this is the land that provides..

where to even begin? there is such a gap since my last entry; though the space is empty on paper, it is overflowing in reality. in brief, for those of you with any residual confusion concerning my whereabouts: i am living on the island of dominica (in the caribbean—NOT to be confused with the dominican republic, or barbados, or cuba, or hawaii, or any other island in the world). i am studying at the Institute for Tropical Marine Ecology (where i am cramming as much science into my brain as it will allow, diving, snorkeling, monitoring, learning and contributing to the database of knowledge gathered to date on all things marine and dominican). i am living on a mountainside base with 5 other students, 2 TAs, one professor (incidentally, the director and brains behind the whole operation), and his small young family; we are a stroll down the hill to the nearest town, Mahaut (and a helluva hike back up), a short bus ride from the capital, Roseau; and pretty close to everything else considering the size of the island. the program runs until december, at which point i will go back to montreal and gear up for the next inevitable adventure.

 

snippets from my mental photographs so far:

the airport had half a dozen staff working. one of the girls’ bags was lost, and when she asked how she supposed to go about getting it back, the man half-giggled and shrugged.

buses are big vans that pick people up at random on the side of the road. there are bus stops, but if you want to hail a bus, you just throw yourself in front of it as it’s careening down the road and hop on.

a conversation between two intense women on one such bus: heatedly debating the relevance and importance of fighting for the rights of humanity vs. ensuring your own survival in this wicked wicked world. when they got off, i felt hopeless.

nothing can ever be expected to get done efficiently, and nothing really works properly: for example, there is one lamppost on the walk down the hill into town. it is bright and illuminates most of a long stretch of road…until you walk within 10 meters of it. it smells our human need for light and shuts off just as we come within view; a glance back in the darkness, once we’ve long passed, will reveal it contemptuously having turned itself back on.?

we were shown the local mom-and-pop bar operation in town (a small wooden shack with an open-concept slab of concrete right on the beach). the mom is happy to serve us drinks while her 5 children scurry around the various pot-smoking rastas and gambling men with shady, suspicious expressions, and the husband fiddles with his new home entertainment system (projector, burned-DVD player, and bed sheet screen). the first night he set it up, they showed the new indiana jones. we went down to see what they had playing last night, and came upon a disturbing latino soft-core porno, with violence and lesbians (and sex of course) all within the 20 seconds it took us to realize what we were looking at and book it out of there.

 

we met up with a local guy, kyle (who had befriended the TAs last year and was more than happy to welcome this season’s new recruits—did i mention we are three girls with big blue eyes, one of us blonde? he didn’t seem too put out by the task), and headed to one of the 3 bars in town. it was empty, save for the bartender and a DJ blaring hip hop, then reggae, then techno, and back again. [i’d like to make a note of the DJ’s T-shirt, which loudly declared: “SEX NICE…but de aids ting…”] we ordered drinks, requested a song, and within 2 minutes the bar had filled up with the town’s men, all in to get a look at the new white girls i mean students. kyle had his “eye out” for us (he assured us he had “street cred”, and if anyone gave us any trouble, he’d take care of it. i would also like to make a note that kyle is a 6’5” gangly kid with barely-post-adolescent scruff on his chin and a slow languorous swagger that intimates his chronic marijuana use). i joke-danced with an older man who was maybe, maybe 5 feet tall and who clutched an umbrella the whole time (i figured he was harmless. crazy, maybe, but harmless). the girls were hit on from all sides. it was a classic scenario in which, needless to say, i do not intend to participate often.

 

today was our day off. 5 of us decided to check out some waterfalls, and kyle had wanted to join us so we set off. now, bus service is minimal if at all on sundays, and really you just have to hope to get lucky. we made it to roseau, and managed to hire a taxi to take us to the falls; the drive was about half an hour through the mountains, up and up and up and up, and finally we made it to the park entrance. the cabbie said he could come back for us later, so we got his phone number and arranged for a pick-up time. there was one park guard on duty, and he looked our group over and asked kyle if he was our tour guide. he said no, and was promptly informed he would not be allowed in the park. this prompted some questioning on my part (and some very heavy cursing on kyle’s part), and this is what my dialogue with the park man went like:

Me: why can’t our friend come with us?

