Other Paths

As Michael in the Florida Keys will attest, having only one route to get to work can become a major liability, especially when traffic accidents occur. Not being able to quickly dart down a side street when traffic starts to get bad is something I'm still getting accustomed to, living the the BVI. I've written before about how an excavator-loading on the road to my house can make me 30 minutes late for work or, as it did the other day, cause my ice cream to melt as I was held up on the way back from the grocery store.

This morning, I was five minutes from work when I encountered a back-loader that had collided with a jeep in the middle of one of the many switchbacks on Windy Hill. The back-loader couldn't get enough purchase on the steep switchback to move out of the roadway, and a tow truck was going to have to be called in -- an operation that would keep the road closed for around two hours. Had I been in the Florida Keys and on Highway 1, I might have just turned around and headed home. In the BVI though, I am blessed to have at least one alternate route at all times. As it was, I had to backtrack about halfway to town, come down to the coast, and take the long way around to work. In all, my 20-minute commute became 45 minutes. Not too terrible. Still, I desperately missed those side streets and alleyways of my gridded-street Denver youth.

Patriotism?

First of all, let me apologize for my absence the last couple of days. Work has been inordinately busy -- largely due to a new sale we started that seems to be garnering a lot of attention -- and I haven't had time to eat lunch, much less blog.

In Tortola-related news, there's a sign on the side of Leroy's Barber Shop, across from the Road Town ferry terminal, I've always found a bit intriguing

I'm not entirely sure who is so possessive of the name "Virgin Islands", or why, especially as Virgin Islands was originally used to refer to all the islands that are now part of the USVI and BVI. I suppose it stems from the fact that the official name of the BVI is actually, simply, The Virgin Islands. I'm not sure why this should prohibit other locales from using the name though. It'd be like saying Guinea-Bissau should change to just Guinea because Equatorial Guinea used the name Guinea first.

I hope and believe this is only the invective of one, over-excited individual, rather than the stance of the entire BVI citizenry.

Left at the Purple Dumpster

I have written in the past about the difficulty of giving driving directions on an island where there are no street addresses, few street signs, and a general lack of understanding of cardinal directions.

I was born and raised in Denver, a more-or-less cardinally-oriented, grid-based city, rife with street signs and addresses. In such a navigation-friendly environment, I disdained giving directions based on landmarks, preferring instead the precise nature of, "proceed three blocks to Grape Street and turn North (right). The house will be on your right, at 412 Grape Street." What a beautiful sentence. In the perfectly-gridded world of downtown Denver, three blocks is a definite measurement. Grape Street, being named with a green and white sign at every intersection, is unmistakable. 412 means the house is on the East side of the street, between 4th and 5th avenues. Lo! Beauty!

All that changed when I moved to the BVI, where roads were built more as an afterthought to urban planning (ha!) than the basis of it. Roads here follow old donkey trails, and although some of them are named, very few residents have knowledge of these names. Again, there are no street addresses, so you can't look for "14 Nibbs Street", but at least many of the commercial buildings have names, and those names are lettered on their facades. And despite my original insistence on sticking to street names and cardinal directions, the reality of giving driving directions to tourists on a daily basis has forced me to crumble to the necessity of using landmarks.

I was recently giving some hotel guests some driving directions to get to Brewer's Bay. I'd taken them up the five switchbacks of Windy Hill, gotten them past the big green Heineken sign at Rudy's Bar, but was stuck on how to describe the final turn onto Brewer's Bay Road East. It's a tricky 270 degree left that's easy to miss, and relatively non-noteworthy. Searching my visual memory for a clue, I finally struck on it: Turn left at the giant purple dumpster!

I cringed at my reliance on a landmark that could since have been moved, but when I saw the guests the next day, they'd had a lovely day at Brewer's Bay. They knew they were headed in the right direction, they said, as soon as they saw the purple dumpster.

Make It Work

Talk about a "wish I had my camera" moment. Out on the property today, I noticed a delivery man carrying some goods into the kitchen -- a fairly common sight. Except that there was no delivery truck around. Where had this gentleman come from with his brimming boxes of food? A quick peek down the driveway answered my question.

