traveling to St Vincent & the Grenadines
learnings from my heritage trip turned hurricane beryl, aunties' advice, secrets between sisters, and other observations from waiting a lifetime to find myself
*Testing, testing* Is this mic still on?
Hi friends, old and new. I’ve missed you, and honestly, I haven’t been able to get you off my mind *bats eyelashes*. So here we are. Sorry I’ve been gone, I’ll be better.
Since we last spoke in April, I’ve gone back to Toronto four times now — once for my cousin’s baby shower, once for my Uncle’s funeral, and most recently as a stop-over to and from my family’s trip to St Vincent (a lot more on this later). Additionally, my Mom’s shop will soon be closing, I have a work trip coming up there, and it’s finally time for my Dad, my many Aunties, and cousins to meet the boyfriend; so I’ll be making a couple more trips back to my old stomping grounds before summer is over.
Meanwhile back in LA, I’ve continued my weekly therapy sessions, made it out to the beach twice, and managed to complete about 40 days out of the 75 Soft Challenge. I, as usual, am on a real routine kick. Except lately I’ve been doing it slightly different… this time, I’m actually doing the things; not just adding, compiling and organizing endless to-do lists from the comfort of my complacency. What a concept — the importance of application, consistency and commitment. Who would’ve thought? I have many learnings so far, but we’ll have to save that for another entry, because my biggest life lesson lately, and what I’ve really been wanting to talk to you about is…
Drea and I’s heritage holiday turned hurricane and all the many things I’ve learned from waiting a literal lifetime to visit my Dad’s birthplace. Spoiler alert: even though we made it all the way over to the mainland, and were only 65 miles, and a day, away from Union, we never actually got to see where our parents were raised. And now, we never will. So TLDR moral of the story: whatever it is, do it now… don’t wait!
UNION ISLAND…
Nearly a year ago now, my three cousins and I started getting serious about finally planning a trip back home — to where my Dad (one of twelve, and the only boy) and all my Aunties grew up; in a one-bedroom house on a tiny Caribbean island between St Vincent & Grenada, called Union Island. Population: less than 3,000 people.
As soon as we started putting pen to paper on it, life got in the way for us and our two other cousins dropped out with obligations at work for one, and a pregnancy for the other! In the end however, Drea and I decided we still wanted to go, especially because we hadn’t been since we were very little, her parents would be there and wanted to show us around, and I was secretly hoping this visit would provide me with some much needed clarity — you know, magically show me the future I’m meant to be working towards.
As timing would have it, we were actually scheduled to be there the very next day after Hurricane Beryl hit, causing complete destruction to Union Island — which unfortunately fell directly under the eye of the storm. Total devastation — 95% of the house’s roofs are gone, and so many are now left with so little.
Thankfully, Drea and I stayed hunkered down in a safe spot on the mainland out of harms way, but it was a close one, and unfortunately the same can't be said of the sweet little house where Dad was born and grew up. Roughly seventy years of memories. Gone. And, one day too soon, at least for me to see it myself.
TROUMACA…
We got in on a Sunday — as do all international inbound flights to the mainland. The shuttle driver that brought us to our resort ended up being a relative, naturally. As we were driving through town, it was obvious the island was preparing for the storm, and when we checked in, we were encouraged to take whatever we’d need up to our rooms. We heard an announcement from the loudspeakers warning us to stay indoors, and we took the opportunity to interview each other as part of our ever evolving time-capsule project; asking each other questions about where we’re at right now in life, etc. Drea: a 35 year old, single, doctor, happily practicing in Toronto, but admittedly looking for more fulfillment in life, and me: basically same, except add a partner, minus the doctor profession + sub Toronto for Los Angeles.
The following day, Drea’s Dad was planning on taking us to where he was raised — a small town called Troumaca, which was about a 40 minute drive along the coast. In no particular order, we visited a couple of cousins, three Aunties, two Uncles, a handful of their old friends, and an iguana that stopped traffic. At the first house we visited, an adorable young boy was playing in the front. Another family member, of course. He was so generous with his mangoes, high-fives and fist bumps. Their place was across the road from the school Drea’s Dad both attended and later taught at. When she was younger, he used to tell her that he’d walk for miles, (and he’d put a fine point on this —) without shoes, when he was a kid. All for the sake of getting an education. We always thought it was just a tall tale, like something Caribbean parents would exaggerate about to get the kids to do as they say — we never really believed it until coming here, and seeing for ourselves, the beautiful kids running up and down the mountainous terrain coming from the beach… many barefoot themselves.
