Beausejour and the Bay Walk Mall

So now the Tropical Storm Otto has finally meandered his way up north and is no longer dumping buckets of rain on me, I've been spending a lot more time outside. I'm living on the north end of the island, in an area called Beausejour (pronounced Beau-Say-Jou), here is a Google Map Link to my general area, I live to the left of the horse shoe shaped lakes and the cricket stadium. 

First, I must disclose that I totally lucked out with my apartment, I am living in one of the nicest neighborhoods on the island. We have street lights (which is good because it is pretty much dark by 6pm year round), it is fairly quite, and has blend of homes, some of which are the nicest homes I've seen here. I've included a few of my neighbor's houses:

Further up the hillside from me

It is typical for houses here to be very colorful,

and to have concrete ornaments as decorations

 

 

more cement statues 

 

the detailing is even in fences, porch railings and the like 

My favorite house in the neighborhood!

Neighbor with the best  vegetable garden (more on that another day)

House with neat porch railings

House for sale in case anyone wants to come be my neighbor!

My house! That is its' red roof up on top of the hill :)

One thing that I really like about my neighborhood and much of St. Lucia is that there *seems* to be an active resistance to overt physical stratification within neighborhoods, beaches and yes, even the Bay Walk Mall! For example, the house that my apartment is attached to is very large and well cared for, while the house below, just across the street, is less so.

My next-door neighbor's have no color on their house, I'm excited to see if they paint!

Likewise, this enormous palace like home:

Huge house about half a mile from me, more orange that this photo suggests...

Is right next-door to this more modest and adorable one!

Next-door neighbor to the huge orange house- this house is not actually overgrown, it just has lots of plants that the owner grows in the front yard- I'm guessing it is to block the view of the Orange Monstrosity across the street ;)

St. Lucia is one of the few countries in the Caribbean that created laws to keep all beaches open to the public, which is a huge statement, because in many tropical vacation destinations, large internationally owned resort chains like Sandals privatize all the best beach spots in the country, leaving the citizens of that place to swim in the dangerous or crappy areas that don't appeal to tourists.

The brand new Bay Walk Mall of recent fame, is another example of this. The architect says he designed the Mall with Lucians in mind first, Tourists second, but that ultimately, it is supposed to be a dual use space, that keeps locals and tourists mixed. This results in the mall having really expensive diamond jewelery stores,  a few doors down from Church's Chicken, a favorite with locals, and open until 2am!

With all the promotion and commotion over the new mall, I decided to go see it yesterday. I was highly amused to find that it is not actually complete yet, these guys are painting the tiles in the center of the mall's open air courtyard. The mall itself is 3 stories high and will eventually hold about 70 stores, but only 20 are presently occupied and open for business. I wonder if there will be a second "Grand Opening" when the construction is completed and all the shops are open?

These painters were using a really neat template to create the very intricate tile design. I'll post an updated photo of their work once it is completed.