The market: a joyous scene

Author: By Lisa I.S. Archibald, Globe Correspondent

and Zachary R. Dowdy, Globe Staff

Date: SUNDAY, October 19, 1997

Page: M15

Section: Travel

Whole sections of the market resound with lively conversation and friendly competition, the easy rhythm of barter and sale. Tourists and locals alike wind their way through the crowds. Yes, they're dangerously close to the cars that whiz through here, but they're also trying to haggle the best prices.

Men and women of disparate ages and hues gesticulate over sun-dried tables displaying their finest wares.

This snapshot strangely resembles one that may have been taken two years ago, before Hurricane Luis ravaged farmlands and destroyed livelihoods of budding and established entrepreneurs in September 1995.

Yet the local market since Luis has come and gone is more exciting than ever, the produce every bit as fresh and plentiful. Vendors command more sales than ever. In the market's many nooks, small economies boom.

What's more, the post-Luis prosperity has surged business ventures for natives and for entrepreneurs from other Caribbean countries to nations as far away as Africa, a key source of Antigua's cultural roots and traditions. While Antigua has long been loved for its Caribbean essence, its mom-and-pop store economy has seen an infusion of dollars and ventures from a bevy of countries, giving Antigua a little bit of everything.

Choice mangoes and papayas and indigenous black pineapples, surely among the sweetest in the world, peek out from under the heavy arms of women wrapping up their weekly shopping, chatting as they pass the vegetable and fruit stands. A sugar cane vendor holds his machete ready to prepare this Caribbean elixir for thirsty customers.

Rickety stands display items ranging from novelty T-shirts, with American brand names, to the jaunty hats and bags made from straw culled from local fields.

Luis and the destruction it brought to Antigua are all but a fading memory here, where dollars change hands as quickly as Antigua's 365 beaches' tides ebb and flow. In Luis's wake, Antigua has seen a rise in the young and not-so-young and enterprising, said Peter Ramrattan, chairman of the Antigua Hotels and Tourist Association. The number of vendors has doubled along the always humming Market Street, where peddlers of art now flank sellers of compact discs.

Aggressive? Yes. They all clamor for your dollar to outpace their counterparts only a few carts away.

Renoldel Va paces back and forth at the corner of Thames and Redcliffe streets, drawing attention to his wall of paintings from his native Haiti. His pieces tell tales as vividly as he does, both imbued with political edge and force. They are communal settings that are peculiarly Haitian but representative of the lifestyles of all Caribbean peoples. ``You have to look at our art to understand what's going on in Haiti, what we've been through'' he says, admiring his own work.

Next door, at Redcliffe Quay, locally owned storefront businesses flourish, too. The resplendent batik cloths at ``Island Woman'' and ``A Thousand Flowers'' entice shoppers with a taste for the exotic with alluring ambers, azure, and bronze sarongs and blouses. Handcrafted jewelry complements ensembles.

The woman with a penchant for haute couture is enchanted by the designs at Noreen Phillips's tony boutique. This up-and-coming designer's arresting creations, from the casual to the conservative, please even the most discriminating eye.

Victor Ije left Nigeria to set up shop in February in a bid to enjoy some of the benefits his colleagues have come to expect since Antigua rebounded. His store, East Caribbean Marketing, is tucked away at the back of Redcliffe Quay, but his hand-crafted snakeskin and leopardskin belts and pocketbooks, complete with dried snake heads as clasps, deserve a second look. Each is unique in its design and dye. The store's specialty items offer, perhaps, a complement rather than competition for the other stores.

Tired of shopping? Flavor local dishes at the aptly named ``Quencher'' or enjoy the fusion of East and West Indian cuisine at the Curry House. Just across the street, Conroy White, proprietor of the Commissioner Grille, and his staff will tantalize and satisfy your palette at this popular eatery.

Enterpreneurial flair extends outside the parameters of downtown St. John's, too. On Cemetery Road in Upper Gambles, young women cater to the occupants of a blue car, who stop by the cart, one of several run by Evanson's Catering, to pick up vegetarian patties, meatballs, and a drink to wash them down. The cart comes generations after vendors and families cooked food in the locallymade clay coal pot, which is still used to roast corn or fish sold daily on Antigua's roadsides.

At Dickenson Bay, the day winds down as the sun unleashes a last kiss and a young man whittling wooden statuettes dances in the sand. Before him is an array of his carvings, detailed tropical fishes, decorative cooking utensils, animals with august stances. Reminiscent of . . . Africa?

No. Antigua!

The place is fueled by the energy of these tiny, but robust, businesses. It pulsates with the tremors of confidence, of survival. Still quaint -- and ever beautiful -- Antigua is thrusting toward economic prosperity. After Hurricane Luis, the locals and small firms, more than ever, are ushering this island nation into the 21st century.