That thought stuck with me and I snapped a few other vignettes of similar scenarios to remember it by. Children directly connected to their roots. Pounding the pavement like the little unhinged creatures they are. Running wild on these same mountains that harbor the fury of volcanoes and the wrath of hurricanes.
GOOD GHOSTS…
There was one child we saw outside a house on the side of the road, his mother nearby unbothered, talking on the phone. We noticed him because he was following a dog around, and carrying a piece of steel in his hands; his hands over his head. “Don’t do it!” we pleaded to each other under our breaths. As we approached, he finally went to lower the piece of metal on the dog, but did it ever so gently, and with a smile turned towards us. “What are you hitting di dog for?” My Uncle said to the kid. He chuckles.
We continue down the hilly road and found the pink house that he grew up in. A section of the ceiling was caved in and some paint on the exterior was chipping. Cracked concrete columns held together a tired, steel fence that hugged the plot’s perimeter. Two houses over, was where another Uncle grew up; a 100+ year old sky-blue house with a rusted steel roof the color of orange, from all the decades of exposure to the elements. Both homes were dilapidated but beautiful in their own unique ways. Even from the outside, the years of memories here were palpable. This place had good ghosts, as my coworker would say, and many of them.
Another visit, was to a lady named Gracie’s house — on the edge of the mountain, it boasts incredible 180° views of the ocean on one side and on the other was the island’s volcano, Mount Soufriere. We looked towards the beach down a steep hill, then looked up at the volcano, and I asked Gracie about her experience when it erupted a few years back. She said she stayed and didn’t evacuate along with most of her neighbors, so she saw the whole thing firsthand, from right there on the very balcony we were standing on. She told us her house and all the land in sight — the beach down below and the jungle behind us — was entirely covered in thick layers of soot and ash. I took a moment to look around. I imagined all the clean, white grooves in the columns of her house, and everything else, completely overwhelmed under volcano debris. Fire spewing from a hill. I thought of the fear she must’ve felt in those moments, as well as a dangerous and conflicting sense of comfort that made her stay put. She never said why, and I wouldn’t dare ask.
SAY GRACE…
The day after our Troumaca tour, was July Fourth. We met up with Aunty G who by then made it back safely to the mainland after being in Union. We went to the market in Kingstown, as she was trying to find some ingredients to take home. It was a mall-like structure but with garage-door-openings, and the stalls were simply items displayed on tabletop surfaces; no walls in between the vendors. Aunty pointed out the huge (and I mean huge) avocados there, and that Drea may have recognized them from her time spent in Dominica during residency.
We left the market and started walking the streets of town, making our little stops. Aunty G tells us a little bit about the age she was when she left — “I did nursing here (in Kingstown) and we lived just over there *points down the street*. I left in 1979, I was 27 when I left”. I asked how she met Drea’s Dad and she said “in Troumaca!” From what we pieced together, she went to visit a friend for a weekend while she was a student nurse. It was 1972 and she was 21 years old. “He was sitting on the school steps with a bunch of guys, and the rest is history” she said. It must’ve been that same school we saw. He left that year (‘72) to move to Toronto, when he was around 20. And that was about as much as we got out of her before she cut us off — “enough questions!” She pushed through the crowds ahead of us. Drea and I laughed.
We find our cousin and stop to grab an icee to try and beat the heat. Aunty and her embrace and they walk up ahead together — two shorties commanding the road with their sassy but small-legged stomps, they scurry along.
We order three icees from the man behind the cart and Aunty starts explaining what it was like being in Union Island during the hurricane…
“A solar panel slammed straight through one of the windows, and when that burst it’s like the speed of the wind *makes a rolling action with her hands* you just see the roof coming down. And we take the mattress to protect us, it wouldn’t even go. The dresser fell down this way *signals towards herself* and we crawled into (her niece’s) room – I didn’t even know there was a door (to the outside) there; it broke in, and if you see the roof like this coming down *she gestures an even more violent rolling, peeling, circular motion*. We crawled, under a wall that came down with a piece of galvanized steel on top of that, all of us going through the kitchen into the side of the house outside to the basement. Some boards were there, so we sat on the boards in the basement with water all around us, and (our Uncle) held the door shut. When it settled, we go see (friend)’s shop; she roof gone, (relative)’s roof and all she windows gone, all the houses on that side’s roof gone; when we looked, Daddy’s house is gone, nothing’s there; just the piece of the wall and the tank. It was really bad. If you see that place! *shakes head*”
We finally get the icees. They were all different colors with a coronation milk topper. We started walking again. We walked past a crew setting up a stage in the middle of the street. “If you come back in December, 9 nights before Christmas, it’s a party here… and they party for 9 days straight!” We eventually made it to Flow to reunite with our Union Island family, and Susan who graciously made us lunch at her house down the street. We passed the police station, as well as the court and jailhouses. An old, completely unassuming building, right in the middle of town. I wondered if, at night, prisoners can hear the music in the streets.
