jodyrathgeb

It is a truth universally recognized that people who are handy with things generally do better with island living. Those who know how to repair engines, build things and handle household DIY jobs have the skills to cope with the Murphy’s Law that covers life on a rock.

Tom and I, educated for professions of a more sedentary sort, were not those types of people when we built our TCI house. We knew that, so one of our preparations was taking a class in home repairs offered by our local vo-tech school. It gave us a few clues about the skills we would need to develop, such as putting new screen on a frame, fixing a faucet leak and turning off a breaker before approaching a light switch … and deciding to call an electrician.

Over the years we’ve picked up other island skills that were not innate. I can now de-bug, lubricate and file the points on our pump motor. Tom has replaced outdoor light fixtures that rusted away. I can eat a bonefish. Tom built hurricane shutters. We know how to make great gullywash and rum punch.

Other skills are taking longer to acquire. I’m still dangerous with a machete, wishing I could cut open a coconut without drama. And I’m still pretty bad at filleting a fish, having grown up a landlubber.

We are good, though, with that most vital of island skills: improvisation. In a place where buying the right tool for the job usually means getting on a boat, then renting a car, being able to find another way to do things saves time and money. No spline tool for the screen? A screwdriver, used carefully, works just fine. Duct tape is a wonder (does anyone use it for ducts?), and you don’t have to fish (another skill) to find fishing line useful (great for hanging pictures!).

The same is true in the kitchen. If you’re a cook who insists on having all the proper ingredients for a recipe, you’ll have to be wealthy or willing to “pack it in.” Island cooking is a matter of making do with what’s available in the local stores, with your skill at improvisation and “from scratch” making the difference. Yes, you can make your own salad dressing and sausage! Nachos do not require bottled salsa or packaged tortillas. And yes, limes work in place of lemons in many dishes.

(It helps that if in addition to your improvisational cooking, you have “improvisational” taste buds, willing to try something new. But that’s another blog.)

Even though Tom and I lack some of the hard island skills, we’ve been saved by improvisations. Some day, I’ll be able to whack open a coconut in four motions. Until then, my hammer and screwdriver, plus some effort, will get me started on my gullywash.
 

Because I am only a visitor in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and not a “belonger” or permanent resident, I am not eligible to vote there. I have, however, contributed many dollars to its government through customs duties and other fees, the costs associated with building a house there, and my continued support of local businesses for goods and services. I even organized a fund-raiser for one of the North Caicos schools. So I think it’s appropriate for me to also add my two cents politically.
The issue: Salt Cay. The tiny island, smallest of the inhabited TCI islands and home to little more than 40 full-time residents, is still in a bad way after hurricanes Irma and Maria. The seawall at its harbor on the north side was damaged, and continuing sea surges are filling it in with so much sand that it’s becoming almost impossible for the ferry from Grand Turk to get in with supplies. These are vital supplies: food and water. Nothing comes in any other way; the cay doesn’t have good soil for growing food, and the only way to get water is from the sky. The government cisterns were also fouled during the storms.
For the full story on this disaster, look at this article in Caribbean News Now: http://wp.caribbeannewsnow.com/2018/03/12/smallest-inhabited-island-in-the-turks-and-caicos-threatened-by-vanishing-harbour/
The gist of the story is that nothing has been done about the problems since the hurricanes. In December (two months after the hurricanes), the TCI government held a meeting to ask residents what their primary problem was. The unanimous reply was, “fix the seawall.” By this past week (in March), nothing has been done, and the Caribbean News Now article noted, “A source said the government of the TCI wants to spend $700,000 to do a study to see what is needed instead of spending a fraction of that cost to repair the sea wall now.”
I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. I’m spending my political two cents on three words: Do it now.
Government of the TCI, make this a priority. I know there are lots of places that still need post-hurricane help, but this one involves people’s lives. Make this a priority. For a while, forget cutting deals with foreign developers to increase tourism, commissioning studies, honoring successful business people and ferrying yourselves around the islands for meetings that go nowhere … help your own people!
I’ve watched too many people take on government jobs and run for office not to provide service to others but to aggrandize themselves (in my country, too!). It’s time to remember the “service” part of government service. You are there to help others. People vote for you because they believe you will help to make their lives better. So go and do it. Please.
Blog readers, share this with those who can solve the problem, and with those who have the political power to make those people solve the problem. Get it done.
 

