Cricket is an obsession in Barbados
Barbados is recognized for many things. Playground of the rich and famous it is known for rum, cricket, beautiful beaches and its British heritage. The island was a British colony for more than 300 years and not for nothing is it known as Little England. The place names are British (it too has a Trafalgar Square, though not really on the same scale) and the views across the St George valley are reminiscent of the finest examples of the English countryside. But during our self-build project we discovered another unsung remnant of British heritage – the bureaucracy.
Think Britain in the 1950s and you’ll have some idea where I’m coming from. The government is the island’s largest employer and many people dream of securing a ‘government job’, where security, longer holidays and as many sick days as you want make for an easy life. So there are hundreds of people with nothing to do but push paper – and they certainly do. This is a place where almost every form is filled out in triplicate or quadruplicate (come on, do you know the word for four copies of something?) and where carbon copies abound.
Unfortunately it is impossible to buy and build there without dealing with some of this bureaucracy and the sit and wait office culture can often seem tedious.
In order to purchase our land, we’d had to complete due diligence, provide passport photos and copies of bank statements. We also did a power of attorney so that someone could sign documents for us in Barbados and keep the process moving. It was thrown out on a technicality and our lawyer then charged us a princely sum to prepare a virtually identical document for us. We had to notarise documents in England (at £120 an hour), which took several visits – so bureaucracy in England wasn’t much better. And meanwhile the process of getting a mortgage was trickling along … more on that next time.
(Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28435348@N04/3147328884)
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