Thanksgiving Weekend

Happy Turkey Day!

We celebrated a very festive, although not at all traditional, Thanksgiving this year. Our cooks, Izzy and Antonia, really outdid themselves with an elaborate and delicious buffet of food!

The Feast

The students decorated our dining area with fall-colored leaves and hand turkeys for everyone here at the center (including Bruno and Catdog). Mine featured a decorated cake because I'm known for making them on students' birthdays and various other occassions. Brett's featured his big black Crocs, which he leaves by the volleyball court during games so that anyone who needs to go fetch a ball out of bounds can slip them on and avoid get stuck with acacia thorns. (As his shoes are at least 6 sizes too big for everyone else, however, this can be pretty entertaining to watch!)

Brett's hand turkey

My hand turkey

Some of the students and I also made pies for our Thanksgiving dessert. I think spending time in the kitchen is part of the tradition for some of them, and so they asked to help out.

Pretty fall colors

We didn't have any cans of pumpkin, and therefore couldn't make the pie they most wanted to, but we improvised with what we had and came out with 5 apple pies (thanks to my dad's scrumptiously foolproof recipe) and 5 sweet potato pies in the end.

Sweet potato pies

Apple pies

Brett impressed everyone with his expert lattice designs, and then inspired some of the students to try it for themselves. All in all, it was a very happy holiday with lots to be thankful for.

Last night, we celebrated (and expressed our thanks) all over again. For the second time this semester, we hosted a dinner for folks in town. This one was in honor of all of our "Business and Community Partners". This included school teachers, shop owners, developers, fishermen, and folks who have been interviewed by our students for their various research projects, among others. (The previous community dinner was in recognition of government officials, e.g. police, clinic, post office, treasury, immigration, etc.)

A centerpiece

Students serving our guests

We decorated our tables with flowers, conch shells, and candles, and put on our nicest outfits. I think everyone had a good time talking and mingling, and it was nice to be able to show our appreciation for the folks here who are especially welcoming and helpful. Also, as our Center Director pointed out, it was a chance to remind ourselves that we are visitors on this island being hosted by the local community. Last evening, for a few short hours, we got to return the favor.

Sweet appreciation from the students

Concerned Citizens

Last night Jessee and I, along with John the SFS Center Director, attended a meeting of the SCCCA (South Caicos Concerned Citizens Association). SFS was invited to attend the meeting to discuss collaboration opportunities in the organization's efforts to clean up the township. On Saturdays we regularly send a group of students to pick up trash on the beaches as part of the "community engagement," but until now we weren't really engaging with the community.

I didn't really know what to expect of the meeting or of the group, but as I've mentioned in previous posts, I feel somewhat disconnected from the local community, and I thought this would be a good way to change that. We were asked to arrive around 7:30pm (a half hour after the start of the meeting), so the group could finish their regular business before we arrived. Luckily, they were behind schedule. This gave us the opportunity to sit in and observe how the group functioned. It was impressive how seriously they took their business and how formally the group was run; members addressed the president as "Mr President," they passed resolutions, they approved measures, and they used phrases like "let the record show...." This was not a group of amateurs.

When it finally came around to our turn, John spoke for the group. He thanked them for our invitation and talked about what he saw as our common goals. He explained that it was in the interest of SFS to provide a service to the community, such as volunteer labor to clean up trash and unsightly properties in the township, but that it can be a sensitive issue for the School to take up projects like that on our own accord (what does it communicate when a group of outsiders enters a community and decides that it needs to be "cleaned up?"). They all nodded in agreement. The situation, he told them, was much different in the case where we were being asked by the community for help. He happily pledged our support. This Saturday's schedule will need to be reworked, but we will join them in their clean up efforts.

The members of SCCCA were grateful for our willingness to be at their disposal and I felt, possibly for the first time since arriving here, a real connection to the community. As the meeting wrapped up we were thanked for coming and told that we would always be welcome. They scheduled their next meeting (in one week at the same time) and discussed some of the issues that would be taken up, one of which is concerns over the turtle research project that I've mentioned before. I'm very interested in hearing how the project is perceived locally (I have gotten conflicting information on the matter - there appears to be a positive relationship between the community and the researchers, but I've heard there is concern among some that the research is just an effort to bring an end to turtle hunting). I think I'll take them up on their open door policy and attend the meeting next week.

