Practical Steps to Open New Doors

Doing research before a cruise opens doors beyond the gangway. I found three remarkable options in Nassau—beyond the ship’s organized stops, plus a fine walking tour.

In Nassau catch the #10 bus on Bay Street, head west for $1 and ask to get off at Nettie’s. The bus stop is two blocks from Prince George Wharf where my Carnival Fascination docked; Nettie’s is a Bahamian experience. Nettie Symonette is an island woman protecting and sharing her culture. She’s a self-declared minimalist, telling me “I don’t wear underwear or shoes any more. I am back to the simple days of life when I was a girl in Eleuthera.”

You can be back to her basics too for $10 and a few hours, any day except Tuesday, strolling the grounds, experiencing her paintings, tasting leaves of indigenous plants like bay geranium and playing dominoes on tree stumps under the leafy branches.

Nettie collects 300-year-old pots, enamel water pitchers, metal measuring cans and very old sewing machines. “The girls all watch TV now and don’t know how to sew,” she laments. She’s a teller of tales and unfolds quite a few in her one-room schoolhouse and outdoor story-telling area.

“I’m not a spiritual person,” she says, “but I believe in a higher power. Where else do the ideas for my paintings come from? I saw something as I slept, and then I saw something and then I saw something, and so I did eight paintings.”

Nettie’s grounds and museum keep expanding with plantings for tea and medicines so she can energize and heal in ancient ways, and show visitors how things used to be…and maybe still should.

Chew fast because she pulls off big clumps of leaves, explaining what they’re for and then hands you another. You’re expected to comply. I boosted my immune system 10 different ways in five minutes. And that was just the front yard.

“Many things we don’t really need,” Nettie claims. “I eat Cheerios by hand—no milk. I don’t eat anything with thin skin, only thick. Beans are good, and so are fish, conch and grits.

“Basic is the way to eat,” Nettie says. To help travelers do so, she’s opening a 15-unit hotel with cafe. Cruise ship visitors who spent just part of a day can go back to Nassau and book a few nights.

Wouldn’t be for everyone, considering the posh hotels and resorts visible on West Bay Street from the bus en route to Nettie’s, but it would be and immersion in local culture and heritage, very good reasons to travel and not always so easy to discover.

Expect small meals served on tin plates hand painted by Nettie. “Soup is going to be very big here, using my own recipes,” Nettie says, “and cooking lessons. You can’t go any place in this world doing what I do,” she claims. “Rooms are secondary; you can get a hotel room anywhere.”

The hotel and café are on the ocean side of the road with private beach access and an outdoor massage area.

Just the opposite—abundant energy—is the case if you get yourself from the ship to a Junkanoo costume shed.

E-mail Educulture Bahamas Ltd. before you sail and they’ll pick you up at the dock. That’s the place to steep in Junkanoo traditions. New Orleans music and marching, we know, and the splendid costumes of Mummers in Philadelphia. The Junkanoos of the Bahamas are their ancestors, loaded with creativity, energy and joie de vivre.

You’re unlikely to stumble across this Junkanoo costume museum and current-day workshop even if you’re strolling the Nassau shops, so a contact ahead of time is a vital plan. Only Disney cruises book the Junkanoos as a port of call, the Center’s researcher Alecca Ramsey told me.

African people brought to the Bahamas by the British celebrated joyously for three days at Christmas when they were released from their labors, Ramsey explained, concealing their identity in costumes of symmetrical strips of rags or newspaper, from sponges retrieved from the sea and with plaited straw.

Today’s costumes are elaborate themes rising high above shoulders and heads and following the design of the historic costumes on display in Educulture. Tissue paper is often the medium, cut strip by strip in identical lengths, sometimes trimmed with barber shears to become short fringe, and always meticulously glued one piece at a time to achieve a particular color design.

These amazing costumes are layered and Ramsey says that’s on purpose. “African history consists of many layers,” she says. “We cook in layers too and the Junkanoo reflect this. We no longer hide in the bushes but we parade on Main Street,” Ramsey says. “Bahamians love to party.”

At least 30 big groups, some with 100 people or more—families, neighborhoods, civic organizations—build themed costumes every year, competing fiercely for awards for style, theme, music and marching presentation. Many of the winners can be seen in the Educulture, as well as historic costumes and instruments.

When you book a cruise to Nassau, try to choose a date with a Junkanoo parade; the Ministry of Tourism Web site can help. Shoulder-to-shoulder with local people having fun their traditional ways gives meaning to travel. Snagging an invitation to their home is even better. The Bahamas People to People program (local volunteers share their culture) will invite you to lunch, church or a civic club meeting if you call ahead.

The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism sponsors year-round encounters, matching visitors with residents of similar interests. Additional wonder: it’s free. The last Friday of every month, People to People serves tea at 4 p.m. in Government House.

Other Activities
Just $10 gets you a 45-minute guided walking tour from Festival Place at Prince George Wharf where ships dock. Walks start at 10 a.m. and head out every 90 minutes.

The fabled straw market burned Sept. 13, 2001, and rebuilding is in the plans. I’d recommend heading for Bay Street and some lovely international shops. Shirley is the banking street and art is on display in the foyer of the Central Bank.

The National Art Gallery is within reach as is the Pompey Museum with 18th century history to the present, and local Bahamian art changing frequently.
Hard to be hungry as a cruise ship traveler, but the Graycliff restaurant in a 1740 mansion boasts five stars and might be something to plan in advance for reservations.

If You Go
Bahamas Ministry of Tourism
www.bahamas.com
242-302-2000

People to People Experience
www.bahamas.com
Enter people to people in search bar
peopletopeople@bahamas.com

Educulture Bahamas Ltd. and Junkanoo Museum
www.educulturebahamas.com
info@educulturebahamas.com

Difference of Nassau
nettiesplace@batelnet.bs .

Christine Tibbetts is an award-winning writer from Georgia who has written for the Tifton Gazette, the Dallas Morning News and Retire in Georgia Magazine.