My travels from the week of 2.28.11...
“When America sneezes, we catch a cold. Well America has the cold, so we have pneumonia.”
This is what a small hardware store owner said to me as we talked about the capital (or lack thereof) that he and all other small business owners have on the island of Montserrat. I traveled to Montserrat for my first time and also for Milwaukee Tool’s first time ever, and because of the size of the tiny island and its down economy, I probably won’t ever be back—there’s just no biz opportunity. The country was devastated by a volcano over 10 years ago and just can’t seem to recover. Economies worldwide are suffering, but this story hit me as one usually does when you are there, hearing from someone first-hand how they have gone through hardships. This story comes mostly from my taxi driver, Reuben, an older man born and raised on Montserrat who drives taxi and cooks for a living. He is famous on the island for his goat water, which is the island’s national dish, a soup with wild goat meat in it! Unfortunately he only makes it on Fridays, so being there on a Tuesday, I didn’t get to try it. Anyway, as I’ve mentioned before, taxi drivers are the best resource for me when I travel to islands my company has no prior research on. I asked him to take me to the hardware stores that sell power tools on the island. Well, being an island of 5000 people where half of it is uninhabitable from volcanic devastation, it took no more than 2 hours for me to visit the 3 small hardware stores. My flight back to the island I was staying on (there were no hotels in Montserrat so I had to stay on the bigger, neighboring island - Antigua) didn’t leave until later in the day, so with the usual lack of WiFi to use my laptop with and actually get work done, I hung out with Reuben all afternoon and toured the island. Basically, before the volcano collapsed in 1997, this small island’s capital city of Plymouth was a port for cruise ships, bustling with tourism, shopping, renowned restaurants, nightlife, and a well-kept 18-hole golf course. It went through a rebuilding stage in 1989 after Hurricane Hugo hit, but after a few years of working hard to build up the city and the morale again, everything was back to normal, they thought. Reuben remembers one morning in 1995 waking up to a deep rumbling sound outside. This was heard through most of the island, and went on and off for the next 2 years as scientists from Trinidad, Britian, and the U.S. poured in to figure out just what was going on with that volcano. It turned out that it was active again, not exploding or anything at this point, but building up pyroclastic gas and rock to make the volcano and its craters taller and wider. It had been dormant for 400 years. Well, nothing drastic happened for the next 2 years, but volcanoes are very predictable, and after awhile into 1995, a big portion of the island that included many, many villages and the booming capital of Plymouth was deemed unsafe and had to be evacuated. It wasn’t a sudden evacuation. It didn’t need to be done overnight and the people saw it coming, but it was devastating nonetheless. Everyone moved to the northern half of the island, living in shelters and tents while trying to somehow save their personal items from their homes. Reuben lived in a tent for 2 years. For awhile the volcanic activity was okay for people to go back to their homes during the day just to grab more personal items to save, but eventually the whole area was sealed off and guarded, because it had a high chance of ‘crumbling’ (basically exploding) any day. Well, in early 1997 the day came. It collapsed, and pyroclastic gas and ash and rock came tumbling down the mountain at 100mph speeds, the materials up to 600 degrees centigrade. It melted everything in its path. Nineteen people died that day, “19 people in the wrong place at the wrong time” (Reuben). They had snuck in to go home and get more belongings, and the volcano happened to collapse that day. I should mention that before 1995 the island’s population was 11,000, and by this time it was down to 5000. Only 19 died, but about 6000 accepted a package from Britain to move indefinitely over there. There was just no opportunity for much in Montserrat anymore. Two of Reuben’s children moved to Britain. Well, life and the economy in Montserrat has not yet picked up. With the worldwide economic downfall, they are suffering like so many other countries. The airport, which was located in the capital city of Plymouth, was obviously destroyed, so the British rebuilt one in the north of the island, but it is extremely small, and cannot take anything bigger than a charter plane on its landing strip. This produced big controversy (I could hear it in Reuben’s tone) because while the British helped and are still helping this small island, they feel as though they’ve been set up to fail. Without a proper airport, it’s extremely difficult and expensive to get to the island, so tourism is practically nonexistent. Where there were once nice resorts and villas to rent, they are either buried 20 feet under in ash or abandoned for being in a high-risk area. I should mention that as recent as February of 2010, the volcano collapsed/erupted again. Nothing has been as big as that one day in 1997, but on and off there have been more collapses, covering Plymouth and surrounding villages further under. It’s up to about 20 feet high of ash where the golf course used to be. There was a building he pointed out to me that was a 3-story building, and you can only see the top floor. It looks like a short one-story building. We were able to travel up to the observatory, built in the 90’s for the scientists to properly monitor all of this, where there was an amazing view of the volcano. It was a clear day, too, so I could see the crater where it all started and the small hollows (I don’t know technical terms) of where the gas and ash were spewing out as we stood there. Then, we were able to go back down and cross over what was once the golf course but is now just gray ash and sand and rock, where they made a path for cars to drive on to get up to Grabali Point. I took a picture standing in the middle of the ash, where the photo follows the ash/rock path all the way up to the crater. It is so eerie, and I felt like I was in The Lion King in the Elephant Graveyard, where the hyenas were gonna come running down the mountain at any point (remember that movie?!).
