Listening to the Island

I am currently packing to leave in a few days. As always, its bitter sweet- I’m just growing accustomed to being here, just feeling comfortable, feeling part of my own little social circle and community. There is still so much I haven’t told you about the island! What is the most disappointing about trying to relate life here is that all I have is words, typed, not even scrawled in my loopy half-cursive penmanship. Sometimes I can post a picture or two, but usually I lack photographs of those things that I really saw, that are in my mind. But here on St. John, like everywhere, there is a soundtrack to life. For instance, when I’m sitting at the Tap Room, especially on a Friday Reggae Night, when instead of closing at 9 the place comes alive at 9, and Lang, Cheech and Austin DJ, mixing it up between old, worn vinyl albums that have been painstakingly collected and the mp3s ripped from the internet onto a state of the art computer system, I know I’m going to hear “Cherry-O”, a truly old-school reggae song that I adore. Everything about the Tap Room is rolled into that song for me- Friday nights, getting a lecture on reggae music from Cheech, eventually helping to close the bar down as the conversation deteriorates into the history and politics of the island. Saturday night, Beer Pong night, where the song is always absent, and instead we hear Top 40 from the early 90s, and it always feels eerily like a middle school dance. Sunday nights Cherry-O is back on the play list, and I hear it when I was the only person in the bar, my laptop and papers spread across the back corner table, Meaghan feeding me handmade root beers and a pale ale or two while I write frantically, trying to finish a chapter for an edited volume that I had too much hubris to decline, Tim and Kevin being kind enough to distract me by wandering over to talk to me now and then. Sometimes Jess joins me with her computer, and John calls us dorks from the bar, where he is watching the game (really any game that happens to be on).

Reggae is a part of the island now in a way that it hasn’t been in the past- people like Austin, Lang and Cheech are actively trying to create a “scene” on St. John. It definitely represents a different political mindset for the younger generation of St. Johnians, people in their mid-20s to early-30s who are starting to take part in the economic, cultural and political institutions of the island and don’t like the direction its been heading over the past decade. But Reggae isn’t the only sound on the island; nor is it the only musical politicking that is occurring. The island is rapidly becoming Spanish, and, as in many other places, it is creating tensions and new communities that have to be engaged. In recent weeks my neighborhood has required moniker “Little Santo Domingo”, or just the “Barrio”. This neighborhood has been Dominican for a long time, a little ripped up road that floods in big storms where concrete “shacks” have quickly sprung up. I live at the end of the road, up the infamously steep driveway, and throughout the day and long into the night the conversations of everyday life floats up the hill, and underneath it are catchy, sometimes peppy songs, the chatter and lyrics always in Spanish. In another nearby neighborhood little shops and hang outs have sprung up in just the last month or so in cargo containers, and on Friday and Saturday nights the competing music is so loud that you can hear it down into Cruz Bay, where it is only drown out by the two competing Dominican bars, one of which sprung up just a couple weeks ago across the street from what was originally “the (only) Dominican hangout”, Caps.

Many of these Dominican residents are illegals. St. John has long had a problem with illegal immigrants using the island as entree into the US mainland, but it has picked up since I have been coming here. The Park recently recovered a large, but rickety, boat on Brown Bay, the Merci Jesus that is estimated to have brought as many as 30 people to the island. On survey I often find the discarded clothes and shoes of people who jumped ship and changed after swimming to shore. Sometimes we find the people themselves, trying to make their way to St. Thomas. My neighbors, always pleasant in passing, cooled to me for a while when a couple of months ago one of the Rangers drove me home in the big SUV with the blue lights on top. I think he was nearly as uncomfortable being there (my neighborhood is out of Park jurisdiction) as my neighbors were with having him there, turning down their radios and going inside until the federal vehicle had left. If he, or the other Rangers, find them on Park property they undergo documentation and complicated ICE processes that fall outside my realm of knowledge as a Park Archaeologist.

