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An USAmerican in Paradise
Part Two
Martha K. Harrison
There is a danger of seeing a place as Paradise, it is like putting someone
on a pedestal leaving them no where to go but down. The 10 days I spent
here last Fall were filled with wining and dining and great days at the beach.
I was celebrating the end of almost three years in New Jersey divorce court, it
was finally over and everything finally looked good!
When we arrived here this year we found the house as beautiful and exactly as
our Mr. Jonsson described it in his letters. He and his wife had left us
their car to use and their 30 year old son Kristoffer who lives on the Island
picked us up at the airport They had thought of everything to make
our arrival comfortable and easy. Rhett and Ashley were so happy to be out
of their bags.....they sniffed everything in sight for the first two days.
Our view overlooks the Caribbean Sea, a small mountainous peninsula, and La
Plage Toiny. The beach Toiny. There are signs posted everywhere
warning visitors not to swim in the Sea at this point because the undercurrents
are very strong. A local died in front of the house last December, he had
lived in St-Barth all his life and grown up swimming and surfing at this beach.
His child was taken under by the currents and he went to save her - he did, but
unfortunately he did not survive.
The house is built in three separate buildings. One is the master
bedroom/bath, another the kitchen and living room, and the third is the office,
guest bedroom and bath, the buildings form a horseshoe with terraces all around.
The breakfast terrace is in the back of the house on the west side so we are
shielded from the morning sun. The eastern terraces are on two levels -
the upper level is partially protected by an extended roof that joins the three
buildings and blocks the noontime sun from the lunch table but leaves the pool
in the open. The lower level is the dinner terrace and it is closest to
the Sea, there are wonderful evening winds while dining. While there is no
bad time of day or night to be outside, my favorite moment is sitting outside on
the west side of the house when the full moon rises from behind the mountains
and shines as bright as day on the crashing waves below. Having lived in
the New York City metropolitan area for the last sixteen years, I had forgotten
when given the chance the moon will cast enough light to give you a shadow in
the middle of the night. I never want to forget this again.
Rhett and Ashley are use to having two staircases to run up and down and they
follow the sun from room to room at home all day. With this house built in
typical Creole style, they only have a large master suite to roam around in.
They both have gained weight and are listless at times - this upsets me a great
deal. All doors and windows are normally kept open here, but because they
are designer indoor cats, we have to keep the doors and the unscreened windows
closed. While they each have a screened window to sit in - one facing the
pool and the other facing the garden - they fight over the garden view. I
guess seeing us float in the pool is less thrilling than watching the lizards
and iguanas play in the gardens! We bought clothesline string and collars
to make them leads on the terraces....they are doing much better now and think
they are busy working on their tans.
We quickly got into a routine of rising early having coffee and watching the sun
come up. Anyone who knows me well will be shocked by my getting up at 5
a.m. - if they were here, they would understand the impact this Island has on a
soul and would need no explanation about the desire to not miss a minute of
every day spent here. We go for daily 3 mile walks along the road that
runs around the Island and have joined the local gym. It wasn't until the
fourth or fifth day of walking that I started seeing the trash people had thrown
out of their cars. There are newspapers, plastic water bottles, soda cans
everywhere.....out of view from the motorists passing by. The trees and
grass were brown because it had not rained in weeks. Cisterns were running
low and municipal water is expensive since the addition of a salinization plant.
There is not the danger of drinking the water here like in some countries, but
most visitors buy bottled water since the municipal water tastes dull.
In 1995, St-Barth was hit by Hurricane Luis. The Hurricane hit the Island
for a solid 36 hours....giving the residents a break only when the eye was
centered over the Island. The house we are living in held up beautifully,
it is built by the tried and true principles of the Islands and suffered little
to no damage. This year is predicted to be the most active hurricane
season in years.....as I write this we are inside because of a tropical
depression building in the area. We will wait to hear people boarding up
their houses before we panic. Or at least that is the plan. We do
get to hear CNN Headline News every night at 7 on the local radio station, the
only problem with that is I know your weather and don't have a clue what is
going on here. I sometimes can connect to the Internet to check the Caribbean
Sea's radar maps...that is when the phones let me. We are
keeping our eyes on the hardware stores to watch for lines out the door with
people buying lumber and nails. Isn't it funny....I grew up in tornado
country and I am nervous about a little hurricane. I guess being on a 9
square mile island in the middle of the Sea sort of puts you in your place, it
is a literal reminder that we are all like one little pebble in a big old pond.
When I first moved to the NYC area I realized I actually exist as a number, now
I am a pebble in the sea. Life sure hold lots of surprises.
::::Sigh:
The Island and its people have survived Hurricane Louis very well.
