Minnesota & St. Thomas: Comparative Observations in Home and Place, Part 3: Diversity

Growing up in the Midwest, I was pretty much constantly surrounded by middle-class white people. Sure, my niece is of mixed race… and one of my good high school friends is Korean. The token over-achieving, highly intelligent black kid in school hung with our group of friends occasionally. But really, the dominate culture was white—ranging from the trashy to that of the country club variety, but basically very very white. Except, you know, everyone listened to rap and hip hop. Most of the black people from my hometown lived in the segregated river bottoms known officially as Pleasant Valley but lovingly referred to by all as The Flats. White kids from the North side of town were generally scared to enter The Flats, especially at night. It was the stuff of double-dares, lost bets, juvenile delinquency, scandal, and rebellion.

My small, private Lutheran college in NE Iowa had intense Norwegian roots, and was thus, also an overwhelmingly white community. But thankfully, much more progressive than the town of my youth. There were a handful of African Americans, but racial minorities were mostly a mix of International students. They had a small but solid population on campus, which consisted of specific cafeteria tables, the far corner of the dance bar, and certain sections in the library. I got to know this crowd more personally when I dated a guy from India. I found the encounter with other cultures immensely stimulating, which I’d like to think was part of my attraction to this particular person in the first place.

At my post-college job in Minnesota, all but maybe 5 of the 50 employees were white. And while I truly cared for the majority of my coworkers, I also found them incredibly boring. Little surprised me about their white, working-man lifestyles. But it's no shock that this mash potato culture felt too familiar and stale; I’d been steeped in it my whole life.

In St. Thomas, for the first time, I am a racial minority. And you know what? Not only does it not bother me in the least, but I rather enjoy the change. This became very clear during my Minnesota visit. It became so clear, in fact, that I used it as part of my stock sound bite when people asked what I enjoy about living on the island. The varying reactions to this comment offered great amusement.

In some ways, St Thomas is like a microcosm of the American melting pot myth, but instead of stretching across thousands of square miles of terrain, we’re all smashed together on an island that takes up less space than a small American city. My brother (the first of our clan to live in the VI) has compared St. Thomas to Manhattan, which is perhaps, a more accurate analogy than to the whole of the United States. Either way, we are an absolute mish-mash of cultures here; and it’s hard to avoid each other when you live on a speck.

I enjoy the island’s diversity most when working in the coffee shop downtown. The multitude of accents is a lingual symphony for my ears. My regular customers are local West Indians, some local Frenchies, a lot of Eastern Indians who own and work in jewelry stores, Arabs who own myriad businesses, scads of American transplants from all over the states, some Europeans, tons of people from the Dominican Republic (locally known as “Santos”), Puerto Ricans, Caribbean people from down island, a few from Africa... And this doesn’t even cover my daily encounters with tourists who flock to St. Thomas from all over the world.

Because of this multi-cultural interaction, I know that English people refer to potato chips as “crisps.” Continentals rarely tip because it's not part of the service industry in Europe. “Sorbeto” means “straw” in Spanish. Caribbean people from down island refer to all hot drinks as “tea,” so if they order “chocolate tea,” what they most likely want is hot chocolate.

“Shukron,” means, “thank you,” in Arabic, and we miss our loyal next door customers during Ramadan. They return to the coffee shop after a month looking both slim and cleansed.

Puerto Ricans prefer warm milk in their coffee, so it’s best to ask if they want leché calienté when they order to avoid them bringing you their tiny cups to tell you that it’s frio. (They tend to buy 8oz cups and fill them with equal parts coffee and milk. Since our milk is chilled, this significantly reduces the temperature of their café con lechés.)

Sure, these are all mere tiny (yet helpful) cultural tidbits, but from them I take true delight.

You know something else I just realized about all these cultures living together in St. Thomas? It’s really peaceful for the most part. Yeah, I hear complaints from various residents about ethnic groups other than their own— mostly stemming from frustration, ignorance, and stereotypes. Nothing new there. But the high percentage of violent crime in the Virgin Islands is rarely cross-cultural. Most violence is either domestic in nature, or drug-related and between young men who from h’eh. Okay, so it’s a faint silver lining, but it's visible if you focus hard and squint.

