Official Pastime

Shortly after Brett put up the new court and the Fall semester students arrived, volleyball became our official pastime here at the center. Every day we have a little break between our afternoon fieldwork and dinner, usually between 5:30-6:30pm, and that downtime has quickly become game time!

Volleyball at the SFS Center

Beach volleyball here on South Caicos is great fun: convenient, social, physical, and located right next to the dock, which makes those post-game cool downs irresistible. There are some drawbacks, however. For one, playing in a hot, dry climate that supports brittle and thorny shrubbery is hard on our volleyballs, to say the least. Specifically, there are a number of acacia trees around our center that can put six or seven puncture holes into a ball in a single hit.

Acacia Tree by our Court

Our nightguard, Daniel, tried to help out by weedwhacking down all of the acacias around the perimeter of the court. It turns out, however, that dead, brown, dried-up, thorn-covered acacia branches cut up into pieces and spread around the yard are far more hazardous to both volleyballs and bare feet than live, green ones on trees would have been. We've gone through a number of balls, as well as pumps and duct tape, in the past month.

Sad Box of Volleyball Equipment

Ha!

Despite the acacias, and the heat, and the glare from the setting sun that is pretty much exactly at eye-level during the time of evening we usually play, our commitment to this new pastime has not wavered. We practice every day and often invite passersby and folks we know in the community to join us, which spices up the competition. Our most frequent takers are a group of firemen, a few women who teach at the primary school, and a couple of local teenage boys who seem just as happy to gawk at our female students from the sidelines as to jump in and actually play.

This past Tuesday we faced our toughest rivals, the Indian guys who work at High Point. One of the staffers decided to put together an "A Team", which caused a little inner-team animosity and tension, but in the end about 20 staff and students drove out there in the hopes to cheer and/or play. After we arrived, the SFS squad volleyed for a little while and waited for the High Point guys to trickle in after finishing up their day's work. Then, our A Team challenged their A Team to a match. SFS-A lost 15-7. We then put our B Teams up against each other. And SFS-B lost. Then, we mixed up the SFS and High Point teams and played a game. (Brett had a few nice spikes during that round!)

Volleyball at High Point

Before we left, the A-Teams went for another round and SFS lost yet again. We all had fun though, and we agreed that there is lots of room for improvement between now and our next match-up with High Point... which is incentive to keep practicing!

Suspension

Sometimes I feel like the SFS Center is somewhat insulated from the South Caicos and wider TCI community. We have everything we need here (apart from ice cream and chocolate), and our attention is focused out towards the water rather than in towards town. Just last night there was some sort of festivities going on in town and we had no idea until too late. But now I really feel disconnected. Last night before bed, Jessee came across an article in Reuters that explained that, as of Friday, Britain has suspended the Turks and Caicos government! Read it here: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSLE64144220090814.

How did that happen without us hearing more about it?! I had read about some unrest in a local newspaper - there were anti-government protests on Grand Turk and Provo a while back - and had laughed about photos of TCI citizens carrying placards asking the British Parliament to oust their government. The British staffers here were amused saying, "I don't suppose there are many other places in the world that would care to see the return of the Empire." But I didn't think it was really going to happen!

The reason given for the takeover was "widespread corruption." Or, in the colorful language of one British official, "clear signs of political amorality and general administrative incompetence" (Reuters 2009). This suspension of government could last as long as two years. It doesn't appear that this will directly affect us, but I know the workers at the High Point development were concerned. The success of the resort they're building depends on serious improvements to the South Caicos airport, a project that apparently had secured government funding until now. About half of the workers at High Point were sent home months ago and development was slowed because of this uncertainty. Who knows, maybe the airport project was one of the backroom deals that led to this takeover. The Reuters article quotes the director of the TCI Finance Services Commission (TCI apparently is a center for offshore finance: read "tax evasion") as stating that the corruption probe focused on tourism and real estate activities. Of course, I'm not quick to trust anything coming from a guy whose job it is to foster an industry where millionaires and corporations can hide their money from taxation.

A second article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/16/whitehall-takes-over-turks-caicos), which I've found just now, gives some insight into the positive light in which some islanders see this takeover. And it also cites questionable relationships between TCI politicians and foreign developers.

Quiet Afternoon at Horse Cay

It's been so quiet here since the students left, aside from all the hum about Tropical Storm "Ana". I wouldn't have expected this, but it actually feels a little lonely. I was really looking forward to the break, and I'm relieved to have time to get some of the chores and tasks that I've been putting off (laundry, cleaning, sorting papers, prepping for the Fall semester) finally done, but having this extra free time also makes me miss my friends and family back home.

"The Conch Wall", where the students like to sit and enjoy the scenery

I was fairly warned and fully prepared to be living and working closely with a small handful of people on a tiny remote island in the middle of nowhere (so to speak). I also knew full well that I wouldn't have access to much in the way of the community activities or clubs (like frisbee!), or shopping, or music, arts, movies, and other cultural events that I'm accustomed to in the States. And as much as I enjoyed those things when I had them, I really don't spend much time now at all missing them. The only thing I truly miss, which I hadn't even realized until this past group of students left and I had time to catch my breath and collect my thoughts, is being around people who really get me.

I have a positive working relationship and a good deal of respect for all of the staffers here at SFS-TCI, but none of them know me well enough to make fun of my quirky traits and to take the banter I dish out in the same vein. I miss the people with whom conversations can be about nothing or about the most important things in life, but either way they don't require effort or censorship, or involve any fear of judgement. I miss the people who make me laugh until I'm wheezing, and who constantly challenge me to be a more conscientious, informed, and compassionate person. The good news is that I do have one of these people on the island with me, and (although he stubbornly refuses to scrub the toilet) his company makes being away from the other people I love much more manageable.

Yesterday, Brett and I combined one of our SFS "intersession tasks" with a little snorkeling excursion. We drove the pickup truck (which has 5 new tires on it now!) out to High Point, where we picked up two posts that we'll use to set up a volleyball court at our center. The guys there even welded hooks onto the posts so that we can attach the net to them at the right height. There are about 50 guys who work at High Point, most of whom are from the Kerala region of India. They have a volleyball court of their own that they play on every single day, and every so often we drive the SFS van full of students out to High Point to join in. Yesterday, some of the guys told us they're glad we're setting up our own court so that we can practice on it and then come back to High Point with the Fall semester students and provide some actual competition! (It's true that we're not even close to playing at their level, but come on! They practice every single day! At least they're nice to us when we show up, and seem to enjoy the chance to play with a few new faces, even if the level of competition suffers.)

One of the post holes that Brett dug

Our soon-to-be volleyball court

After picking up the posts, we parked the truck just off the dirt road that leads to High Point, and snorkeled out to a tiny little island in the middle of Bell Sound called Horse Cay. Supposedly it's called that because there are lots of seahorses around the cay, but we didn't see a single one. The water was beautiful though, and so clear with just a hint of turquoise. It was extremely shallow the whole way too, so after lounging on the cay for a little while we decided just to wade back instead of swim, and to carry our masks and fins. It was quite a long walk, and my feet and legs are a little sore today just from having to balance myself in the sand and waves up to my waist, but it was a really nice little adventure for something different. It's good to know there are still so many little corners and crevices of the island that we have yet to explore!