Mud & Slopes

On my final full day in Montserrat, I decided to take on something which I always wanted but never got the chance to - tackling the tallest peak in the Centre Hills, Katy Hill. According to the Montserrat Tourist Board website, they mention that "you will definitely need a guide" and "hikers should be prepared for a very strenuous experience, as well as mud and moisture in the Katy Hill cloud forest". As such, I managed to cajole Paddy to take Gerren and myself up the Katy Hill North trail, which is the most direct way up and down the summit.

Little did I know that I was to end up embarking on the steepest hiking trail I've ever done. Hiking seemed like an inappropriate term in this case - towards the end of the trail, we were scrambling up 60-degree angle slopes and traversing 2-foot wide ridges with 80-degree drops on both sides. It was certainly not for the faint of heart - indeed, I'm surprised that over all these years no one (that I know of, at least) has fallen off! The trail was extremely steep and uneven throughout, and coming down was more of exercise of sliding down on your bum and hoping that the wet, slippery mud doesn't send you flying off the side of the hill.

Nonetheless it was rewarding work, despite only being able to catch glimpses of the stunning scenery through gaps in canopy, and with no distinct summit marker it was a little hard not to put off the "oh, so this is it?" feeling. Should you ever visit Montserrat and decide to embark on this trail, be prepared!

Making our way back down the muddy trail.

Taking a scenery break.

View of the north end of Montserrat from the slopes of Katy Hill.

With Montserrat being such a hilly island, hiking certainly is a great way to tour the island and soak in the views from the numerous vantage points scattered about. Indeed, Monty has more cliffs than beaches, giving it its imposing character when seen from air.

Holidays & Sails

Today marks another day of Montserratian intrigue - it seems that the last Monday of May here is a bank holiday, which of course works out nicely for most of us. However, nobody (including a few people who live here) seems to know exactly why it's a holiday when I asked around. Given that it's the Memorial Day weekend in the States this weekend, it might have something to do with that - although I can't imagine how.

(Update: After some snooping around online, I have discovered that today is Whit Monday, a Christian holiday. According to Wikipedia, Whit Monday "was also a public holiday in various former British colonies, especially in the Pacific. It is still a public holiday in some of the countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean.")

But still, I am certainly not one to question my good luck - having only found out last Friday that today is a bank holiday, I've been using this free day to catch up on a bit of lesson planning and work. All after a weekend of dinghy sailing and tackle fishing with Jon Stone. Jon managed to procure a Sunfish, on loan from the Montserrat Yacht Club, for the weekend and here's the result.

Veils & Shamrocks

Last week gone has been an ultimately busy week - it was St Patrick's on Saturday, and let me tell you, St. Patrick's really is a big thing in Montserrat! A week-long festival which started last Monday saw myself conducting the secondary school choir for their debut performance, playing with Volpanics in what was my first ever steel pan gig, dance behind a truck loaded with massive speakers moving at half a mile an hour (this is called a jump up!), embark on a rum shop tour, crash a stage where the string band was playing (well, not quite: I just grabbed a pair of shakers and edged in), and eat lots of food. Glorious, Caribbean food!

More pictures of these all to follow. But first, last night was the Emerald Community Singers' annual cabaret performance (as part of St Paddy's festival), and the Chinese folk dance quartet finally had their chance to showcase their moves in complete splendor. This folksong is native of the Xinjiang region in China, where majority of the region's total population adheres to Islam. This lyrics describe a young lady whose beautiful features are covered by a veil, and she is being edged on by the singer to reveal some of her alluring facial features, while he extols her resplendent qualities in song.


This item was performed by Gerren Gerrald, Beth Breuer, Vicky Wilson and Cupid Francis, with Sujue Davis providing artistic advisory and myself playing music man, of course.

Ghauts & Scuba diving

This weekend gone has been a busy one, and as I now settle back into this mid-week post I can see my arms slightly reddish from a bit too much exposure to the sun. On Saturday, a group of us - Doug, Mel, Rob, Dan and myself - went on a hike in the north, starting from Drummonds heading to Rendezvous Bay and going via Silver Hills. What was meant to be a rather straightforward undertaking quickly turned into somewhat of an intrepid bush hike as we somehow veered off the trail, stumbled onto a farm and then proceeded to edge our way slowly down a steep slope into a valley before clamouring down the entire length of a ghaut on our hands and feet.

At this point we were beginning to wonder if we were truly lost, but by some fortuitous chance we came across two men who were building a goat fence, albeit in the seemingly most random and remote location as where we were. They, however, did seem to know the local geography well and managed to point is in the right direction - this time following yet another different ghaut down the valley, towards the sea. The aim was to reach Crystal Beach, a rocky beach along the north coast purportedly containing crystals.

And crystals we did find! Well, nothing too grand, but crystals nonetheless - they were embedded in some form of limestone. Following the coast, we continued on to Rendezvous Bay, the only white sand beach on the island. The water was pristine and nothing short of relieving, after our long detour.

My return to the summit of Silver Hill.

Carib or Arawak ruins, perhaps?

At the summit of Silver Hill, we spotted what appeared to be ruins of some sort - two monoliths strangely sticking out of the tree canopy. While I can't profess to know much about Caribbean history, I did hear that the earliest evidence of humans in Lesser Antilles arc of islands dates all the way back to 2,000 BCE in Antigua - which is right next door from Montserrat. This area certainly has seen lots of human history.