The traffic was rammed, so we decided to walk. En route, we spot Uncle P and company, in a car sitting in gridlocked traffic. Drea screeches, in excitement, at the sight of them, and they pull into a gas station to stop and talk to us. These are our relatives, through Uncle M, who live in Brooklyn and come back often as his daughter is also married to a Vincentian. They get out of the car and we all embrace. Alicia is very pregnant; she’s due in September, with their second child. This time it’s a girl. We briefly chat, and confirm our beach day, before parting ways.
Uncle M, Anne and Susan linger on the steps before lunch, politicking about what they think the islands should do next, and ways to go about rebuilding. Drea and I stop to take a couple polaroids in front of the church next door. Susan made us small fish, with some sides and salad. We ate around the table in the kitchen, after saying grace. I noticed my Aunt looked pleasantly surprised at me bowing my head in prayer.
SWEET & SOUR…
After lunch, we visited Aunties Marcel and Joanie. Despite the solemn topics of declining health, this was a catch-up turned absolute comedy show. In response to our Aunties long list of conditions, and Drea’s doctorly insights, they joke that she’s like a cat… with more than nine lives. Continuing along with her list; “They took out my appendix, cut off all 5 toes *points to her left foot*, and I’m legally blind” ...a moment of stunned silence sets in across the group... “But I does see money and policemen very well! You don’t trick me!” Joanie successfully delivers her punch line and we all erupt in laughter. When we got back in the car, Drea recalled being her flower girl decades ago — one among twenty-or-so bridesmaids in her grandiose wedding. It sounded like that suited Aunties larger-than-life personality just right.
On our way home, we stopped by Andrew’s, who gave us some samples from his yard of his Turmeric Ginger and “Buddy Me Eye” teas, as well as some gluten-free flour. Drea was excited to find cherry trees there — the ones she remembered as a kid. “These here are different cherries… these are what you call Surinam Cherries” Andrew explains. “Oh, they’re sour!” Drea is already picking them off the tree. “You have to know which ones. So what I do is make juice with them because I’m not so sure which is which, but (*he hands me one) try that and you might be lucky”.
NOTHIN’ BUT A NUMBER…
The next day started in town at the bank. There, I was rerouted to the registry for additional paperwork. I’ll spare you the details but, long-story short, it took an officer I’ve never met before one glance at the last name on my application to be able to tell me where my nearest relative worked in order to help complete my form. Which reminded me of what I once observed to be the mysteriously magical way in which the post-office there operates — when sending a barrel of goods there from abroad, all you have to list is the recipient’s name and neighborhood. I found this intriguing because, to be clear, there wouldn’t be any actual addresses listed on these large shipments of mail; just a name and a community is all it apparently takes for the mailmen to determine where the package is meant to go.
Being in the Caribbean often makes me think about the contrary — the dynamics between island living and life in North America. It’s hard to put into words, but the math says it all. Take the number of people, for example... The population of Union Island is just under 3,000. And if we zoom out to St Vincent, we’re at just over 100,000. So, at most, you’re one of one-hundred-thousand there. Whereas, I live in Los Angeles; population: 3.82 million.
Don’t get me wrong, being a smaller fish in a bigger pond does have its benefits (I mean, it is the American Dream, after all… right?) But as I’m finding things out about myself — both on this trip and with age — perhaps this is just one of those learnings… that, despite my big pond upbringings in Toronto, New York and now LA, maybe I secretly prefer life in smaller ponds? The tighter-knit communities there. The cottage-core dreams of actually knowing your neighbors and local representatives, of tending to your land, and being of the people. Maybe it’s just the vacation talking…
Originally, one of the many justifications for this trip was that we would get to see the plots of land in our parent’s names, with the idea that, we — the next generation — would eventually be its caretakers. While that wasn’t able to happen on this trip, I’ve been thinking a lot about it — caretaking, for places and for people, and what that means; what that can tangibly look like. I’ve gathered that communication, consideration and community are good starting points. The 3 C’s.
BLACK SANDS…
Needless to say, my bank appointment was a tiring but entertaining, all-day affair, yet I got what I needed to do done. When I got back to the resort around 2pm, Drea and I got ready to go right back out to a local beach for a family get together. Alicia and her husband were hosting a BBQ there to celebrate their anniversary.