At the end of the driveway, on the main road, sat a flat-bed tow truck and a distinctly grumpy-looking tow truck driver. On the bed of the tow? The delivery truck.

I guess the delivery man figured, even though his truck broke down, he still had to make his deliveries.

Easter Weekend

Every so often, I get bouts of island fever, days or weeks where I just itch to get off Tortola. It seems to be worse in the spring. I know I have a short attention span, and that I need a large variety of activities to be satisfied, but the closure of nearly everything over this past Easter weekend brought about the worst round of island fever I've experienced since moving to the BVI.

Depending on your perspective, the BVI is either filled with activities or is a veritable wasteland. As long as the sun is shining and you're happy in the ocean, there's scuba diving, boating, snorkelling, paddle-boarding, surfing, sand-castle-building, etc. etc. There is no shortage of things to be done at the beach or on the water. But as I mentioned above, I am not content to do the same thing over and over -- or for extended periods -- so after two hours at the beach on Easter morning, I had exhausted my personal "doing things at the beach" threshold, leaving the second half of Easter Sunday and all of Easter Monday to be filled.

Once you've finished with the beach/water angle, there's not much to be done. There are a couple of gyms on island if you'd like to get some exercise, and a few hotels will let you use their tennis courts for a small fee. There are plenty of places to eat and drink, some small museums and a movie theater, and that about completes your options. HB and I haven't been out to the movies since Valentine's Day 2010, as we prefer the general spaciousness and non-teenagery-ness of our living room. The museums aren't open on official holidays, and for that matter, many of the bars and restaurants aren't either.

I spent most of Monday longing for a zoo to visit, a mall to window-shop at, or a long, smooth road to drive down. In the end, I settled for a long walk in the neighborhood with HB, which helped to fill the void and made me stop feeling sorry for myself. Still, I'm more than ready for my trip to Denver in May.

Does Not Apply

Since moving to the BVI, I've noticed that my admittedly questionable and scanty news outlets, like slate.com and Yahoo!News, seem to be less applicable to my daily life than they were when I lived in the US. Perhaps the best recent example is an article which appeared on the Yahoo! home page, called "5 fresh foods you shouldn't keep in your refrigerator".

The article advocates that tomatoes, basil, potatoes, onions and avocados should all be stored on the counter or in the pantry. It gives fairly good, plant-biology based arguments for why this is. But as I started thinking about applying the article in my daily life, I realized how impractical it would be.

In the BVI, storing tomatoes on my counter would lead, in the best instance, to immediate fruit fly invasion, and in the worst, to finding cockroaches or rats calling my kitchen "home". The line that really caused me to crack up, though was: "keeping [potatoes] in a paper bag in a coolish spot (like a pantry) is best."

Perhaps the author lives somewhere like Wisconsin, or has a pantry in her basement, but let me assure you, there is nothing "coolish" about my pantry. About the coolest my pantry gets is 72 degrees, and most days it's close to 80. According to the Vegetable Research and Information Center at the University of California, at no time in a potato's life is 75-80 degrees a good storage temperature, especially as "disease organisms logarithmically increase their population grown" at those temperatures.

About half of the way through the article, after picturing the co-inhabitants the tomatoes would bring, and puzzling over my pantry being a coolish spot, I mentally ticked the "does not apply to the BVI" box and moved on.

What a Pistarckle!

We are welcoming a special guest at work today, and the entire staff is in an uproar getting everything "just so" for the event. As the owners came in to the office to put on finishing touches before receiving the guest, one of them exclaimed, "What a pistarckle!"

I had heard the word "pistarckle" before, in connection with the community theater on St. Thomas, but had no idea it could be used in everyday conversation. A quick google later, and it turns out that "pistarckle" is a Virgin Islands Creole word meaning "boisterous commotion", likely a corruption of the english "spectacle."

I also found this great site with a selection of Virgin Islands Creole. Many of the words given there I haven't heard before, but at least now I have a resource should I ever encounter any other gems like "pistarckle".