A while back, Richmond, Va., had some fun with its self-image in a number of “You’re Very Richmond…” contests. The idea was to gently skewer the local scene with funny stereotypes.
Examples:
You’re Very Richmond if … you ride your bike to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.
…you know how to pronounce Powhite and spell Quiocassin.
…the American Civil War is STILL “the late unpleasantness.”
Well, I think North Caicos can do better. Let’s play! Some of these could refer to multiple islands, but others are specific. Sooooo…
You’re Very North Caicos if…

• Few people know your real name but everyone knows your nickname (right, Speed? Whoop? Poacher?).
  
• There’s a piece of tape over the “check engine” light in your car.
• You’ve fainted at a funeral, or helped to carry out a fainter.
• You know where to find a domino game at any time of the day.
• A good party always involves a bag of green corn and an open fire.
• You used to work at the Prospect.
  
• You refer to local politicians by first names or nicknames (Washy, Gilley, Mike, Ralph, Rufus), but you refer to the governor only as “the governor,” because they change, you know.
• A FLOW phone dings on Thursday, and you yell, “Fish Fry!”
• You know where to get a beer for $3 or less.
• You have two or more jobs or businesses.
• “Shopping” is a day on East Bay Cay.
• You still comment that a slowpoke “drives like Johnny Missick.”
• Grocery trips require stops at five stores, and you refer to them by their owners rather than the store names.
• You have at least one relative who is the pastor of a church.
• You think a trip to Provo is a trial, not a treat.
• You’ve stood on a roof to get a cellphone signal.
• You lost money at TCI Bank.
• A meal isn’t a meal unless there’s rice and peas.

Readers, you can keep this going. Comment if you have a good one.
 
 

Clifford Gardiner dances with me at the Barracuda Beach Bar at Pelican Beach Hotel.
         When you’re standing completely alone on a white beach, looking out across crystalline blue water, a reef line and the horizon, it’s easy to think that nothing ever changes on North Caicos. But that’s not true. In my 28 years of association with the island, I have seen plenty of changes, good, bad and neutral:
        In infrastructure, roads that were once pockmarked paths have been paved. The once-busy airport is now nearly void of traffic, while boats come and go from an improved Bellfield Landing and a marina at Sandy Point, which used to be just a sandy point. The once-a-week ferry to Middle has been replaced by a causeway that carries cars fueled at gas stations (instead of siphoned from a bucket drawn from a neighbor’s tank).
        Communications have changed. Once, there were just a few telephones, but two post offices to handle the Royal Mail. Now there are mobile phones, the Internet, email and no post offices. Television, once rare and pirated from the U.S., is legal and everywhere.
         Plans for resorts to rival those on Provo have come and gone. St. Charles on Horsestable Beach opened, took a hurricane hit and never re-opened. The towering hulks of Royal Reef have been useful only as a way for survivors of Hurricane Irma to get a phone signal. An older and more modest resort, The Prospect of Whitby is quickly succumbing to nature.
        There are more places to have a meal out, more places to rent a car, more grocery shops, more apartments to rent. There are fewer banks (once one, now none), fewer people who know who to turn fanner grass into baskets (and less fanner grass), and fewer gatherings to eat “green corn.” Fewer people fish or grow food for a living.
     And now, Pelican Beach Hotel is for sale.                     
      That change is difficult for me. It was my introduction to life on North Caicos, and it has been my bellwether for what I saw as the island’s superiority to other overdeveloped places.
       The brainchild of North Caicos dreamer and personality Clifford Gardiner, PBH was also a symbol of island self-determination. As the islands’ first native pilot (another dream achieved), Clifford flew all over the Caribbean, seeing small hotels elsewhere and thinking, “Why not here?” He built the place in 1984, creating a “boutique hotel” before there was such a concept.
            PBH was where Tom and I first met North Caicos, and where we stayed for a decade until we finished our house nearby. It was small, local and friendly, and Susan Gardiner has always been a better source of info than any Google search could be. That hotel and those people are the reason Tom and I are a part of North Caicos today.
         And now it’s for sale. $3.5 million. Such a bargain! I have at least 3.5 million memories there.
          I fear this change. I am afraid that some developer with only a passing knowledge of North Caicos will buy it, bulldoze everything and replace it with another high-rise moneymaker with foreign employees and a vaguely Italian or Indonesian style.
         If I could buy the hotel to prevent that fate, I would. Instead, I offer only this plea to a potential buyer: Think first. Think about what makes North Caicos different and special. Think about sustainable development. Think about island history. Think about creating 3.5 million memories that cannot be created anywhere else.