Montserrat - The Emerald Isle

I have nothing but fond memories of living on Montserrat... and would love to go back for a visit again some day.

It was back in 1987, and what posessed my fabulous, adventurous parents to relocate us for 6 months to a small caribbean island, i'm still not quite sure... but i am so glad they did!  No doubt memories of a 9 year old are distorted by the fact that one can't yet entirely distinguish fantasy from reality, but...  I remember the places we lived as tropical palaces, the local people as happy easy-going purple-black friends, the fruit new and exotic, the roti spicy and intriguing to my budding taste buds, and the Island as massive and varied.  I just spent some time on Google Earth trying to figure out the lay of the whopping 16km island once more, with a little difficulty, since, in addition to a volcanic facelift, it looks like there has been A LOT of development since '87!


I remember also a trip up to 'the middle of nowhere' in the mountains to eat some famous food... it was Miss Ann Morgan's goatwater stew.  To be honest, I don't remember whether I liked it or not, and I can't imagine how the name stuck, but when I did a little online search, I found out that she is still serving up the national dish in the same spot!

Most people had never even heard of Montserrat before the Soufriere volcano erupted consistently from 1995 through 1997, destroying half of the island, including the capital of Plymoth, the airport, and certainly, the tourist industry along with it!  You can see the extent of the impact in the map and the satellite image below.  I remember taking a family trip to hike up into the Soufriere hills to visit the volcano... twice actually (because we took a wrong turn and didn't make it to the volcano the first time around!?).  It was my first exposure to the yellow-sulphurous rocks and stinky fumaroles of a 'dormant' volcano - well, obviously it was brewing something up, since it was less than ten years after that things really heated up!

I certainly hope that the Monsterratians are still limin' on their beautiful beaches!  ... I hope they still have some of their beautiful beaches, and that they don't all look like the lava fields above!?  Limin' is local lingo meaning chillin' or 'hangin' out, and is apparently a popular term throughout the West Indes.

As a British dependent territory the island flies the United Kingdom (UK) flag. The coat of arms dates from 1909, and shows a woman dressed in green, holding a cross and harp. The cross is symbolic of Christianity, while the harp and woman recall Irish immigrants that settled on the island in 1632.  Erin is the symbol of freedom for Ireland.  (worldatlas.com)