Day 232 - Three Vernal Bear Days in Barbados

The Vernal Bear Day Bears in Barbados

The embassy in Barbados was much larger than the embassy in Qatar or the consulate general in Stuttgart, so I looked forward to observing Vernal Bear Day with a larger number of people. In addition, through our son we had met members of the British High Commission and somewhere along the way we also met Carol from the Canadian High Commission, enlarging the pool of people who might just be willing to act childlike for a Sunday afternoon.

The first year, I focused on inviting people who didn't have children, or at least didn't have children in Barbados, so that the reason for the holiday - to give adults who want to enjoy the discovery of spring time traditions - could be observed. But since I couldn't count myself among the childless any longer, we extended the invitation to those with children around our son's age as well.

Valerie and Margaret at Vernal Bear Day Brunch in Barbados

The first year the Vernal Bear Day brunch was a time of discovery for most of the participants. Each person or couple arrived with a basket prepared according to the rules I had distributed in a shopping bag, a garbage bag, a waste basket, or a box as the disguise. I told them they now should find a hiding place within the first floor of our house for their disguised basket.

After brunch we drew numbers from a hat to determine who would go first to find a hidden basket. The finder then uncovered the basket and investigated the contents to be sure nothing had to be confiscated (no bunnies allowed; chicks are optional). The rotation then followed with the person whose basket had just been found going next. And so it went until all the baskets had been found and opened. That was about all there was to the event, but I know everyone had a good time.

The next year, some of those who had attended the first year had moved on and there were a few newcomers, including the ambassador and his wife as well as the DCM, but now there were many more enthusiasts to share the instructions of what makes a suitable Vernal Bear Day basket. A couple of people had friends in town who also joined us for brunch and the discovery of the baskets. Again, the event took up about three hours for brunch followed by the basket hunt. And everyone enjoyed themselves.

The third year, my last spring in Barbados although I didn't yet know it, things were a little different. This was during the several months when I was serving as the acting management officer and the political section chief was serving as the acting deputy chief of mission. On that weekend, the ambassador was out of the country and out of his area of responsibility. That meant the acting DCM was in fact the acting ambassador or chargé d'affaires. The ambassador planned to return to Barbados Sunday morning, so he and his wife could attend Vernal Bear Day. The political section chief/acting deputy chief of mission/chargé d'affaires wasn't among my circle of friends, so I hadn't invited him and his wife to brunch.

Barbro brought her own bear to the party

The Saturday evening before Vernal Bear Day, about 10 p.m., John, the regional security officer (RSO), called me at home to let me know there had been an incident at the chargé's home. He wanted me to know about it before the ambassador returned and he thought it would be a good idea for me to accompany him to the airport when the ambassador's plane arrived.

The chargé's home was quite a distance from Bridgetown and also quite a distance from any neighbors. This was a deliberate choice on their part because his wife was an opera singer who wanted to practice every day.  They had learned from previous assignments that as much as people loved her voice in a concert, neighbors were not so thrilled to be within earshot for the many hours a day she practiced. So they lived quite an isolated life.

Their home was surrounded by sugar cane fields. Sugar cane doesn't have an annual growth cycle like most crops I am familiar with. There is cane at all stages of development at all times of the year. It appeared to me that it took about 18 months for the cane to grow to the point it was ready for harvesting, so fields were being harvested right next to fields that just been planted. Harvesting had just begun on a field close to the charge's home. What had been 15-foot tall stands of cane were being cut down to stubble.

Image of sugar cane fields ready to be harvested
by Enrico Rubboli, via Flickr.com

Those tall stands of sugar cane had been the hiding place for the previous year of one of four convicted murderers who had escaped from prison. Just how motivated the police were to recapture the four was a subject of many rumors since one of the men came from a prominent family. Most people assumed that all four of them had managed to stow away on one of the many banana boats that came into the harbor regularly. There wasn't a lot of effort going into finding them.

A few weeks earlier, the chargé had noticed that some of the cardboard packing boxes his family had put into their carport had disappeared. But he didn't think too much about it. He thought some kids might have picked up the cardboard to recycle or to play with. But on the Saturday evening, just as it was getting dark, his son mentioned that he thought someone was in the carport. The chargé went out to investigate. He found himself face-to-face with one of the four convicted murderers with a sawed-off shotgun pointed at him. The intruder insisted that the chargé get down on his knees behind his car with his hands behind his head and to keep quiet. The felon hit him on the back of his head with the butt of the shotgun to ensure the chargé complied.

The felon grabbed a few more things from the carport and took off, leaving the chargé and his family shaken, but not badly hurt. They called the RSO who called the Marine Security Guard Detachment Commander who rounded up the Marines who weren't on duty to travel with him out to the house. By the time they got there, the Barbados Police were also at the chargé's house, stamping around in the cane fields, looking for the felon. They found the makeshift shelter he had constructed from the cardboard packing boxes, but once again the felon managed to get away, but not before one of the policemen shot another of the policemen by accident.

That's why the RSO thought we should both be at the airport in the morning to meet the ambassador. John picked me up at home the next morning. He had a copy of the morning edition of the local newspaper with the headline, "Policeman shot at U.S. diplomat's home." John thought the ambassador should get the full story from us rather than seeing the headline in the airport.

The ambassador knew something was up when there were two of us to meet him.

"What are you two doing here?" he asked.

Vicki and the ambassador at Vernal Bear Day brunch
in Barbados

In contrast to the insistence on protocol by the ambassador in Qatar, the ambassador in Barbados had just the right balance of formality when it was necessary and being down-to-earth when it was appropriate. The ambassador knew his driver would be outside the airport waiting to take him home, but he didn't insist that the DCM or any other embassy official escort him to and from the airport.

After John finished explaining what had happened and the ambassador was satisfied that no one from the embassy was seriously hurt, I asked him if he thought I should postpone Vernal Bear Day.

"Whatever for?" he responded. "Do you need help with the preparations?"

I assured him everything would be ready.

"Then Vicki and I will be there on time," he replied.

That final Vernal Bear Day brunch went quite normally with only the discussion of the events the evening before marking it as somewhat unusual.