As someone who is curious about diverse cultures and people, living in a place where I frequently engage with a mix of ethnicities is invigorating. What's better is that we can usually talk about (and even laugh at) our differences matter-of-factly without worrying about coming across as racist. I have no problem being identified as the "white girl" at the coffee shop because...well, it's true. People here are often described by their ethnicity or skin color, not because it's the only thing people notice about one another, but rather it's an easy and accurate way to physically describe someone. So why try to vaguely describe a tall, mustached fellow without describing his skin tone as light or dark or white or explain that he's Indian? To people who aren't comfortable talking about race, this can seem rude or distatesful. But my experience here is more that it's simply useful. People have different skin tones. No need to be blind to it. We jus made dat way, ya know.

Obviously, I’m not ready to go back to Whiteville yet…maybe not ever. (Which is not to say that I’m planning to settle here either.) If and when I do return to the states, I won’t be able to live in the suburbs or a small town. For true. While there is diversity in Minneapolis, it’s far more segregated, due in large part to all the available space, which allows for highway chasms to separate neighborhoods.

When my brother spent VI slow season working in Minneapolis, he often bitched about the lack of human color in our midst. He quickly grew weary of white people. Now I finally get it.

Minnesota & St. Thomas: Comparative Observations in Home and Place, Part 2: Landscape

Minnesota is a flat, landlocked mass covered in water-filled holes.

Space… p e r v a d e s .

Roads are luxuriously wide. And usually designed in a square, grid-inspired system. Yards are expansive, with beautifully manicured grass of the most verdant green. In the suburbs and towns, and even to a large degree the city, properties remain comfortably spaced with no less than a modest yard. Homes and businesses are smartly kept and neutrally painted. Neighborhoods are mostly homogenous and identical to suburban developments across America.

Vast amounts of real estate are employed as parking lots. Parking lots that allow for the widest berth instead of creativity in cramped driving. Untended vegetation consists of small woody areas or fields of prairie grass, all growing at a decorous pace. In the rural Midwest, your eyes pass over acres upon acres of agricultural land running to the horizon and beyond.

And litter, well, it seems practically to not exist.

Conversely:

St. Thomas is a lush, rugged speck in the ocean.

Space=preciouscommodity!

Roads are barely wide enough for two vehicles. There is no logic to their design, at least not one that is apparent to me. They seem to be built simply where they're necessary and possible, considering the mountainous topography. Rather than a grid, the St. Thomas road structure is more like the random scribbles of a young toddler on the world’s bumpiest Etch-A-Sketch.

Yards are generally small, and if someone has real grass, it’s assumed they’re rich in either time or money, if not both. Landscaped homes display vibrant, lush flowers, as well-tended as is possible with the fast and wild manner in which tropical flora grow. Every few months, crews of four or five hit the roads to cut back the bush with machetes.

Houses in St. Thomas seem to be built on top of one another up the mountainside. And they have character. You can easily get away with painting your house fuchsia or teal.



This is a poor photo and not the ritziest neighborhood. But you get the idea.
I love love love the fuscia house!



If you tried this in Minnesota, you’d be given the cold shoulder by your neighbors and would be the talk of many neighborhood bridge games and basement church dinners.

A St. Thomian will claim to have a farm if what they actually possess is a garden in their large, fenced-in backyard.

And the litter. The litter exists in heartbreakingly high numbers, especially in densely-populated areas and on the beach. Yes, we have some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and frequently the people who enjoy them don’t find it necessary to collect their trash upon leaving. And since we don’t have curbside garbage collection here, dumpsters scattered across the island frequently overflow with rubbish. This functions as an excellent scavenging ground for wild chickens, dogs, and cats. As well as a starting point for the litter that will almost certainly find its way down the mountain to the sea and out into one of the swirling vortexes of garbage that humankind has created in each of our oceans.

