Roughing it in the Bahamas

When people hear that I lived in the Bahamas for a year, their idea of the life I led there is drastically different from the reality. True, the island chain’s turquoise blue water, white sand beaches, and towering cliffscapes are not exaggerated on postcards and brochures. It really is an island paradise, and I really did have those at my fingertips.

But my days were not spent sprawled in a lounge chair catching a tan, sipping fruity drinks, and staring out at a blue expanse of nothingness. I caught a tan while scrubbing salt water and lemon juice into dirty laundry, while painting shutters in a bikini in stifling 100 degree heat–with no A/C to escape to. I drank warm water that I’d siphoned into bottles from a freshwater jug. And more often than not, my view of the ocean was interrupted by “the bush”–an impassable tangle of green and brown roots and leaves that traversed the remote island I called home.

About half the time I lived in the Bahamas, I did not have electricity. For all but the first month, I did not have running water. Part of this was due to setting up camp in the shell of an abandoned property while slowly–ever so slowly–renovating the house. Part of this was due to the ensuing aftermath of Hurricane Joaquin.

Every morning, I woke at 6 AM and cooked oatmeal over a portable stovetop. I poured salt water over my toothbrush to wet it before brushing my teeth. Then, I put on a mismatching bathing suit top and bottom before heading outside to the well on property. No freshwater source existed on the narrow island, so the well tapping into the water table only produced easy access to salt water. I tied a rope around glass bottles I’d plucked from the shoreline, long ago washed up from the tide. Dangling the bottle down into the 10 foot well, I hauled up five bottles of water, a gallon each, to suffice for the day: one for dishes, two for the toilets, one for laundry, and one for showering.

Next, I plugged up the kitchen sink and filled it with one of the bottles’ contents. All of the dishes from the day would soak in here throughout the day. Before bed, I would scrub them then set them out to dry, streaks of salt residue the next day affirming their cleanliness.

By now, it was nearing 8 AM. I would decide my projects for the day. This varied every day. Some days I scavenged and hauled 20-pound rocks from the surrounding bush and aligned them on the property, the humble beginnings of a garden bed forming atop the hard coral rock surface beneath my feet. Other days I drove 40 minutes into town on the one road, potholed, no-lined highway to get groceries: $7 for a head of moldy cauliflower that took a week to get from the U.S. to Nassau to Long Island, Bahamas; $10 for a pack of 5 tampons. On Saturdays, though, I went to the Farmer’s Market for local produce and socializing with the women selling me fresh mangos, guava, breadfruit, and arugula.

When it wasn’t laundry day, I set to work painting the entire exterior of the two small buildings on the property–once a command center for the adjacent unkept runway, then a nightclub, then a home. Eventually, I would paint the inside.

Some days I climbed down into the well to scoop out the Cuban tree frog tadpoles and drop them in the water’s edge at the end of the runway. I’d return to scrape the muck out of the old well, a futile attempt to purify thecontaminated salt water.

By noon, I had made a lunch of potatoes–Greek lemon or mustard potatoes–or lentils. Then I headed back outside for more laborious tasks. The heat of the day peeked at 3 PM, an unbearable time to be outside, skin baking and burning even in rare, coveted shady spots on the land. Indoors, I wrote for hours, taking breaks to read a book, play cards, or glue seashells together to make shell creatureswhich I would eventually bequeath to my Bahamian friends as I said my farewells a year later.

At 5 PM, I’d explore a new nook of the island, turning down unmarked after unmarked dirt road to find yet another vacant beach on this 80-mile long island of 3,000 inhabitants. I collected sea glass and sea shells, dead coral and bones. I encountered dozens of adult sea turtles while snorkeling in a cove; came face-to-face with a bull shark in open water.

At 8 PM I made dinner. Before the sun fell below the horizon at 8:30 PM, I was asleep–awaken throughout the night by the loud incessant croaking of Cuban tree frogs that had long ago matured from the well.

In the wake of Hurricane Joaquin, I would understand what it meant to be white and privileged showcased by my ability to choose to live this way, and the choice to return to “normal.’

Blessings in Disguise

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make everybody but yourself, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.” —E. E. Cummings

The hands we are dealt in life are not always welcome. They can cause physical pain and emotional heartache, close us off to possibilities, discourage our hopes and dreams. But they can also give us perspective, open the door to new opportunities, and shape us into better versions of our younger selves.