Dan being a bit of a geology nerd.

Attempting to reconcile with the trail.

At some point, the trail we were trying to follow disappeared, and no amount of consultation with Doug's hi-tech GPS tracker could point us back in the right direction. We crossed a farm gate and, after avoiding a potentially irate cow looking after a calf, arrived at a steep side of a hill overlooking a valley which, we reckoned, would lead us to the ocean.

Rolling hills and valley.

A rocky respite.

At a scenic rocky outcrop.

After pushing our away through some low but thick vegetation, we arrived at a dry ghaut that was bordered by a goat fence on the east side. Which, I suppose, was good news - that meant someone had been here previously before on foot to build these fences. Although, considering how remote where we were, it seemed like a massive effort to go through just to make sure a few goats don't accidentally wander off.

And just as I was pondering on that point, we ran into that pair of fence-building farmers.

Mel expressing some rocky love.

The intrepid five.

Familiarizing myself with more local flora.

And finally, two-and-a-half hours later, we finally heard faint sounds of splashing waves. At the end of ghuat we emerged at sea level, on a rocky beach that was Crystal Beach. From there, we followed the coast west-ward and arrived at neighbouring Rendezvous Bay. This beach is only accessible by boat, or a hilly 30-minute trek from the port in Little Bay.

First stop: straight into the sea.

The cliffs which cut Rendezvous Bay off.

My little spot of paradise.

On Sunday, Mel, Philippa and myself returned to Little Bay - not for more walking though, but to get our sea legs in shape with a boat dive with Emmy and Andrew, a couple who run a diveshop on the island called Scuba Montserrat. We went out to Rendezvous Bay (again!), but anchored off about 400 metres form shore for our dive and a spot called Rainbow's End.

As I don't have an underwater camera, I didn't get any pictures from our dive, unfortunately - but it certainly was a beautiful sight of corals, fishes and a couple of sea urchins. At 45 feet, one tank lasted pretty long, and we managed to clock just above an hour for our dive.

After returning to shore, we headed over to the nearby beach bar for some lunchtime beers to finish off the weekend - for me, at least - I was completely knackered. Here is a map of the trail we took for the trek on Saturday, taken off the GPS.

In other music-related news, the Montserrat Youth Choir will be having their inaugural performance on Cultural Day, 12 March. Montserrat Secondary School celebrates the annual cultural day with a parade from Salem, with students dressing up in cultural costumes representing all the countries which the student population derives from. There will be a UK contingent, and I have agreed to 'choreograph' a ceilidh-style Scottish reel routine for the parade.

The parade will then end at the school itself, where there will be a varying range of food and merchandise being sold to raise funds for the school. I almost thought I might be cornered into preparing some Singaporean-type cuisine for this, but thankfully I was spared. Not that I have the slightest inkling on how to whip up chicken rice, laksa or char kway teow! (I make a pretty damn good carbonara meatball pasta though.) And finally, There will also be a 'concert' of sorts, with students performing different artistic routines derived from different cultures.

Come next Tuesday, I will be meeting with the Rotary club here in Montserrat to see if we can raise even more funds for instrument donations - which is in itself a positive development. On the other hand, my order of music books from Chappell still hasn't arrived, and it's been nearly three weeks. Very frustratingly so. The postal system in this region really needs a big kick up the bum!

Radio interviews & Folk dancing

Last Wednesday, ZJB Radio Montserrat paid a visit to the music classrooms to catch a glimpse of some of the Form 1s in the midst of their music lessons, as well as to give some of my students and myself a quick interview. Students were asked about their impression of the music programme so far and what they hope to achieve from it. We talked briefly about my role on the island, what I have set out to achieve and whether there will be someone taking over when I leave in July (of which there will be someone).

A Form 1 student being interviewed.

Students sharing their thoughts.

Lesson activities written out in old-school chalk.

The radio interview was broadcast on the same day an hour later, which I unfortunately missed. In other news, my exploration and familiarization of Montserrat continues, and last week marked the first time I explored Lookout, a big housing 'village' project meant to relocate Montserratians after the last major eruption in 1995. Lookout has quite a young demographic of residents and is quite a hive of community bustle.

Marguerita Bay, adjacent to Lookout.

I have embarked on another community 'cultural' project, this time with Sujoe Davis - the governor's wife. She originally hails from China and is a well-travelled lady who has, along with her husband, served in many different diplomatic posts with the Foreign Office in many various countries around the world. She is also quite a linguist, who fluently speaks Japanese, Teochew, English, Mandarin, and a smattering of Arabic and Thai.

She has proposed that a Xinjiang folk dance be performed during the St Patrick's Day celebrations, with Cupid - the Director of Culture - singing in Mandarin whilst accompanied by a bevy of dancing ladies. Sujoe herself has choreographed the Chinese folk dance routine, and I have been arranging the music and accompanying rehearsals. So far they have been a good laugh, although sooner or later we'll have to buckle down if we want to get that pronunciation sorted out!

Cupid enjoying a wee tease.

Community-based ensembles such as Small Beginnings and Volpanics commence this month, having broken up for Christmas. Workload will certainly increase, and this, however, has not been placated by a somewhat frustrating lack of logistical and administrative support from the school. I am now considering trying to run after-school activities through a more 'community'-based channel through the Ministry of Culture (of which Cupid does a fantastic job in leading it), instead of trying to run them through the school and, indirectly, via the Ministry of Education.