Somehow it figures that a French named Hurricane would be the first one to hit
St-Barth in over 40 years. One of the few remaining reminders of the
devastation is the numbers of wild cats and dogs on the Island. By saying
wild, I mean they aren't cared for by humans. They were abandoned by their
owners during the storm and have survived on their own and are multiplying by
leaps and bounds. St-Barth is rabies free, they are lucky. Whenever
I think about people leaving their pets out I think about the floods in Albany
and the dogs and cats that were left behind. I remember the dogs that were
left chained outside and saved by rescuers who saw only their snouts showing at
water height. In my family, the cats would be put in the car first, then
my photo albums, then me.
After dinner one night, we went for our nightly trip to the dumpsters to get rid
of the rat inviting trash! Someone had thrown away two kitties. One
was black as coal with white feet - we named him Sox. The other was gray
tiger striped with the bluest eyes I had ever seen - his name became Sinatra.
They came home with us and slept in the kitchen cabinets. We went to the
vet and got medicine for their colds and runny eyes, and found out they were 5
weeks old. Sinatra soon became Bow because his eyes turned green (and are
now brown) and he is bow legged. Less than a week from the time we found
them they were part of our family and we had made the decision to return home
with them. What is a home without four cats? Our house here is in a
sparsely populated area of the Island and the only houses around us are occupied
with locals. One of the neighbors has two dogs that have wandered in and
out of our house a couple of times since our arrival. It seems they came
into the kitchen about 5 a.m. one morning and chased Sox out onto the drive
behind us and killed him. The 84 year old Creole neighbor threw his body
in the garbage, her son told us about it when he saw us in our third hour of
looking for him. Bow is now an indoor cat. I didn't think things
like this happened in Paradise.
The legal drinking age here is 18 and like most places, there is an AA group
here. Every day by 9:30 a.m. we see some of the locals outside drinking
beer while sitting on their mopeds. The local bars are full by 4 p.m. with
these same people settling in for their daily routine. We met an 80 year
old man who has been drinking Scotch every day for over 60 years. He
wasn't drunk, I think that probably wore off about 45 years ago! This is
his life.....going to the bar and talking with his friends about the tourists
and the government. No one here is happy about the recent election in
France. There is a slight chance that the landowners who live here full
time will have to pay taxes. The locals are facing dire times if this
happens.
Most of the families who live here full time have been on the Island for many
generations, when looking through the phone book you can find columns of the
same names. Since St-Barth is a free port they don't pay taxes and while
many of the locals do own their houses and some valuable property, just like in
the States some are land rich and cash poor. The government tends to give
building permits readily to those who come in and have lots of money while
limiting the building the Island's residents can do. They have a choice -
keep their family land and be poor or sell it and have money....probably not
enough to live as those they see visiting here, though. Unfortunately,
they have the idea that all USACitizens are wealthy.....this is what they see.
They don't seem resentful of it, perhaps just insecure. I think they are well
aware that money doesn't buy happiness....which makes them richer than anyone I
know.
Young people who come to work find it impossible to get housing. Few
landlords want to rent out a house or apartment year-round when they can get
astronomical fees by renting on a weekly basis. There are houses here that
rent for $15,000 per week during high season! You read that right.....it
is not a typo. The landlords who rent to these people should receive an
award for doing it! The young (mostly) French adults who work at the
hotels have it somewhat better - they are allowed to stay in the staff quarters
on hotel property and meals are provided. They get one day off a week and
work from 6:30 a.m. till around midnight. Before they serve the visitors
dinner, they eat at 5:00 as a group by the trash cans in back of the kitchen.
They do get time off between lunch and dinner but we very seldom see them at the
beaches or out at all. Most of these young women and men only stay for 9
months - they simply can't afford to remain here longer.
The Island is launching a recycling drive but they haven't printed out the
instructions for the locals who read/speak in Creole. It disturbs me
that these people seem to have been forgotten. The main garbage
incinerator is being updated and repaired - the area that is being used for
disposal and burning is high in the mountains is the same area where many
celebrities and wealthy residents own houses. They are not pleased right
now that their Paradise is being disturbed by the rude garbage burning.
They have no problem when it is done in the main plant that is surrounded by
local's homes.
There is no soil to speak of since this Island is a result of a volcano. I
am confused by there not being a treatment plant to turn the garbage into humus,
but then there is the water problem. All fruits and vegetables are brought
in from France, Guadeloupe, or the USA. We stick with the French and Guadeloupe
produce as it is fresher and cheaper. The plants and flowers
on the Island are beautiful and conducive to the drier climate. Our yard
is full of bougainvillea, hibiscus, wild basil and thyme, vines, and trees.