Intentions

I had such plans for yesterday's post. I had it all written in my mind; the words, the pictures, everything. I just had to type it out and post it when I got to work. Well, the work schedule conspired against me, and I was home and hanging out before I remembered I had forgotten to write a blog entry. I really intended to post here, it's just ... you know what they say, the road to hell is paved with boulders covered in reflective tape.

I might have the road to hell confused with the road to Cane Garden Bay. After the landslides in May, rather than move this boulder out of the right of way, the Department of Public Works made the profound decision to simply cover it with reflective tape to help avoid accidents. Whatever's easiest, I suppose.

Modern Library

One of the charms of the BVI library system up to now was the old-fashioned method used for tracking circulation. For the past year and a half, I have been accustomed to selecting my books in the library, and taking them to the circulation desk, where the circulation cards were removed, stamped with a due date, and filed in a wooden box on the desk. The box had numbered dividers, 1-31, and the circulation cards of the books I had just checked out would be paper-clipped to my library card, and filed behind the number matching the due date. The due date would then be stamped in the book, and off I would go.

If I brought my books back a few days late, it was no big deal as the librarians usually didn't want to bother having to calculate fines at 10 cents a day for only a handful of days. About once a month, someone at the library would go through the box, and if there were any egregiously overdue books, send out threatening letters quoting the amount of fine due and asking for the books to be returned. It was a beautifully simple system.

So imagine my surprise when I went to the library to renew some books yesterday morning, and there, in the space previously occupied by the lovely wooden box, was a brand-new 19-inch flat screen monitor, keyboard and mouse. I was doubly astounded as I asked to renew the books I'd had out for five weeks, when the librarian flipped them open to reveal electronic bar codes already pasted inside. Obviously this is a change that has been in the works for a while now, but that has only been recently fully instituted. As I watched the librarian  scan the books to renew them for two weeks, and paid my $2 in fines, I mourned the passing of an era in the BVI library system.

Cuba Libre

I often complain about commodities that are common in the US that I am unable to find on Tortola -- simple things like blankets and rice noodles. But here's something that turns the tables.

According to HB, Cuban rum does not make the best Cuba Libre.

Sense of Place

This may not be Jamaica, but in case you had any doubt that when you're on Tortola, you're in the Caribbean ...

Rastafari

Noel Lloyd Positive Action Movement Park

In Road Town, on Wickham's Cay I, near the Administration Complex and cruise ship dock, there is a restful little spot called the Noel Lloyd Positive Action Movement Park.

The Park commemorates the Positive Action Movement of 1968. In 1968, the government of the BVI was contemplating leasing the area now known as Wickham's Cay I and the entire island of Anegada to a man named Ken Bates. The term of the lease would be 199 years, and Mr. Bates would be granted exclusive rights to develop the area.

 Perhaps the "Bates Hill Lease" as it was known would have gone through, but Mr. Bates made clear his intention that he would not allow BVIslanders access to the lands granted in the lease except as workers on the properties he expected to develop.

Understandably, this proposition upset Mr. Noel Lloyd, and on the 3rd of December 1968, he took positive action: he marched alone in Road Town to protest the lease. The next day, many other BVIslanders joined him, and the marches continued for several weeks until finally, the Bates Hill scheme was scuttled.

Today, the Noel Lloyd Positive Action Movement Park stands on Wickham's Cay I - the very land BVIslanders would have been kept from had the Movement not occurred. It is the site of many festivals and gatherings throughout the year, and offers a peaceful pause from the hustle of Road Town.

Pacing

My parents just finished a 14-day trip to the Virgin Islands, including 9 days here with me in the BVI, and a day  together on St. John. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing them, but as they got on the boat to St. Thomas yesterday, and we bid each other farewell, I couldn't help looking forward to my evening alone.

I'm exhausted, you see, and I was gleeful at the prospect of an early bedtime. 

Since my parents arrived on the 18th of November, I have been swimming three? four? times, out to lunch and/or dinner at least seven times, and visited Virgin Gorda and St. John. The amount of activity I have crammed into the past 10 days is equivalent to what I do in two months' time on a normal schedule. The pace has been gruelling for me, but I couldn't bring myself to slacken it, as I wanted to show my parents all the BVI highlights. 

