Old Stuff

One thing I've come to realize from reading everyone else's blogs is this: all of us in Dominica write the same things and take the same pictures. While I want to show everyone back home how amazingly different this all is, really these are just my versions of the same ole, same ole. Oh well, let's get to it.

Wonderman and I went to visit Fort Shirley, an old fort built by the British in the 1700s while they were in charge of occupying the island. Parts of the garrison (yes, a word that I would never use on my own, but I got it from my reading about the fort and it sounds cool, yet I couldn't define for you exactly what a "garrison" is) were restored and/or reconstructed. That was cool. Most of it was broken down by the jungle (ok, really just the lush woodlands; I clearly recognize now that it's not the jungle). That was much cooler. We hiked around a bit and climbed in and around stuff. We tried to figure out what things were. I wondered what it must have been like to be stationed there. The one thing that I found most interesting, I didn't take a picture of. It was the timeline. There was one entry marking when the island was first inhabited, which was about 3000 BC or something. Then there was one, maybe two, connected to a slave soldier (I know, slave soldiers? How does that work? It doesn't make sense to me, either. Guess it didn't to them, thus the uprising) uprising.

(See? Not jungle. Merely a nicely wooded path. Like upstate New York. Kind of. With crabs and lizards everywhere.)

The rest was pretty much just like this: "The French took over, then the British took over, then the French took over, then the British took over, then the French took over, then the British took over, then the British left." All true, I suppose, but it just seems like there is so much story that gets left out. I feel like I have so little understanding of the true history of this island. History is written by the conquerors though, right? Too bad.



This is some broken down stuff with restored stuff in the background. Artistic shot, right?



These are some cool cannons, aka "The Big Guns" for, you know, when you need to get out "The Big Guns." I think I read on someone else's blog that they were never fired, though. Apparently they have the capacity to fire over a mile and a half, so they could really protect the entire bay, and thus (in theory) the entire island. That's cool.




Um, Cactus? Never once imagined I'd see that in Dominica.











Wonderman checking out some ruins:


And Wonderman checking out the crazy vine-trees that helped cause the ruin (apparently Tarzan was based at least in the realm of possibility. These things are like serious rope).









And then here's me, sitting amongst the ruin, showing off my new haircut (I did it myself, just the day before. I was pretty impressed with myself and I'm telling you because I think you should be impressed with me, too).





It was a good Saturday trip. We both enjoyed it and Wonderman only got a little bit sunburned.





Do you see his untrained "I'm looking at the screen instead of the camera" look? Sigh. So much to teach him.