There are 6' cotton plants scattered over the Island reminding me of South
Georgia.
There are farms here and we see goats, sheep, chickens, and cows. I have
learned to tell a sheep from a goat - the goat's tail is up and the sheep's tail
is down. The sheep here are naturally short haired looking as though they
have just been sheared. One morning the family who owns a little
goat, sheep, chicken farm across the street arrived, usually just the man comes.
They chased the goats and sheep and caught one....being a vegetarian, it never
crossed my mind that they would kill it, skin it, and dissect it right there
hanging in a tree, but they did. Paradise lost.
The elderly on the Island look and walk older than most of our older US citizens
- I think the heat takes its toll of them. There is a small health clinic
here - but if you are in need of emergency care you have to be taken elsewhere.
Most pregnant women leave home about 2 weeks before their due date to stay in
Guadeloupe to deliver in the hospital there. Plans are being thrown around
for a 30 bed hospital to be built here by 1999. Of course, politics will
have a lot to say about whether this happens or not. We had the occasion
to go to an M.D. here. Both of us had minor health problems within the
first two weeks of arriving. The Doctor and the Pharmacist said the heat
brings out impurities. I for one wish I had gone to the sauna more often
before this trip! Our Doctor is from France and speaks English very well and we
received very good care. The Initial Visit was $40.00, the French government
controls how much Physicians and Pharmacies can charge for their services.
Medications are a fraction of what they are in the USA. We even got the
papers to send the Insurance company back home. The interesting thing for
me was the Doctor told me I have a potentially 'hard vein' in my leg - he
prescribed Ginkgo Biloba for it - an herb that also was suggested by the
Pharmacist and the health store guy. My NJ physician is on-line and when I
wrote him he told me if it continued - he could obliterate the vein upon my
return. I always have liked herbs.
The children on this Island are fit, tanned, and very active. Most do not
speak English, which I am told is relatively new on this Island - because 15
years ago the youth did speak English. I am terribly confused why the
schools have changed their curriculum and are not teaching English to their
youth who are the future of this Island. If they can't speak English, they
will not even be able to get a job in a boutique! The parents who can
afford it and have a desire for their children to receive a proper education
send their kids to Europe, Canada, or the USA to school. Tourism is the
main source of employment since a salt mine near Saline Beach - it is now a
historical site closed. There is no unemployment on St-Barth.
St-Barth has virtually no crime..... a silly man came here and stole a car and
motorcycle and found he had no where to go with them and was arrested. A
big child pornography sting operation in France found its way here to a man who
had purchased videos. He was youth soccer coach and an electrician. He has
been arrested and carted off to Guadeloupean. Houses are left open and keys
in cars. The locals are honest people who respect the property of others
as much as they respect their own.
The biggest concern on the Island, as far as I am concerned, is the gross amount
of building going on. There is a real danger that the tranquility and
individuality of the Island is at stake in exchange for the USAmerican Dollar.
Which leads me to try and do the right thing......give back to a place and its
people who have given me so much. When I go to a beach I leave the
shells....the conch shells are used over and over again as houses by animals.
The broken shells are a protective measure against erosion. The beauty of
the beach is to find this natural beauty in its natural environment, and while
it would look nice on my mantle - it belongs to the Sea.
My rose colored glasses fell off in the ditch and lay with the newspapers,
glass, and plastic. I am happy my Paradise has been lost because I now see
the true beauty of this Island. I see the cleanup that needs to be done,
the animals who need a home, the land that needs to be taken care of, and the
locals who need to be protected. I have a theory that if we would all take
care of our own little back yards this world would be a better place.
Paradise does exist - in our own hearts and souls. St-Barth is becoming
part of my Paradise again because I have recognized this is home to 5000 human
beings who have the same struggles as you and I. They are just trying to
live their lives, get ahead, and love their families. I have never been
one to sit on my couch and complain about what is wrong with the world. I
ran for public office and tried to make a difference during my four terms, I
have volunteered time and energy for different causes, and I vote each and every
election. Even though I am not a citizen of St-Barth, I can not take a
vacation from my social commitments. That is why we are seeking out a way
to buy property for Green Zones on the Island to protect it from builders.
Most residents are eager and happy to share St-Barth’s beauty with the
strangers that come in and out of here each year - we have to thank them by
being respectful of their home.
My belief is that we have lessons to learn in this life. There are old
sayings like ‘You take the low road and I’ll take the high road’ or
references made to someone reaching the crossroads of life. There are
consequences for each decision we make, for each action we take. My
decision to leave NJ for St-Barth was no different. My responsibilities to
neighbors and friends should not change with the scenery. I won’t let
them.
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