Guy: it’s the law. only official tour guides are allowed in the park with tourists.

Me: well we’re not tourists, we’re students. we live here. he’s just a friend from mahaut.

Guy: i don’t make the laws, i just have to uphold them.

Me: well are dominicans allowed to visit reserves on their own island?

Guy: yes, of course.

Me: so he can go in on his own then? he won’t be accompanying us, i assure you.

Guy: well…….these are the types of technical questions we try to avoid you asking.

Me: what??

meanwhile i am being shouldered along by our TA who doesn’t want any trouble, and kyle is waving us to go on as he’s yelling madly into his cell phone and at the guard at the same time.

cut to: the waterfall. it is absolutely beautiful, clean cold water gushing down the mountain into dozens of pools and eddies. i am thrilled to peel off my sweaty clothes and jump in, but i am also SO PISSED OFF about that useless conversation with the guard and our helplessness in the matter. we play around in the water for about half an hour but i am still feeling really badly about leaving kyle at the entrance, when suddenly he pops out from the rocky path with a big grin on his face. he tells us casually that he’d just called the prime minister and had him tell the guard that he’d better let him in or else. i was like, “the prime minister? of the country??” and he was like “yeah. we’re like this (crossing his fingers)”. i said “i don’t know who you are buddy, but your street cred just went through the roof!”

after a while, the water started to feel cold and the spray from the falls began to get painful, so we started hiking down and came upon some hot springs about 2 meters from the cold pools. i stumbled my way up a bunch of slimy boulders and came to lie in a jacuzzi-sized pool surrounded by beautiful mossy rocks and rainforest. it was unbelievable, and i meditated in my private retreat for twenty minutes (sending my thanks out into the universe) before feeling like a boiled lobster, and proceeded to throw myself back into the cool refreshing waters. ?

once packed up, we headed back out, and the guard sheepishly started making conversation with us, feigning interest in our research at ITME and avoiding eye-contact with a still-grinning kyle. we went out to meet our taxi, but he was nowhere to be found. we gave him a call, and realized he’d given us a wrong (fake?) number. ha-ha at the expense of those stupid white tourists. we started walking.

2 hours and 4.2 miles later, drenched in sweat, we popped back out onto the main road in roseau. the walk had been made bearable by my insistence on stopping at every fruit-tree we passed, and kyle’s obliging my fruity desires (in the end, he had knocked down a bunch of guavas—which i hoarded in my bag—some oranges, a banana, and very nearly a papaya and starfruit. i was in heaven). we passed a spring (some clean-looking water coming out of a bamboo halfpipe rigged upwards in the slopes)—my water bottled having been drained half an hour before, i looked at kyle in desperation; understanding my request, he brought his mouth to it and gulp-gulp-gulped it down. satisfied, i filled up and drank to my heart’s content…and funnily enough, he said he would never trust drinking-water in foreign countries (tap water in montreal was his first example). the cultural divide never ceases to amaze.

other jarring cultural occurrences:

kyle flagged down a man in a pick-up to give us a ride (on the long and winding road), and he glanced at us and said as he sped off, “i don’t collect tourists”. i pumped my fist in the dust left behind his wheels and yelled “we live here, you racist!” (much to kyle’s amusement). futile, i know, but it felt good. i was due for a good fist-pumping.

the men swarm us everywhere we go, making casual to aggressive advances and dressing us with their disturbingly brazen compliments. i got a bit huffy after one too many, and my TA cooly remarked, “hey you’re in their culture, you’ve got to take it”. i’ve been to so many countries where cat-calling and harassing women is normal and accepted—does that mean i should be used to it?? sad fact is, i am used to it. but i don’t accept being objectified on account of my skin colour and “role” (ie worthless tourist instead of human being). it’s infuriating. and the women want nothing to do with us (despite my eagerness to make some female friends) because they think we’re just here to take all their men. pah! they can keep their groping sleazeballs. i just want someone i can make real conversation with, and not have to worry about being hit on.

 

anyway. at the risk of launching into a serious rant, i will stop here for the night. overall, i have been processing an abundance of positive stimuli, taking great pleasure in my classes, and getting drunk on the infinite blue ocean that satiates my soul every moment i get to bask in it. i wish you all the same bliss!