I am a happy person, but my life has not been fueled by rainbows and butterflies. Where I am today is a direct reflection of the independent outlook I have on life and the people and events I’ve mingled with along the way–both good and bad, positive and negative.

Maybe I strive to be an eternal optimist. Maybe it’s my natural intuition to trust my gut over a list of pros and cons. Or maybe it’s my past catching up with my present that’s shaping my future. Whatever the maybe, I don’t regret the challenges, curve balls and surprises that have been thrown my way. Without these blessings in disguise, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

“If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day. Nothing stimulates our appetite for the simple joys of life more than the starvation caused by sadness or desperation. In order to complete our amazing life journey successfully, it is vital that we turn each and every dark tear into a pearl of wisdom, and find the blessing in every curse.” –Anthon St. Marteen

If I had not been born with both a heart condition and an athlete’s heart, I might have taken my athleticism for granted. I might not have welcomed the challenge of pole vaulting when advised against it. I might have listened to doctors and statistics and never fought the odds. I might not have realized that my heart is both a beating organ in my chest and a synonym for my feelings. So, thank you, dilapidated heart, for teaching me that there are two outcomes to every story.

If I had not been robbed in Ecuador, I might not have needed to travel into the city alone to visit the doctor to refill the medicine that had been stolen from me. I might not have then had the guts to travel to the coast by myself when my companion’s plans fell through last minute. Without these experiences, I might not have had the confidence in myself to travel solo. So, thank you, Ecuadorian muggers, for pushing me to believe in my capabilities, for sparking a fire for solo female travel in my heart, one that I’m constantly feeding and never plan on letting die out.

If I had not contracted Lyme Disease, I might not have moved to the Florida Keys, expanding my zoological knowledge and acting prowess. I would not have had the opportunity to move to the Bahamas and experience the real island life. So, thank you Lyme Disease, for proving to me the strengths of the human mind to overcome physical pain, for showcasing the adaptability of the human spirit to make and embrace change and growth.

Photo by M. Parekh

If I had not dated boyfriends 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, I would not know myself the way I do. I would not understand my wants and needs, and I might find myself settling. I might have believed that you can’t be friends with your ex and that every relationship that ends has to be messy. I might have always been left wondering if we could be great together. So, thank you, ex-boyfriends, for shining a capacity for my own forgiveness, understanding and healing that I might never have known, for encouraging me to love myself before committing to someone else, for letting me know when is the right moment to compromise, for proving to me that the heartache and memories were worth it.

If I hadn’t lived through Hurricane Joaquin, I would not have the tried and true empathy to help my Ecuadorian friends struggling with the aftermath of the devastating April 16 7.8-magnitude earthquake. I would likely not be in Seattle today, merging my passions for animals, acting and writing. So, thank you, Hurricane Joaquin, for giving me perspective I didn’t know I was lacking, for showing me what is important in life, for teaching me what it means to be there for someone, and for guiding me along the lonely and arduous rode to self-fulfillment and happiness.

Every moment in life, the bold and the timid, the fleeting and long-term, the smiling and taxing times, creates our present-day selves. What we do with those moments is up to us. What version of ourselves do we want to be?

Fearing Man vs. Nature: A Lesson on the Refugee Crisis through Hurricane Joaquin

We write best about that which we know, that which we have felt and experienced.  Most people, if not everyone, have been caught up in fear in some way, shape or form. At the very least, they have had some fleeting encounter of it. But what do we know about fear that overwhelms you? What can we say about an emotion so raw it consumes your mind and your body?

I have shaken hands with Fear as it sat inquisitively next to me on a bus in Ecuador, as it reared its sword during family hardships, when it whispered in my ear on the streets of London. But more recently, I was involuntarily, inescapably tossed into the ring for a face-off with fear during Hurricane Joaquin.

Fear is caused by the unknown or by our projections of what could be. It rears its ugly, menacing head when we are lost physically and emotionally. Essentially, fear appears when we feel helpless.

As I sat tucked in a blanket on a couch in the Bahamas, listening to wind gusts of 200 mph knock on the windows and doors, shivering from damp clothes that could not dry amidst the raindrops seeping through the cracks of the ceiling and walls, hearing shingles pop off while I waited—so much waiting—for the roof to blow off, I experienced fear as I had never felt it before. Previously, my fearful moments had been brief, brought on by accidental happenings and mankind’s ability to inflict an unease upon others. This was my first unavoidable, unwelcome confrontation with fear caused by Mother Nature.