Its not just the music or the sounds of people that are part of this soundtrack. This island is never silent- the crows and clucks of chickens punctuate everything, every couple of weeks accompanied by the peep of day old chicks scurrying after their mothers, looking for food. Dale and I decided they were the island equivalent of pigeons, eating everything people discard. As you walk on a trail or near brush, you hear constant scurrying, which are the lizards and the soldier crabs- sometimes the latter clank against rocks as they fold up into their scavenged periwinkle shells and roll down the hill. The louder crashes are iguanas, terrified of people, rushing to get away as quickly as possible, sometimes scrambling awkwardly up a tree. If they are already in a tree and you freak them out, then they crash the other way- towards the ground where you’re standing. You never hear the bush cats running through the brush, but you hear them fight or mate, or sometimes feed. Several evenings ago I was coming home at dusk and turned up my driveway only to come face to face with 9 bush cats who silently watched me as I walked by. Since the beginning of August, and the incessant rain that comes with the height of hurricane season, the frogs have gone crazy. After the sun goes down the tree frogs and coquie, invasives from Puerto Rico, are deafening, drowning out the Dominican’s songs and my neighbors conversations. Even drowning out the TV. The other sound that comes with hurricane season is the sound of rain on the broad leaves of the banana trees outside my window, a little “pop” sound that gets amplified 100-fold as the heavens open up and give us the water that is supposed to last in our cisterns through the coming dry months.

Last evening Susanna, Kaete, Carey, Jess and I started at Happy Fish, then met a bunch of the Rangers and Kevin and Tim at the Tap Room, where we made Drew the bartender put on the presidential debate (what’s geekier than a group of NPS employees? Apparently nothing). One by one my friends straggled home and Jess and I ended up at Larry’s Landing, as we so often do, John tending bar. I like Larry’s; I usually don’t have any friends there, other than Jess, so I get to sit back and observe, hear stories, blend into the crowd without having to interact with anyone too much. And that’s where I realized how much I would miss the sounds of St. John as much as the sites and the people, the feel of the sand and salt water and sun. Cruz Bay was busy last night, busier than it has been in weeks as people are arriving back home, anticipating the end of slow season. Larry’s was literally the only game in town last night; Tap Room closed at 10 when we left, and every other bar in town is closed for cleaning and/or maintenance until the tourists come back. Some baseball game was on the 3 television screens, shots were being purchased, stories were being told. The guy next to me, Matt, was slowly pouring the beer his friend, Patrick, had bought him into a plastic cup that he had hidden behind a napkin dispenser. The IPod finished playing a “mainstream” reggae tune, replacing it with a Radiohead song. As the song started Matt was at the corner of the U-shaped bar with his girlfriend Emily; Elton had taken up Matt’s seat next to me, completely solitary in his beer. I sat at the top of the U with Jess, who was talking to Patrick, laughing at some blond girl we didn’t know telling a couple of West Indians across the bar who we did know, including Patrick the bouncer, to go back to Puerto Rico. The song was a bit slow, a bit somber, as a lot of Radiohead is. And for some reason, as the song progressed, more and more people were singing, so that by the end of it, even the blond had stopped screaming racial epithets long enough to join in on the chorus. But like so much on St. John, what in other circumstances would have caused a brief moment of communitas in this circumstance didn’t; there was no sentimentality in the singing, no bonding. Everyone seemed lost in the song completely on their own, or with their immediate companion. Those not singing in the bar didn’t seem to be affected one way or the other. People just sang, or they didn’t, which in the end seems to be the general fabric of the island. When the song ended, John switched off the IPod and announced last call. And then the bar was silent.

Getting Around

Earlier this week I was working late and found myself in Coral Bay around dusk with the NPS truck. For those unfamiliar with St. John geography, Coral and Cruz Bays are approximately 7 miles apart as the crow flies, 8 miles with the added twists and turns of Centerline Road, a good half-hour to forty minutes by car. The maximum speed limit on the island is twenty miles an hour, and its hard to push it too far past that. There are switchbacks on hills that I have driven down that are so steep that you can't see the road through the windshield, and you just have to trust that you're still on the "paved" surface, and curves (such as the one on the way to "Miss Lucys") that are so sharp they become single-lane for just a moment.

This was the typical drive home that I was facing as I stopped at the intersection in Coral Bay to turn onto Centerline. A man was standing by the stop sign, and approached the truck as I pulled up. "Cruz Bay?" He asked. My heart sank. "Hon, I'm sorry, I can't" I answered him. He glanced at my door, saw the park insignia, and smiled, waving me off. "National Park. That's ok." "I'm so sorry. I really am." I said as I pulled away. If I had been anyone else, or in any other vehicle, the exchange would have vastly different. I felt awful as I drove off, the only person is a large vehicle in a place where gas costs $5 a gallon. It felt anti-karmic, like there would be a small mark on my record that shows I had not acted neighborly to my fellow man. Most everyone at the Park feels bad about not being allowed to pick up hitchhikers- I personally think its slightly hypocritical as the Park has told me, and other interns, to hitch in order to get parts of my job done, but that's another blog entry.

