Hi Everybody,

Alexandra is the daughter of Herve, who runs the electronics department at Grenada Marine and Caitlin who runs the chandlery store. She's six. We first met her in the boatyard when she appeared at the top of the three metre ladder to Quest. On her own. 'You have a Barbie Camper Van?’ she asked. Delphine nodded. 'Can I see?' Half an hour later, Jack was shaking his head. 'No, Alexandra, you can't take the Barbie Camper Van to the beach.' Alexandra took the bottom drawer out. Her eyes got big. 'But it's got a pool. How can they swim if you don't take them to the beach?' 'We always put the camper van in the cockpit,' Delphine said, her cheeks a little flushed by this point, 'do you want to do that?' Alexandra thought for a good long moment. 'That would be good.' Since that day, Delphine may well have met her Barbie-playing champion counterpart. They've spent hours huddled up on Quest rehearsing conversations, looking for accessories, telling each other's dolls what to say. 'Don't say it like that,' Delphine's voice filters from the forward cabin, 'say you'd love to meet me at five but you're busy.’ ‘I get it,’ Alexandra replies, ‘I’m too busy.’  

And then there's the matter of Alexandra's hair. 'It's so squishy,' Lulu says on the way to ballet, 'has she ever cut it?' Her Mum shakes her head. 'Her Daddy won't let me cut it.' Alexandra could be a miniature backing dancer at a Beyoncé concert. When she shakes her head, her hair points in different directions and forms a geometric star. It's so striking, it's like a stage act. 'I wish my hair was blond and long,' she laments, sitting next to Lulu and Delph on the back seat of her Dad's car. 'Are you crazy?' we exclaim and the girls and I try to get her to promise never to change it. Alexandra shrugs, non-committal. I guess it's a lot to ask someone who's six. 

Hair comes in a thousand different ways in Grenada. Of course I'm a duh-brain; it does everywhere else too! Somehow though on this little island it seems even more so and one of the best places to experience and mull over the wide variety of Grenadian hairdos is on the bus. To ride the bus here is to be plucked from the street, you may even be forgiven into feeling that you're being press-ganged. It goes like this; the bus beeps fervently as it gets close to you as if it's preparing to mount the pavement at any moment and you're really going to need to get out of the way, then the conductor slides the door open while the bus is still moving and the conductor calls out, 'Are you going to Grand Anse?' Or the mall or town or the cricket ground or the port, recycling plant, nutmeg factory, monkey viewing platform, somewhere, anywhere. London City boys have got nothing on Grenadian buses: time is money. The buses here are all privately owned and usually in the form of an A Team van with graffiti-style stickers on the back extolling God's overall decent fellow-type message. He won't let you down and you should believe it, so if you accept the ride then you better hurry up and get on. Get past the initial hair-raising, palpitating-producing intensity of wondering if you really are going to be bundled out to fish for oysters for the rest of your sorry life and you will discover that buses here are refreshingly cheap to use, efficient and at times, the most nausea-producing rides ever. And you never need to wait more than two minutes for one to come past. 

Once you get on the bus, you're faced with silence and hair. People don't talk on the bus. Perhaps it's respect for the driver's need to concentrate so he can drive at space rocket-level speeds without killing anyone or perhaps it’s because music is usually pulsating so intensely through the beefed-up sound system that you'd need to shout just to hear your own voice. Whichever, the fact is that unless you want people to look at you like you're a tourist and/or an unfortunate big-mouth, probably better not to say anything at all. This took us, read me, a number of go's to figure out. You hand the money over to the conductor and when you want to get off, you simply tap the side of the bus. The conductor clicks his fingers so loud and precisely that the sound pops in your ear and the bus screeches to a stop. Not a word is needed. 

Back to the hair. It is surely something to marvel at, especially for the hairdresser of the family; Mmselle Lulu. Heads glisten like dark planets on the bus. Ladies wear their hair straightened and oiled, plaited with beads or without beads, they may have it tied back or dreadlocked, they can have extensions in the same colour or in a rainbow of colours, sometimes they may even wear it natural like little Alexandra's. On more than one occasion, I've caught Lulu's hand hovering by the seat in front of us. Once, a lady looked sharply back and I thought she was just looking behind her so I smiled at her. During the bus ride, she kept looking back and I kept smiling. 'She thought it was you!' Lulu said, giggling when we got off the bus. 'What do you mean?’ I asked, completely confused by now. Lulu held her fingers up like a confession. 'I just couldn't help it, it just looked so springy.' 

This week after summer camp, I take Delphine and Alexandra for a shower at the boat yard showers. After squashing the requisite number of mozzies against the walls, the girls hop in, I get the shampoo out and begin washing Delphine's hair, long and knotty like rope after it had been in the sea all day. 'Will you wash mine too?' I look down to find Alexandra staring up with her usual cheeky, hopeful grin. 'Head back,' I say and squeeze the shampoo in her hair. 'Wow, Alexandra, your hair's like a sponge!' Alexandra laughs. 'I know.' When it's time to get changed, she watches me help Delphine put her knickers on. 'My Mom doesn't help me no more,' she says matter-of-factory. A second later, Delphine snatches her clothes out of my hands. 'Let me do it,' she barks, 'you can wait outside.' I don't argue. I hold my hands up, go outside and wait with Fin in the shade under the verandah. Fin puts her paws in front of her and slinks down to the floor. I sit down next to her, run my fingers through her coat and feel the afternoon breeze hit both our faces like a soft brush. Thanks, Alexandra.

Love from F/F Quest and her crew xx