I would not wish it upon my worst enemy.

This was the kind of fear that makes your heart beat in your ears, the sound masked by the growling storm outside. This was a fear that stole precious sleep from every islander for two nights during the storm and weeks, months, after. This was a fear that spoke through the eyes when words became superfluous.

The fear on Long Island and the other southeastern out islands battered by Hurricane Joaquin was not covered in the media. These islands, these people, have largely been left to fend for themselves. These are families that fled their homes, that lost pets and businesses and everything but the clothes on their back. These are people leaning on each other as they pick up to start their lives anew. It is nothing short of miraculous that they survived a force so strong it destroyed their livelihood. Fear reads in their eyes as they stand on the doorsteps of their neighbors seeking refuge.

If this sounds at all familiar, it should. The wake of Hurricane Joaquin is similar in far too many ways to the Syrian refugee crisis today, to the Holocaust and Darfur of our past. Only the cause of the fear is different: man vs. nature.

I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming.

Imagine a society where we don’t help each other, where we turn the sick, the injured, the lost, the lonely, and the fearful away. Long Island, Bahamas would have crumbled in on its already crumbled self.

Think about the aftermath of a natural disaster, instances in which, when appearances not politics are involved, commonly, the US of A is all too willing to help. Imagine if Louisiana and New England had been abandoned following Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. What if we had ignored the cries of Thailand following the deadliest tsunami in history? What if countries had not stood by us during 9/11 or with Paris following the recent attacks? What if, like the victims of Beirut, we were forgotten—no Facebook profile pictures changed to our country’s flag, no national monuments lit up with our prideful colors?  Victims of natural disaster face genocide by Mother Nature. Victims of war face genocide by man.

Today, more than any times past, we are turning our backs on our neighbors. We are actually toying with the idea of closing our doors to individuals based on their religion and the color of their skin. We are avoiding the throngs of cries for help because our brains are fed by one thing and one thing only: Fear.

We, a supposedly progressive, diverse, equalizing, opportunistic country are saying no. America was once powerful because it cared. When did this country stop caring?

There was a time I was proud to call myself a citizen of the United States. I cannot say the same today. Society is fueling a world of ignorance and xenophobic pandering, a planet of division not unity. What happened to strength in numbers and intelligence? Why are we succumbing to radicalists instead of statistics?

Fear is the common denominator here. Bahamians fled their homes in fear of Mother Nature. Syrians are fleeing there homeland—abandoning everything they know—because they fear rifle-wielding terrorists in their backyard. And the rest of the world is giving them the finger.

Wake up, America. Open your hearts, open your minds, open your homes, open your hands. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes for once. If America really is a country for, by and of the people, what are we going to let it stand for?

Beachcombing in the Bahamas

Seashells littered Cape Santa Maria beach in Long Island, Bahamas after Hurricane Joaquin. Stuck in the north without gas for days at a time, I walked the two mile stretch of white sand, collecting oodles of special shells for displaying and creating.

Though I tended to pick up rare shells, I scooped up common snail shells from the beaches despite their abundance. I began to appreciate the individual beauty of each one, some in shades of pinks, others in browns, a mixture of vibrant and pale colors. In one handful of snail shells, each one spoke of individuality.

Another favorite collection were the spiny oysters washing up in purples, oranges, reds and yellows. It took a lot of internet searching and colleague questioning before I was able to identify these unique shells. Beautiful and exotic, the spiny oyster—also called the thorny oyster—attaches to substrates for life. Not many creatures can make lifetime commitments as easily as the spiny oyster.

After the storm, I discovered another type of snail whose spiraled appearance coincidentally resembled the wind pattern of the very hurricane that brought them to shore. Xenophorids are a type of carrier shell that cements wayfaring shells of varying sizes to itself. This gives them a spiny appearance. While other spiny shells exert energy creating and maintaining their own spikes for self-defense, xenophorids–also called pallid carrier shells–spend no calories on protection. They can even adhere corals five times their size.

Say it with me now: Nature is awesome.

In addition to those shells, I took a liking to what I call miniature conch shells. (I can’t seem to find their name, so if you know what they’re called, please let me know!) I get abnormally excited about small things, like tiny decks of cards and itty bitty scissors. Maybe it’s a female trait; girls like cute things.