Ransom

When I woke up this morning, it seemed unusually quiet. I was up a little early, so I didn't think much of it. But after about 45 minutes, I found out that it wasn't because everybody was sleeping in, but rather because they were out in search of a lost boat. The new moon brought unusually high tides in the recent days and, apparently, it caused our "rescue boat" to break free from its mooring last night. This was especially bad because it's the nicest of all the boats and worth something like $22,000 (the other three boats, only one of which is running at the moment, aren't worth one-tenth that).

Unlike the last time I was involved in a "lost boat" situation, I was in no way responsible for this incident. I could, however, sympathize for the others and was concerned that we were down to one functioning boat for a program entirely dependent on access to the water.

By the time I had figured out anything was going on, the first search party had already returned. They had searched a large area in the direction of the prevailing wind and current and even walked through a large tide flat for quite a distance only to find the shell of an old wreck. They returned empty handed. They had also attempted to request assistance from some of the fishermen that are friendly with SFS, but they had already left for the day.

After a short while, Will and I decided to go out and search a little more. We checked at the public dock first, hoping that somebody might have brought it back, but there was nothing. With Will driving I scanned the bay with binoculars (which is incredibly ineffective when the boat is shaking you all around). Not long had passed, however, when we spotted a fisherman towing our lost boat! We adjusted our course to meet up with them and decided we'd offer to give them our extra fuel for their trouble.

In hindsight, it's funny that we made this offer of fuel because the two fishermen demanded far greater compensation. They claimed, according to British Common Law, that they owned 1/3 of the recovered vessel and informed us that they wanted $5000 for it. We'd never heard of this law, but Will did know that some arcane "Laws of the Sea" that still existed (for instance, if you are in need of assistance at sea and you accept the bow line of another vessel, they have the right to ownership of your boat, but if you give them your bow line, then you retain ownership). Anyhow, they refused to hand the boat over to us there and towed it to the dock, where they planned to hold it for ransom.

At this point I decided to become only an observer, though I amused myself by contemplating a pirate-like attack to free our boat (in my imagination I was jumping from our speeding boat with a knife in my mouth and a parrot on my shoulder). Instead, Will contacted the center director who agreed to meet us at the dock to deal with the situation (slightly less dramatic). For the sake of brevity let's say the negotiations took up most of the day, but finally resulted in a payment of $700 for their trouble and lost day of fishing. The fishermen weren't happy about this, but it turns out that TCI does have a law about recovered vessels and it states that "reasonable compensation" is due in situations such as this. Fortunately for SFS, most of the other fisherman and bystanders who had gathered around and, more importantly, the police thought that $5000 was not "reasonable."

The recovered boat.

$700 even seems a bit steep, if you ask me. It was a sensitive situation though. SFS needs to maintain positive relations with the fishermen (if not for the sake of community, for the fact that the boat could easily be vandalized by unhappy neighbors). Some here at SFS were, understandably, upset that the two fishermen expected payment for retrieving the boat. We intended to compensate them for their trouble and time from the beginning, but their exploitation of the situation was not justified. On numerous occasions in the past SFS staff and boats have been involved in assisting stranded or broken down boats of locals, and some here felt the same courtesy should be extended in our direction. I think, however, this is problem for all people or institutions that are viewed as "outsiders" to a community. Especially when that outsider is believed to have considerable wealth (which is actually not the case for SFS - there is considerable debt, not an endless budget). As I've mentioned before, I feel like we're largely separated from the South Caicos community. We do outreach (i.e. swimming lessons) on Saturdays when school is in session, but that doesn't feel like a very meaningful connection to me. I wish we did more to integrate, but not being very extroverted, I'm not the best person to make that happen. At the same time, I felt slightly more connected to some local people who came to our defense and argued in our favor.