Besides being relatively litterless in comparison, the Midwest is certainly beautiful in its own way, especially the bluff and hill saturated regions of SE Minnesota and NE Iowa, where the wedding events occurred. But damn, the island takes my breath away almost every day. The colorful and dramatic landscapes are beyond compare—a constant reminder of the Universe’s capacity for creating glorious scenes in nature. I have always been fond of the more exotic types of beauty, so it’s not surprising that I prefer the vivacity of a tropical island to, say, the serenity of a lake in the woods.

I never appreciated the tidy, ample space of the Midwest because I had never lived without it. I remember being aware of the free availability of space in the heartland when I visited NYC as a teenager. The hotel’s hallways and rooms were almost inconceivably narrow and small. And when I spent time in the urban residential neighborhoods of Chicago, it also became clear how much space is, well, just that…empty space. But what a difference the presence of empty space can invoke! 

I guess mostly, the presence of space gives a greater sense of, well...comfort and autonomy. Room to stretch out and not be bothered by others.

Now, one would think that the available of empty space would make one feel less constricted and more expansive. But, you know what? In the case of Iowa and Minnesota, this isn’t so.  I would argue that most people who live in St. Thomas feel far less constricted than they would in the states, especially the Midwest. It’s why so many people move here in the first place. Plus, I think having ample space just makes it easier to enclave yourself with others like you. There is less of a need to interact with people who are different from you and your kin. So while there was far more open space surrounding me in the heartland, my mind and soul are far more open here. On this tiny speck between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, I am, somehow, freer. I’m still trying to figure out why St. Thomas has this affect on people, but I am convinced that the landscape is a major contributor.




Another seascape. Sunday morning in St. John. Nature's church.





Island Animal Watch: Fire Ants

So the other day, Hershey and I were nearing the end of our routine walk up and down St. Peter Mountain Rd when I received a special tropical treat. It's a treacherous route with ample blind curves and only the slightest suggestion of a pedestrian walkway, but it's home so we make due. We were almost finished when I felt a tiny, hot, piercing sensation between my shoulder blades. Then I felt one further down my back. Then on my neck, my shoulder, and my left tit. I came dangerously close to breaking into the A.C. Slater ants-down-back-in-study-hall dance out of true purpose. (If anyone needs a reminder, check out this link at a minute, thirty. Thanks Kate for figuring out the episode! You're my bestie for a reason.)

After returning to my apartment,  I discovered a miniscule fire ant crawling up my arm. And it wasn't the only one. It took just a few minutes to remove the little shitters, but they left itchy red welts that lasted for days. I couldn't figure out how they landed on me until our walk the following morning. I must have accidentally brushed against one of the vines hanging from the bush on the side of the road. Upon inspection, I saw the same dusty red ants crawling to and fro between the leaves. I wonder if they sting the vine, and if so, does it mind?

I've always loved these vines; they're so very rainforest romantic.
But now I know to admire from afar.

Where da pot 'a gold?

Okay, so I know this is sort of cheesy, but look what I just spied outside my window.

Ya see two a dem?

Saturday Sunset View from the Porch

Evidence of a Higher Power

Day Sail to the British Virgin Islands

Hey ya'll.

Oops, my Britney impression accidentally popped out again.

But I guess these days it would sound more like:

It's Ashley, bitch.

And with that, let's begin this pictoral journey.

A month or so ago (yes, my story-telling is on island time), we chartered what I think would be considered a small yacht and sailed to Jost Van Dyke for the day. Jost (pronounced y-oast, rhymes with toast) Van Dyke is a little island in the BVI, past St. John. I think it cost about $70 per person, plus $10 or $15 to get into the BVI. For this you get the boat's captain to take you there and deal with all of the passport stuff. Plus, there are some light snacks and a cozy, comfortable interior in case, for some reason, you don't want to sit on deck in the sun.

Port of Entry

We received stamps on our passports along with an official certificate declaring us welcome in the British Virgin Islands for the rest of the day. After attending to this official business (which required no actual attending on our part other than remembering to bring our passports and sipping Presidente's on board while the Captain cleared us), we took a short trip to White Bay, the next inlet West and home of the famed Soggy Dollar Bar.