Months ago, I added a half piece of a rounded bottle neck to my sea glass collection. The instant I saw it I envisioned using it as a sea turtle’s shell for a seashell creature collection. Eventually, thanks to being stranded by Hurricane Joaquin, I was able to sit down and let my imagination wander with a glue gun and a bucket of shells.

Look for an upcoming post about what creations I made with my seashell collection!

A Few Seconds Every Day in Long Island, Bahamas (Part 2)

Hurricane Joaquin may have battered the infrastructure of the southeastern out islands of the Bahamas, but the natural beauty of the island remains intact. Waves shifted sands on the beaches, trees are missing, and cliffs have been reshaped, but the iconic coastline–and the people who make the island what it is–remain.

Mother Nature is powerful. But Her destruction only brings rebirth.

Here’s a snippet of enjoyment before the hurricane. It’s still much the same after the storm. Long Island, Bahamas will always be a beautiful place.

Calling for Hurricane Joaquin Relief in Long Island, Bahamas

Post Hurricane Joaquin, the natural beauty of Long Island is only rivaled by the beauty of its people. It is a resilient, self-sustaining community that is slowly rebuilding despite the unfortunate red tape bureaucratic delays of government aid and relief donations. The north of the island seems untouched in comparison to the south, and tourists are already returning to resorts and private rentals like Cape Santa Maria Beach Resort, Stella Maris Resort and the historic property we’ve been renovating.

In the wake of a disaster, true colors shine through, and it comes as no surprise that on a peaceful, remote island in the Caribbean, neighbors are ever-willing to lend a hand.

If you would like to lend a hand, the most reliable organization for relief donations (monetary and supplies) is through HeadKnowles Hurricane Joaquin Relief. Unfortunately, through other organizations, many donations are not arriving to the affected islands as intended due to paperwork, duty fees and politics. If you know someone on one of the islands, shipping supplies can be sent to an individual who can then distribute the supplies from there, either directly or via a local church. Long Island is in the rebuilding phase calling for building supplies including but not limited to:

• shingles
• lumber
• appliances
• Ice and Heat roofing shield
• tools
• generators
• nails, screws, nuts and bolts
• home furnishings

Remember that people have lost everything. Concrete buildings crumbled. Roofs blew off. Tubs, stoves, beds, sofas, toilets and refrigerators were pushed out of homes and into the bush with the storm surge. People lost everything.

But, as one of many locals will tell you, “I got life.”

Hurricane Joaquin: One Family’s Story in Video

Hurricane Joaquin popped up unexpectedly, grew exponentially, and lasted for days that felt like they would never end. The survival stories are terrifying. I was caught 20 miles from the eye of the storm, taking refuge at a friend’s house on higher ground when my home saw flooding. Unable to return to my house in the immediate aftermath due to roadside flooding, we arrived at the home of a local couple who lost everything in the storm. This is their story. There are many stories like this that need to be told.

White and Unprivileged on an Island in the Caribbean

While delivering relief supplies to a settlement in the south, a group of kids met us at the bottom of the hill they live on. They joined us for the ride up to their homes where we unloaded the donations.

For at least three of my six months on Long Island, Bahamas, I have roughed it. I lived without electricity, running water or Internet while the roof over my head underwent renovations. I cooked on a fire outside, proving to be most difficult when the skies poured with rain. I hauled brackish water out of a well every morning and afternoon for cleaning dishes, showering and flushing toilets. At times I even had to do my business outside.

While some days I appreciated the simplicity and other days it bore a sense of frustration, I bear no regrets. In fact, just the other day I made a rather strange statement. I said aloud, “I like living where there are a lot of black people.” I couldn’t quite put into words then the explanation that I can give now; my living situation gave me perspective.

Because I am white and privileged. I grew up in a suburban sprawl where the town joke was, “Where do all the black people live?…On the water tower,” the latter being a reference to the silhouetted individuals adorning one of three water towers in a small Ohio district of 30,000 residents. I was raised in a modest house by entrepreneurial parents who earned a comfortable though not luxurious living. My two sisters and I had our own rooms (after upgrading homes when I was six). The only sense of cultural enlightenment I had was once tagging along with my Muslim-Catholic friend to her every other weekend religious service at the Mosque in our town, which, though its size boasts being the largest Mosque in North America, the statistic drew no influx of worshippers and therefore no spike of diversity to our humble white population. The only other languages I was exposed to growing up were the Hindi dialect of the parents of my Indian friend and the occasional Chinese from a neighboring family that happened to move in a few houses down. The only time I really noticed any difference in skin color was when I would visit my one biracial friend and sit down at the dinner table with her elderly white adoptive parents. And I think these friendships were very unique to an upbringing in white suburbia simply because, in the drawing bowl, they were few and far between.