Now it is time to return to my normal pacing. To swimming once a week, or once every ten days or so. To dining at home and visiting other islands only on special occasions. It is time to return to the very slow pace of life in the BVI, and to work to find a balance between the over-full week when I have visitors, and the slightly-to-slow week when I don't. 

Tariffs

A fairly dry subject for today, as we jump into the exciting world of trade tariffs. It may seem like a small, inconsequential thing at first -- the taxes imposed by the BVI government on nearly all goods imported into the territory. Tariffs aren't something I researched, or really even thought of, before deciding to move here. More and more, though, I realize how much they impact me, and impact life here in general.

To my knowledge, the only goods that enter the BVI tariff-free are books, educational materials, and computers. Everything else is subject to a minimum duty of 10%. Duties range as high as 23-24% on some items like automobiles. If you are visiting the BVI, these tariffs strongly impact the costs of goods you buy while here. Not only are you paying the shipping premium of bringing that CD or bottle of water to the island, but you are also paying for 10-20% on the original purchase price of the CD or bottle of water plus the cost of shipping it.

As a visitor, perhaps this doesn't matter very much to you. You're only here for a short while anyway, and so what if things cost a little extra? You're in the Caribbean. If you're planning on moving here, however, tariffs can impact you in a big way. Everything costs more here because it's imported. I've already discussed the cost of groceries at length, but tariffs help put a price premium on everything.

I think the difficulty of coordinating shipping combined with the high tariffs also diminishes the supply of items in the BVI. Often it is difficult to find specific things, and it is always difficult to find a variety of things. If you are looking for a certain model cell phone in a particular color, you will probably need look elsewhere -- online, or in Puerto Rico -- to find it.

In the long term, I feel the tariffs help make the BVI a less consumerist culture. There are not infinite choices of infinite items, and many transplants quickly discover how few of those infinite items they needed anyway. If shopping is your favorite form of entertainment though, you may want to carefully consider a move to the BVI, and the impact of tariffs on your pocketbook.

Elections

It is election time in the BVI. With November 7th, election Monday, moving ever closer, the most noticeable aspect of the upcoming elections are the candidate signs sprouting up everywhere.

For a non-belonger like me, the campaign signs are the only part of election season particularly relevant to me. My work permit status, unsurprisingly, does not carry with it the right to vote. I have recently heard a little bit of rhetoric from candidates on the radio, suggesting that all non-belongers should be expelled from the BVI, in order to allow belongers to take their jobs. The economics of this proposition make it extremely unlikely, however, as the government garners far too much revenue from non-belonger work permit fees.

In a territory with a population estimated around 27,000, there are approximately 11,000 registered voters, divided into nine districts. Each district elects one member of the legislative council, which also has four at-large seats, voted on by all voters.

Stakes are high in this year's election. The UK has recently indicated that if the BVI government can't get it together, the UK may require all budgets be submitted to the UK government for review before being passed by the BVI government. Very few BVI-islanders want this kind of intervention, and so the incumbent VIP (Virgin Islands Party) is placed in the awkward position of justifying their continuing in power, having led the BVI to this potential consequence.

The opposition NDP (National Democratic Party) seems to be reveling in pointing out the incompetence of the VIP in budgetary matters, but unlike the VIP, has not yet released their "manifesto", being the written version of the party's platform.

Long-time BVI residents say they are impressed by the unusually high numbers of independent or third-party candidates that seem to be doing quite well pre-election. Many, though, are disillusioned by the entire election process, claiming that the only noticeable difference between governments is in who is awarded the government contracts. The general belief is that contract corruption runs high.

VI News online has a page dedicated to ongoing coverage of the BVI elections, for those interested in learning more.

Recreational Driving

I am really loving living in the BVI right now. A day of swimming and tasty sandwiches on Sunday only reinforced that.

Nonetheless, there are a few things about the US that I miss. Right at the top of the list, competing with fast food for thne top spot, is recreational drivig -- driving for fun.

