The most rewarding week of my high school education was the one I spent studying marine biology in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. It left me with a deep love of snorkeling in the coral reefs, a love that found me returning many times to islands throughout the Caribbean. I am thinking of these islands today, as their list reads like a who’s who of places that took the full brunt of Hurricane Irma.
I’m thinking of Key West, where I went snorkeling after a work-related conference, evacuated this week, and then walloped by the storm. I’m thinking of Anguilla, an island whose height of land is a mere 65 meters above sea level, an island where I can’t picture there being many places to hide from the hurricane winds.
I’m thinking of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, one of my favorite places in the whole world. I remember lush hillsides leading down to coves where you swim with turtles and sea rays. Reports are that these hillsides have been stripped barren of greenery.
I’m thinking of Tortola, a hop from St. John in the British Virgins. I remember the warmth and welcome of locals who eke out a resourceful living however they may: The same man I met one day tending his goats was my cab driver into Road Town the day after that.
It’s this resourcefulness of the Caribbean people that gives me hope among the sadness I feel now, as I think of these storm-ravaged places that I have loved so much. I find hope thinking of the young walking guide who took me through St. Lucia’s wilderness to hidden waterfalls. On our way back, he asked me to visit his mother, with whom he lived in a cinderblock shack. The family had been farmers, but they had lost their home, land, and cattle in a recent hurricane. The farm long gone, he made the family’s living guiding tourists as she served weak coffee from their two-room home.
But rebuild they would, and so will the islanders whose lives were upended this week. They are resourceful and determined people. But they are also poor. Be generous with your help.
Marc Vilain
Oak Hill Road