Yes, we sunblocked the tops of their heads.

The water in the above picture is not digitally enhanced, nor is it chemically treated. This is true blue Caribbean ocean water.  I fantasized about water like this as a child in my bathtub and at the local swimming pool. This water makes you feel as if you absolutely must jump in and become engulfed in its translucent, warm beauty. This is why, believe it or not, it wasn't even hard to convince me, the fish phobe, to jump off the boat and into the sea.

Which is a good thing.

Because the reason it's called The Soggy Dollar Bar, is the lack of any docks at this beach, so if you want to go to shore, you have to swim. So a lot of the cash transactions at the beach bars include wet money.

Some Soggy Dollar Bar Items of Note:

A whimsically painted sign above the toilet that delightfully rhymes:

 "In this land of sun and fun, we don't flush for number one."

Seagrape trees.  I found myself frequently staring at their rich red bark.

A kitty who loves people. It's a good thing, since she's constantly surrounded by beaching tipsy tourists. She allowed me to pick her up without a yeowly fuss, so I brought her to join us at the table.

"Would you Memorex the moment already? I'm bored."

Someone also felt it necessary to turn the camera on me. Thank you Universe for the crop feature.This is what I look like these days. I haven't turned into a salty old sea hag quite yet.

Ain't my armpit a beaut?

Not a bad jaunt for a regular old Saturday. Many islanders travel from one rock to another for entertainment and variety. Each island has it's own personality and all have gorgeous beaches. Why not island hop?

And, of course, no marine outing would be complete without a homeward sunset shot.

Hasty Update for Those Who Care

Good Night!

I know. You're thinking, "Why would she start a post with that phrase?" It's a West Indian thing. If you want to start off a relationship well with a local, you had better remember to say Good Morning, Good Afternoon, and Good Night, respectively, when greeting them. And Good Night is said upon approach rather than departure. It takes awhile to get used to. I'm not completely there yet.

It's been a week since I posted, mainly because I've been spending most of my time at my apartment with Mom where you have to walk down our steep driveway and sit at a particular spot on the wall that bisects our little road in order to get AT&T Internet and phone service.

As you may imagine, the wall is not a gentle seat for butts to rest upon.

I wish we had those little bleacher cushions.

Since I'm talking about it and even posted a picture, I might as well tell you the wall's history. At one time this was a singular roadway. But then some new people moved into the neighborhood and started to build houses. Apparently, their heavy construction equipment was ruining the road, which had been built and paid for by the current tenants. A disagreement ensued, and it was taken up with the local courts. The judge ruled that a wall be built down the middle of the road. The new neighbors were to use one side, and the old neighbors the other. And that is the history of our communication bench. Mom spends much time on this wall talking to her man in Oklahoma.

Speaking of Mom, she is currently en route to the leaveless land of Minnesota, where she will be treated for her little spot of breast cancer at Mayo. We have no clue how long she'll be there and what sort of treatment she will endure. We will know more by the end of the week. Neither of us have started worrying about it yet. Hopefully we will refrain altogether, as it will not do her any good. So, if you care about Pam, please send positive, healthy vibes her way instead of nervous, negative ones.

She just texted me from the plane and said she's already missing St. Thomas. Who can blame her with a view like this from our porch?

This picture doesn't do the water justice. Too many clouds.

Still, it's no view to scoff at.

And flowers like this growing in our yard?

Aren't those white mini-flowers delightful?

That's about it for news. My new job as a barista is going well. I am meeting a lot of people, and having a purpose with a paycheck helps my outlook and pocketbook significantly. Learning to do things like make croissant sandwhiches, run a register, and mop properly has a way to bust down my ego, which I think is a good thing. And they are all low-stress tasks. I'm definitely enjoying that part of working while it lasts.

I should hopefully post more often during the next couple weeks because I'll be spending more time at the boyf's where I can connect to the Internet without straddling a concrete wall.

Good Night!

PS. For some reason starting and ending this post with Good Night reminds me of Spanish sentence punctuation. Yeah, I know. You want some of what I'm smoking.