantern”. In Bengali, we used to call them “hurricane” (no relation to the storms – although if you let the wick out too much, it would cough up a storm of soot cloud quickly).

Folks who remember this, do you recollect the two clever pieces of engineering – a spring that was used to open up the glass container for cleaning and the lever that you pushed down to make space to stick in the lit match stick to get it going?