Bigga Mo’s Memorial Weekend and Yoga on the Beach

News this week of Bigga Mo’s Memorial Weekend and also – unconnected – yoga on the Beach!

This was the fourth year of a memorial celebration for Muqtasid Thompson – known as Mo. He and his surviving brother Shafeeq of Ronnie’s Hi-D-Way on Cupid’s Cay used to stage events and parties so after his sudden and unexpected death in September 2021 Shafeeq and his 2 sisters – Aqueelah and Jameelah decided to hold an annual memorial party weekend.

It has grown and grown and estimates are that there were nearly two thousand people who partied at the events held over 3 days this last weekend. The majority of those came over from Nassau on specially chartered flights and boats. Central Eleuthera was HEAVING ! Anywhere that sold food had a bumper time along with the liquor stores, rental properties and car rental businesses. It was wild – and a huge boost to the economy at a very quiet time.

Readers , you may not be surprised to hear that we did not actually participate in any of the parties – but even just going about about our normal business you could not miss how incredibly busy the place was. The food stores were nearly cleaned out and I was told that there wasn’t a bottle of rum left on the island !!!!

I had ordered a takeout lunch of shrimp wraps from Pineapple Lounge – situated just across from where the movie theater was in Governors Harbour – incidentally owned by Phil of Clean K9’s who I wrote about last week. The wait was pretty long but it gave me a chance to chat with some of the young people over from Nassau looking to have a long hard partying weekend.  By the way –  the wraps from Pineapple Lounge were delicious and I highly recommend them. We also tried a chicken one on Monday and that was just as good.

Anyway – back to the party weekend. The nightime events started at 9pm and went on until 4am !!! Sometimes that’s when I wake up …. But these folk from Nassau are young and have great resilience and did 3 nights like that on the trot. I used to able – in my early twenties – to hold my own with the best of them but never 3 nights on the trot …..

There were swarms of them at Sunset Inn when we went for lunch on Sunday and I had a great chat with 3 lovely young women – Jo, Gaza and Cindy. They told me that they love to come over for the Memorial weekend and it has a special meaning as Mo is the father of  Jo’s daughter. I asked them if they felt safe in Nassau partying like this and the answer was a definite no. Life is very different in Nassau and so I began to realize why it was such a popular event here in Eleuthera.

Even on Monday there were still a lot of people here  getting ready to travel back to Nassau. There was a special boat that came as many of them had brought their cars over from Nassau. Not everyone wanted to rent their cars out as the combination of late nights, lashings of alcohol and allegedly a few banned substances (!) is a dangerous combination. Apparently a couple of cars finished up run off the road in the bush and one even submerged in the harbour !

Anyway – a very good time was had by many and it was great to observe it as a non participant …..

On Tuesday our wonderful island yoga teacher – Monique Carroll held a free class on the beach outside the Haynes Library. There were 7 of us participating and it was the idea of Althea Willie who runs the library. Every other Tuesday there is a coffee morning and they sometimes have guest speakers and Monique was invited to be one. So the class was outside on the beach and it was a lovely inclusive occasion. I have written before about what a great teacher Monique is – she can pitch a class at just the right level for varied abilities – which she did again. It was her birthday the day after and so we all sang Happy Birthday to her in the library afterwards where we had a selection of tea, coffee and biscuits.

Okay friends – that’s it for this week. I feel exhausted just writing about all that partying so I need to take it easy.

Oh by the way, Brian is doing well with her recuperation after her hip surgery. She is still confined to the house but is itching to get outside. But not just yet ……

Have a lovely weekend whether you are partying hard or taking it easy …..