I met Jedidiah last Christmas. I had friends visiting and we needed to hire a taxi to take us from Cockleshell Beach into town. Jedidiah was standing by the parking area next to Reggae Bar looking for a fare. His smile was immediate as he caught my eye and hurried us into his mini-van before the other drivers could intrude. Once settled in the van, he began to talk non-stop about the island, all the places we should see, and all the places he would like to take us.
When I told him I lived here, a whole new picture emerged. The smile faded and a look of consternation took its place. He began to talk of the very real struggles he and his family faced every day, the difficulty in finding work, the expenses for food, housing, utilities and transportation, the frustration of living in a country where the government seemed to turn its back on the needs of its citizens, choosing to ignore the importance of diversifying the economy away from tourism and finding effective solutions to restoring debt sustainability. He was clearly an intelligent man.
He was a hustler for sure - in a good way - offering tours, making and selling jewelry, doing electrical work wherever he could find it, having skill in that trade; and he was a proud man, never portraying himself as a victim, but as a man creating opportunity through hard work.
He shared the taxi business with his friend Deon; he couldn’t afford the cost of owning a taxi himself, and the partnership worked for both of them as one would work at Port Zante trying to get business from the cruise ship passengers, while the other made a local run, doubling their efforts and some days their profits. Sometimes, catching a fare to the beach, Jedidiah would ride along with Deon, then walk the shore mingling with the tourists showing his hand-crafted jewelry for sale, while Deon took passengers back and forth from the Port.
During the tourist season – October to May – things worked okay, though competition had increased, especially this past year as more and more Kittitians started to drive taxis as a way to get in on the tourist trade; everyone competing for the same shrinking dollar in a suffering global economy.
We all look at the world around us in accordance with a certain paradigm. The paradigm we use depends on what we believe is reliable and true. As a group, Kittitian vendors seem to harbor a very real resentment for the tourist upon whom their livelihood has come to depend, and many tourists sense this resentment. A paradigm shift needs to occur for a more rational understanding of this relationship.
Local vendors complain often and loudly that the only money tourists bring in is to the merchants at Port Zante, and those merchants are not even Kittitians, but foreigners who have emigrated to St. Kitts. If cruise ship passengers do find their way to Fort Street, the main street in Basseterre, they aren’t looking to buy anything more than a bottle of water to stay hydrated as they walk through town, passing time before their ship departs again for another Caribbean island offering the same kinds of excursions and similar local wares. While their complaints are valid from their perception, it is irrational to blame the visitor who remains oblivious to these expectations.
Tourism contributes less to the long-range economy than one might think, requiring a larger capital because of the infrastructure necessary to sustain the amenities Westerners expect when they vacation. This has led to the government of St. Kitts and Nevis borrowing large sums of money from foreign governments and paying off these loans has stretched them to the limit. St. Kitts and Nevis has a debt of almost 200% GDP – second highest in the world.
It is hurricane season now in St. Kitts and Nevis – May to October - a time when few tourists come to the islands and only one cruise ship docks at Port Zante on Friday. It is a grim period of struggle and survival for many Kittitians.
A few weeks ago, I invited Jedidah to dinner at a local restaurant and listened as he talked of his family, his wife and his daughter. His daughter had recently won the spelling bee at her school and his smile was infectious as he proudly showed me a picture of her receiving a trophy for her efforts. I asked him what he thought of the announcement last week by the Prime Minister on his trip to Dubai of a hotel project with Range Developments, a company based in Dubai, which will be granting foreign investors the right to become eligible for citizenship of St. Kitts and Nevis. “Citizenship for sale,” he said. “I don’t like it. Our land and our culture should not be for sale.”
In spite of the many challenges he faces, Jedidiah is a happy man. “Where there is life, there is hope,” he says sincerely, bringing his smile back to the conversation.
Living in a country on the edge of bankruptcy in a world on the brink of an economic meltdown is a complicated mess, one beyond my ability to understand; even the solutions confuse me. But somehow the uncertainty of the world and all its complexities has moved me to live more fully in the present. It is one thing I know I can count on.
And so it goes on July 16, 2012.
