Jeanne Genus
Ital Rest
Great Bay
St. Elizabeth

Some Post Hurricane Thoughts

On Tuesday, the day after Dean made its swift departure, my friends Joan and Tiffany were ready to go back to the U.S. You couldn’t blame them. It was impossible to continue the summer camp they came here to teach.
Everything was in a mess. Our little beach was virtually gone, the yard was littered with debris and there wasn’t even any ice!
As there was no means of communicating with the airlines, Tiffany planned to go to the airport to try her luck at getting home to New York. She wanted to treat me to dinner, but we couldn’t reach any place by phone.
So the three of us set out walking to Treasure Beach looking for sustenance. No luck – well, what did we expect less than forty eight hours after a major hurricane?
“Let’s check Fisherman’s” I suggested. Tiffany wasn’t happy. She wanted to go to an “upscale” place – a category in which Fisherman’s Bar and Club does not fall. But she was forced to admit we had absolutely no choice.
My friend ‘Vicas’, proprietor and the ultimate host, beamed as we walked in.

“Vicas!” I announced, “We are very hungry”

“Chicken or fish?,” he inquired.

Hey, we even had a choice! Soft music emanated from a little disc player. We sat at a candle lit table and relaxed over cold drinks – yes, Vicas manages to procure some ice. Altogether it turned out to be a delightful, memorable evening. And it started me thinking - my husband Frankie and I lead a relatively ‘Ital’ life. We have no electricity hear at Ital-Rest. Yes a guest house with no current. Shocking!

We do have cell phones – mandatory in our business and we do have a fridge for ice (a must for guests of course). But other than that, we reject the increasingly “plugged in” life style that most folks embrace wholeheartedly.
As a result, we were inconvenienced less than most people by the loss of current. Here in rural Jamaica, it wasn’t too long ago that most folks didn’t have current and of course, a few people still don’t. So I imagine that it wasn’t too difficult for some to make the adjustment.

A taxi driver friend of mine boasted that he really wasn’t bothered by his new temporary life style. He’d become a vegetarian for the time being. He didn’t care for television that much anyway. The only problem for him was that he couldn’t iron his jeans.
Iron Jeans???

“Well,” he said with a smile, “I like my jeans ironed. So I looked up a tailor who has a tailor iron and he did them up for one hundred dollars each.”

“You should have come to me,” I commented. “I would have done it for free with my little flat iron.”

My friend Lisa who had just returned from Chicago told me that recently a powerful storm had kicked out the current there for three days. People were going crazy. Some were even threatening to sue the government!
How could they possible survive without playing games on their computers or miss even one episode of Young and the Restless??

How did people use to live? Electricity was invented just over one hundred years ago and television just over fifty. Remember when families got together in the evening over kerosene lamps or candles and played games, told or read stories, made music, sang folk songs? Has access to all this technology made us happier? Made life more fulfilling?

As everyone – even President Bush – is now forced to admit global warming is a reality. It is threatening to change the earth as we know it and we can blame this in large part to these machines that we deem as necessities. Warmer oceans spawn increasingly more frequent and more powerful hurricanes, a fact which has been forcefully brought home to us near Treasure Beach.

Doesn’t it behoove us to at least start planning to change our life style jus a little?
Think about it?

Jeanne Genus

Jeanne, thank you so much for your story about Dean. We get lots of details and we're grateful for that but I love to hear your stories, as you provided with Ivan. Take care, sweet Jeanne. I hope to see you when I come there in November.

Janice.

Like most, I dislike a destructive storm. However, I do love it when the power goes out. It's a time to reconnect, have a healthy dinner by candle light, talk, cuddle with our babes, reflect. Then it comes back and so does all of the noise. Everyone is plugged back in.
I guess that is why I long to live in TB, it's serene, it takes us back to the basics of relying on ourselves and our neighbor.
Thank you Jeanne for your brilliant thoughts, it brings me back to what is important in life... as I type on my laptop