Mutton, rail meat, Georgetown Beat!

We are eating out of Styrofoam in a shack. It’s a green shack and we’re eating mutton.

It’s a slapdash shack in a makeshift row of candy coloured structures, plucked together over the course of a few days. Wires and cables snake the ground around us and an open faced fan with exposed blades, throws warm dusty air at us. We are lined up against the wall with our tiny plastic forks, futilely spooning rice. The sticky plastic table cloth hosts a number of hot sauces and luke warm cream based salad dressings despite the lack of salad on the menu. There are the usual Bahamian offerings of barbecue ribs and chicken and mutton with peas and rice and macaroni and cheese and plantain. It’s all finger-lickin’-good. And it all goes to the hips. There must be 50 makeshift bars offering rum punches, sky juice (a trendy local gloopy white concoction of gin, sweetened condensed milk and coconut milk), and the local beers – Sands and Kalik, on special.

Over our heads, the local banter reaches epic volumes. It’s a ‘cacophonous symphony’ of shouts and laughter, knee slaps and hollers.

On another level, the base from competing sound systems lifts the floorboards to the incessant beat. Rake n' scrape, the local music pumps out hits like 'All Da Meat', 'Roach on My Bread', 'Bush Mechanic', 'That Ain't No Mosquito Bite' and more...

It’s hot and our clay-dust flip flopped feet have carried us around the tiny town, which is abuzz for the week. It’s the 66^th Annual National Family Island Regatta in Georgetown. Big words for a set of boat races in the harbour. The wooden boats with their giant sails, have been made across the small islands of the Bahamas for generations. Communities across the nation have been preparing and perfecting their vessels and crew since last year’s race. The boat names and their colours are amazing. Barbarians, Confusion, Beerly Legal, I’ve Tried, Ruff Justice, New Slaughter, Termite… etc. all out there, sails puffed, ‘rail meat’ out on the boards, representing their islands!

And we are here, eating steamed mutton in a shack. We will head out to one of the many race viewing vantage points, once our bellies are full, to watch the spectacle unfold. To the untrained eye, it’s organized chaos. With a breathtaking turquoise backdrop.

In the evenings there will be marching bands and fashion shows; the finest and most bizarre come out and flaunt what their mama gave them. There are literally all shapes and sizes, dressed in every colour, material and style imaginable. And some unimaginable. 

There will be music pulsing from giant black speakers piled high, and the partying will continue literally until the sun comes up. Oh, and I’ll be part of that! Lying in bed, facing the music with my 33 decibel industrial grade ear plugs. Zzzzzz.

This is a big event for Georgetown and the ‘out islands’ as they’re called. And we are here. Loving every minute of it. And slurping our mutton bones gleefully.