We drove up to Grabali Point, where I could see the volcano from another angle, looking down at Plymouth, or what was left of it. It was truly eerie and so sad, it looked like a ghost town, everything gray with ash and rock, buildings half buried but still standing. I do get emotional, yes, but I didn’t cry. I got close, though, looking at Reuben as he stared down into what used to be the capital of his island. His village, Harris, was just over the other side of the volcano, and was also destroyed. I asked him if it was hard to look at, but he said he’s just gotten used to it. Another couple came up to the lookout point while we were there, a couple from Georgia, there on vacation. To hear the woman’s point of view was fascinating. They were retired and had been coming to Montserrat for vacation here and there since before 1995. They remember that bustling city of Plymouth, pointed out the steeple of the church they attended, talked about the restaurants on the pier that were so good, and how the golf course was one of the best they’d ever been to. They kept asking Reuben questions about where certain landmarks used to be located, what happened to this business and that. It was eerie. They still love the island and come back to it, but now rent a villa on the other end of the island and just go for walks to gaze out at what used to be there.
On the way back to the airport, Reuben and I stopped for lunch and continued chatting. It wasn’t all depressing stuff, though. He did talk about the new cricket and soccer fields built down by the marina in the new capital city, the amount of mango trees they have…so many mangos that they don’t know what to do with them all when they’re in season. Man I would have loved to just stop and pick a mango off of a tree to eat. That’s their main export. They also export sand, which is one blessing that came from the volcano. Apparently the ash that comes from the volcano is very fertile and makes for great soil and great crops. If the wind is right, that ash can be carried over the ocean to neighboring islands of St. Kitts and Nevis. He also talked about his famous goat water. Apparently as a kid he worked rearing wild goats and catching them (“it kept him youthful”), and then would prepare the meat for the ladies at his church who would make the goat water. He learned from them, and I think he is honestly a local celebrity on the island because when all 3 hardware stores found out who my taxi driver was, they said to try his goat water. If I ever get back, I’ll make sure it’s on a Friday so I can get some fresh goat water. He also let me stop at a natural spring flowing from rock on the side of the road to fill up my water bottle. It’s probably cleaner than any water out of our faucets. It had a little bit of dirt remnants in it since it hadn’t been filtered whatsoever, but it tasted good! Pure!
So, while there’s devastation and hardship, and the island’s morale is still down, hopefully things get back on the upswing slowly but surely. It was so great to spend the day with Reuben and hear his story. On a lighter note, I’d just like to end this with my airplane story for the round trip flights to and from Montserrat. Like I mentioned, the airport can only take very small planes, so I had to fly into Antigua the night before to sleep and then catch a flight to Montserrat in the morning. It was an 8-person plane, 4 rows of 2 (are you picturing this?), the pilot was one of the 8! We 7 passengers walk onto the runway and the pilot shouts “who wants to ride shotgun?” Well OBVIOUSLY I jumped at the opportunity, so I ended up riding side-by-side with the pilot in the front, with nobs and pedals and controls and a steering-wheel-type-thing all in front of me. I didn’t touch any of it, and halfway through the flight it hit me… “If this pilot faints or suddenly has a heart failure, I am in the front seat and I will have to land this thing!!” I said a little prayer and made sure I had a game plan (if that were to have happened, I was going to take off his earphones and put them on my head, grab hold of the steering wheel and hope someone on the other end could tell me what to do).
Look on Facebook for some photos in Montserrat. I think I can upload onto this here blog, but I haven’t quite figured it out yet. Remember, we in the States don’t have pneumonia…we just have the cold. Put your situation in perspective and give THANKS through all because we are blessed! Love you all, see you again soon!
-Anna Banana