Hitchhiking is a way that people get around here, our version of mass-transportation, which, ironically, is more reliable and convenient than the bus that drives back and forth down Centerline. Everyone has their own personal rules about who they will pick up and when, or who they will ride with and when. I have been picked up people who claim they haven't picked up a hitchhiker in 20 years. More often, its someone who you "know", that friend of a friend you met at the bar over the weekend, or who you worked a project with at some point, who pull over if your walking in the direction they are going.

My rules include walking. To many people here that's key. On St. John, you walk, holding your hand out and pointing your finger casually as a car passes by. It shows that you're self-sufficient. And if they don't stop, you're just that much closer to your destination. You can tell when someone is new to the island; they stand in the shade waving people down. They're usually considered lazy continentals that we just don't have time to stop for.

When people do have personal vehicles, they are usually "island cars"- rusted, dented, jerry-rigged survivors, small suzukis and old jeeps that are turned on by paper-clips when keys have been lost, and sometimes have things like wooden benches built on the back. These are cars that are always four wheel drive, and can be taken down the dirt and gravel roads, or steep driveways, that still comprise most of the roadways on the island. Somehow these vehicles keep on keepin' on, probably just from the sheer will of their owner.

Some people claim the most efficient way to get from place to place on island is via boat, but it seems that there are even fewer boats than cars. When going off island there are ferrys, both for cars and for people. The car ferry requires that you in fact have a car, so I have to tag along with friends, usually John and Jess, if they are heading to St. Thomas for supplies. When you have a car ferry trip available, you generally buy the 6-month supply of toilet paper from Cost-u-Less. Last week three of our four car barges were down, and I'm still not clear on whether they were broken or if gas prices drove them to close for a few days; around here it was probably a combination of the two.

If you take the people ferry, say to St. Thomas, you have to rely on taxis. No one from St. John hitchhikes on "St. Trauma". There are several different kinds- the safari's, which are also called dollar taxis (they are only suppossed to cost a dollar anywhere, but I have paid two before). These are similiar to the taxis on St. John- pickup trucks that have been modified to have benches where the bed of the truck would usually be. They are open air, no seat belts. Somehow, even with 10 people in the back, the driver remembers where you said you needed to go. Safaris are easily confused with gypsy taxis- people who do not have a taxi medallion but who will stop and pick you up as if they did. These are generally not recommended. However, if you are going somewhere that a safari doesn't you might be able to negotiate a good price with a gypsy taxi. How and when you'll get there can be another story. The taxis most tourists take are the airport taxis- 15 passenger vans that have a stranglehold on St. Thomas transportation and are ridiculously expensive. I only take them when I have to get to and from the airport as safaris don't go there. They are notorious for price-gouging, but are airconditioned, which is always a plus.

You can take the ferry farther than just St. Thomas- there are also daily ferrys to Tortola and other parts of the BVI. I spent 90 minutes on the "vomit comet" to St. Croix a few months back. Vibe and I spent much of the trip out on the deck; by the time we arrived at Christianstead our arms and clothes were covered in salt from the spray of the boat. We looked "candied". Sea planes are common, but expensive. Some are quite old- models of aircraft that our grandparents would be familiar with, hopping between islands. A few weeks ago I flew Cape Air between San Juan and Charlotte Amalie- it was an 8 passenger Cessna, with a 9th passenger in the co-pilots seat. Our saftey talk was presented by the Captain, a guy named Mike who was about my age, who just turned around in his seat to tell us what to expect. I was able to watch how a plane is flown, see the panel of instruments. It was an amazing trip- we were closer to the ground than in larger commercial aircraft, so I was able to see some of the smaller islands between Puerto Rico and St. Thomas, such as Mona, that are usually obscured by clouds and distance.

Usually, though, I walk everywhere. I know that I can fit about $60 worth of grocerys in my backpack, and a gallon of water in each hand for the walk home. There are trails all over island, both official and unofficial, that you can follow to just about anywhere as long as you have your water bottle, sunblock and bugspray. Shoes are optional.