Near the blankets, was the bonfire they set up, where Uncle P proudly tended to his breadfruits as they charred, and Aunty Rosita cooked cabbage in a pot from home. At the bar, Uncle M put us on to adding Campari floaters to our Hairoun Beers — an excellent duo, and a local favorite.
I took advantage of the occasion and dug the heels of my feet in to get an exfoliant scrub going. My toes played with the edge of the lapsing water and the black sand.
Earlier, I noticed that the beaches at the resort — like the rest on the island — were also naturally made up of black sand. The resort’s, however, existed under a layer of imported white sand. The thought irked me and I couldn’t get the image of the eroded sand from the storm out of my head; exposing the hotel landscaper’s original instructions. Over night, a failed cover-up attempt ensued. And in the mornings, the black sand prevailed… each and every time.
At the end of the beach, we looked around and headed back to our group. We saw only a couple of families there enjoying the sun; stumbling babies in the nude running along the shore, and the older kids splashing around in the water; their playful high-pitched screams and laughter pierced the air. Another day and night. Just like that.
RIGHTEOUS RAGE…
The following day, we made our last round of stops for the trip. If you haven’t yet gathered, there’s a lot of visiting of family members, and conversing on patios. One of the houses sat perched on a mountainous edge of the country. It peered out onto two small islands in the near distance. I stopped and watched them a while. They appeared buried, almost lost, behind many layers of fog. My Aunt noticed me looking — “those are the islands of Baliceaux and Battowia,” she said. Typically chatty, she kept quiet and still for a moment. “It’s where the settlers took the natives to die.”
In the late-18th century, Baliceaux was the scene of a genocide orchestrated by the British colonial authorities on the Garifuna and Garinagu — the aboriginal peoples of St Vincent and the Grenadines. This horrific act called for the gathering up of a vast majority of the native population — a group totaling about 4,500 men, women, and children — and exiled all of them to an island off the coast of St Vincent called Baliceaux; an inhospitable rock devoid of water, vegetation, or arable soil.
Less than a year later, when the British returned, more than half of the people they intentionally left there were, of course, dead. The surviving indigenous “Island Caribs” (the Garifuna), numbering only 102, along with 44 of their slaves, were returned to St Vincent. The surviving “Black Caribs” (the “Garinagu”) were taken off the island in March of 1797 and forcibly “settled” on the Honduran island of Roatan, where many of their descendants still live today.
Once the doorway to the Carib’s eventual deportation; the harrowing history of Baliceaux has made St Vincent and the Grenadines the only place in the Caribbean that has an entire island dedicated to the interment of indigenous peoples. As a consequence, it has become both an important place of memory and a painful reminder of the past.
Vincentian historian Dr Garrey Dennie has described this act as an inexcusable criminal offense that was not just manslaughter; but was done with the pure and unadulterated intention to eradicate the Garifuna people and their heritage.
Today, the country’s prime minister Ralph Gonsalves describes the project of genocide on the Kalinago and Garifuna nation, carried out by the British, a tremendously unfortunate success — because, “by their acts, they removed from this territory an estimated 80% of the Garinagu people”.
So that is the dark story of the island of Baliceaux and what happened to the Garinagu people there. A horrific but nonetheless important piece of education to close things out on a humbling, somber tone. After all, it is a heritage trip so I had to get history in at some point. Yet on the other hand, what is history if not tall tales from maniacal manipulators and savage murderers?
It all feels hypocritical being part Vincentian and part British myself; having the luxury to call it a heritage trip and stay in an all-inclusive resort protected from the elements, while the family home is ravaged to pieces mere miles away. Yet, I don’t know what else to do with it at the moment… other than write it down.
CLOSING TIME…
This stunning country has shown me many things — its historical past, which can be traced back thousands of years; its sacred relics and explosive mountains. It’s shown me how water can transform a rock’s jaggedest of edges, or turn a boulder into sand. Fire into liquid, or lava back into rocks, which form into entire continents.
St Vincent and the Grenadines has shown me its peoples’ love for community and their ability to come together in resistance. This country has shown me pieces of the centuries-worth of work required to rebuild and repair, time and time again. Shown me that good doesn’t always come with haste, and great takes time.
I’ve seen the resiliency of its people, both then and now. Righteous rage. Reparations unpaid. A past we can’t return to. Determination. Patience. And still, the smiles of my people. Bright lights in dark and fiery storms.
I’ve seen glimpses of the past, and also flashes from the future.
I was looking for something unknown, and it showed me back myself.
Beautiful!