Homes atop the hill and throughout the island were wiped out by the wind and storm surge–even concrete structures.

It was nobody’s fault, no person’s conscious doing that I lived a life that came easily but was so closed off from diversity. Perhaps it was this element of my childhood existence that encouraged me to seek a university with great international intentions and religious tolerance, that continually fuels me to explore beyond the confines of my birth country’s border, to fully commit myself to uncomfortable living situations so that I don’t live blindly. It is my honest experience that despite the privileged folk proclaiming otherwise, racism is still very much alive in today’s society.

It is, unfortunately, still pumping its prejudiced heart on this beautiful, remote island in the Caribbean. The truth became apparent during the devastation following Hurricane Joaquin, when communication with the outside world became nonexistent and who helped who was, at times, a matter of skin color.

Bahamians are a mix of black and white, a sea of glistening ebony and sun-baked tan more akin to the likes of Hispaniola. But in a country whose centuries-old stone walled plantation markers lie in partial ruin, equality, for some, is trapped in a similar state.

In the deep south of the island on top of a steep, rocky hill, a group of 30 beautiful, dark-skinned citizens are still rebuked by whites–and blacks–as descendants of slaves. The families who dwell on the hill squished eleven people into a 200-square foot plywood abode that blew over like paper in a breeze when the raging hurricane winds hovered for days. In an instant, eleven people were homeless and yet not considered a priority for delivery of relief supplies. Not because they were black but because they were those blacks that still remained shackled to the ancestry of their slave brothers and sisters.

After the hurricane, my friends and I made a trip to the hill with care packages of hygiene products, clothes and canned food. Children sprinted down to catch the truck before it made its trek upward. We smiled and laughed and received countless gratitude as we distributed homemade lunches and cold drinks. Then the kids piled into the back of the truck like every hitchhiker on the island as we joined the rest of their families at the top of the hill.

A girl in her mid-20’s asked if I could carry one of the packages to a lady who “don’ walk so well.” As we trod along she asked me my name and I asked hers.

“I’m Elise,” she said.

I carried the box into a small hut and set it on the table, glancing around.

“You have a lovely home,” I told the elderly woman inside, sincerity in my voice.

“Oh dis jus’ da kitchen,” she said. “Ovuh dere is da bedroom.” She pointed to a neighboring small hut where I assumed too many people slept.

Walking back to the truck with Elise, I asked which house was hers.

“Ya see dat one ovuh dere?” She gestured in the direction of a crumpled mess of wood atop a concrete slab the size of our cistern. “Dat is—dat were—my house.”

“I hope you weren’t there in the storm,” I commented.

“Yes ma’am, me an’ ten othuhs. I had ta carry six kids outta dere wid my eyes closed, da sand blowin’ so hard from da wind.”

“That’s terrible… I’m so sorry,” I said for lack of anything better to say. Incredulity tugged at my vocal chords, empathy riding its coattails.

“I got life,” she said. “Dat’s all dat matters.”

Elise’s story is like so many on this island, traumatized by Mother Nature who decided to play dominoes with nearly 500 homes on a narrow 80-mile landmass with 3,000 residents. Her outlook is commendable. Those who lost their homes, whose eyes are stained with the memories, the fear, the terror, they all same the same thing: “I got life.”

Some people on Long Island were living with close to nothing and now they have nothing. If Mother Nature was trying to teach a lesson about material possessions, she taught it to the wrong people.

Here I was surviving—for a few months—back to the basics. There they were living every day in this way. They are unprivileged because of the color of their skin. I spent time incorporating the unprivileged lifestyle into my daily routine, but I can’t hide from the truth; I am privileged because of the color of my skin.

On this island, I am the minority. I may experience prejudice along my global travels for being white, female and American, but I still carry with me my birth-given privilege. I will never know what it’s like to be black in a white world, poor in a rich world, or gay in a straight world. I will never know what it’s like to have to fight for the birthright of equality.