Driving in the BVI is pretty much never fun. I've written several times before about some of the obstacles inherent in using the roads on Tortola. Livestock, hairpin turns, steep grades, bad traffic, all combine to make driving a stressful daily necessity. I miss hopping in the car and finding a smooth, curvy, empty road. I miss miles and miles of straight interstate at 80 mph. I miss not having to worry about how long the guy stopped in front of my is going to stay there, chatting with his buddy, while traffic builds up around him.

In Tortola's defense, I do experience brief moments of joy while driving here. There's an especially fun bit of hill on the Ridge Road near SkyWorld that is supremely roller-coaster-esque. On a good day, when I'm not stuck behind a diesel truck or a tourist in a rental car, carving up the coastal highway can be entertaining -- at least for the four miles or so where there aren't any speedbumps.

But I find that I am never relaxed behind the wheel here, and that I never want to just get in the car and go for a drive. There's nowhere to cruise, nowhere to speed, nowhere to evade the stress of the daily commute, nowhere to engage in recreational driving.

Just one of the little sacrifices for living on an island in the tropics.

Happy Early Halloween

The BVI has a ... different ... way of celebrating Halloween, as reported in this story on BVInews.com.

The headline, "Peebles Hospital Denies Rumors of Missing Body" pretty much says it all, but I especially liked the official quote from the hospital:

“Peebles Hospital confirms than an investigation is ongoing. However, the BVIHSA officials deny that a body has been stolen or is missing from the facility.”

If no body is stolen or missing, what exactly is there to investigate?

With thanks to HB, who reads the news far more frequently than I.

Steep Grade

At the bottom of Joe's Hill Road:

Consider yourself duly warned.

And no, that steep grade sign does not exaggerate.

R&R

I have been accustomed to think of a vacation as a type of retreat, an opportunity for some high quality rest and relaxation. My two weeks in Colorado, though, and especially the three nights at the cottage outside of Lyons, have forced me to reevaluation my vision and understanding of vacation.

When I lived in Colorado, I always looked forward to the cottage outside Lyons as a chance to get away from it all. HB and I would go up for a night or two, and spend every spare moment doing nothing. Not having anything to worry about or decide beyond sitting by the stream under the maple trees or the pine trees was exactly what I wanted out of a vacation. I could relax and unwind. I could spend some time really getting a lime on, if you will.

Visiting the cottage outside Lyons on this most recent trip, I found myself disappointed. I wasn't enjoying all the quality time sitting outside by the stream, or inside by the fire, doing nothing. I felt like something was different about the place -- it wasn't giving me the same sensations it used to.

It took me a day or two to realize: the place hadn't changed, I had. I was already rested and relaxed. I didn't need to do nothing and unwind. I didn't need to lime -- I had been spending the last year doing exactly that. A retreat was not what I wanted; I wanted immersion and engagement.

Once I understood this, I was able to enjoy the rest of my time at the cottage, and in Colorado, accepting that I had mis-judged what I wanted out of my vacation. In the future, I will know that since I am so well-relaxed at home, I will need to look for a different kind of r&r -- recreation and revelry.

Perception

It never fails to astound me how much your daily experience changes your perception of the world around you. I initially was thinking in terms of temperature. It's no secret that HVAC is uncommon in the BVI. Even at work, where we do have an A/C unit in the office, we usually keep the temperature set around 26C (80F). Living in the BVI climate on a daily basis for the last year has changed my perception of what constitutes a cold temperature, and I find myself shivering violently in the cool Colorado morning temperatures of 65F (19C).

The daily BVI grind has changed my perception of other things, though, too. It's helped me appreciate how lucky almost every single American is to be living in the United States. It's made me understand why people from other places in the world are so desperate to get here. Not only is the infrastructure here among the best in the world, but the number of choices available on a daily basis makes my head spin -- pick between 60 kinds of breakfast cereal, three or four ways to get to work, a myriad of restaurants for lunch, hundreds of entertainment options. The infrastructure that ensures there's water every time you turn on the tap, combined with all the available products and services -- these things don't exist in most of the rest of the world. How lucky I am to be a US Citizen.