No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem, Mon!

That's what the sign says at the Shiggidy Shack, I noticed last night. The stars were out, and I realized that the stars look familiar from my time sailing on the equator. I'll have to start studying my star books again. Everything looks different from home down here.

Food and music are two very important features of any time spent out and about here on St. Kitts. I imagine this is the case most anywhere but it is refreshing to be so easily amused and occupied without the comforts of our American entertainment. Frigate Bay has a beach with a string of 8 or 10 beach bars all snuggled right up next to each other. Of course each one has its own DJ and tries to out blast their neighbor. At Shiggidy Shack, they are at the end of the commotion and often has either Karaoke (in the most classic and wonderful sense) or a One-Man-Band who plays decoupage songs made up of unrecognizable bits and pieces played off his iPod.

On this particular night at Shiggity, we were enjoying our Guiness-enduced bliss when the singer introduced Fire Man: a fire-eating, fire-bathing, fire-breathing man who performs every Thursday for about 10 minutes. He was really good. What was really great about it, though, was the one-man band dude - he played an accompanying Fire song to the tune of Bob Marley's "Could You Be Loved," with fantastic lyrics like, "He loves to eat fire, he bathes in the fire, he even drinks fire! How does he do it? He is the Fire Man!" The performance was great, but I was partial to the accompaniment.

There is one movie theatre on the island. It is in the middle of town, costs 5ec ($2) and the rats really do scurry over your toes when the lights go down. They change the film every week basically alternating between Jackie Chan and Kung Fu. They sometimes advertise that they will have a new film recently released but opening night comes and goes without the film arriving on the cargo ship. So they just show yet another Jackie Chan classic to all the excited kiddies who arrive hoping for The Incredible Hulk. Interestingly, some guy who doesn’t live here but has a bit of money decided to build a 7 screen theatre complex right outside of town. Can you believe it? People aren’t willing to pay 5ec to eat popcorn in a dark room with their sweetheart so I doubt they will be able to fill 7 screens. Construction is about half done but the latest story goes that there will be 6 different bars and one screen showing Kung Fu.

And now for a bit of Hydrogeology! Here in the Caribbean, an island’s adequate supply of drinking water is entirely dependant on having a pointy bit with enough elevation. Here, 3,800 feet gathers more than enough water for the island’s 35,000 people. A quite elaborate (and old) network of pipes, reservoirs, and holding tanks has been keeping up with development, so far. Gravity does a nice job of distribution since everyone lives on the skirt of the mountain near the shore. The bottled water phenomenon has hit here too. Thankfully, all of the water is bottled right here on the island via reverse osmosis, carbon filtration, ultra violet treatment, and ozonization. (not really sure why all 4 methods are necessary) I haven’t actually visited the treatment plant yet but I don’t know if the source is fresh or salt. And, all the hot water in houses comes from solar heaters on the roof if they can afford them, otherwise no hot water. Pretty cool, eh?

So far I have learned much more than the local dialect of English (that should be considered a separate language) and the names of 15 different mangoes. I’ve also learned how to make bush tea, play the guitar, and to use a flyswatter with jungle cat-like reflexes.

Time to wrap this up. Tests are a chronic phenomenon that require constant attention. Send smart vibes my way!

Feel free to clog up my email…I love to hear news of your corner of the world!

Happy Trails!

~laura