National Park

This past Saturday, I spent the day with Maria and her family. I went to Georgetown Club with her and watched her daughter’s squash lesson in the morning. It’s so great – there are squash courts in the back and they offer free lessons on Saturday mornings. We were greeted at the gate by Maria’s herd of dogs and puppies, and I mean herd! I think she has about 10 in total. I helped Maria make a lovely lunch of chicken (with jerk and special sauce), macaroni, twice cooked potatoes, fried plantain and veggies. We watched Madagascar as a breeze blew through the house and I admired the pawpaw, passionfruit and mango trees in her yard. Just before we called it a day, her daughter suggested a walk in the National Park.

I had driven by it before, going here and there, but I had never been to it. It’s not like a National Park in Canada with forest for miles and wildlife, but more of a regular park meets a sports field. There is a outdoor stage area, several sports fields, a track around a field that is a mile long, trees and ponds. When we got there, there was a rugby game just finishing up on one field and a football (or soccer!) game on another. It gets dark here at 6pm and we left for our walk at 5:30pm. As we were turning a corner, Maria and her daughter were talking about manatees. Oh yeah, manatees. No seriously. Manatees. They live in the ponds in the park. And people feed manatees like we feed ducks. It was almost dark when we got to the pond, but we were able to see a manatee feeding on some grass at the edge of the pond. I saw his back and his cute little nose. I saw a MANATEE! Actually, I saw four other little bumps that were also manatees. I can’t wait to go back and see them during the day. And feed them!