Pages

Friday, September 11, 2015

Caymen Islands: The Storm

I created this painting from a photo I took in the Grand Cayman Islands.  It was  the year 2008 and I had just completed my Associate Divinity Degree and a season of Chaplaincy at Duke Hospital. My husband wanted to go scuba diving with my son and I felt that it would be nice to join them for a little nine day rest. I was into whittling at that time and was sitting on my porch the day before we left for the Island whittling a walking stick, the blade slipped and cut my wrist. I received nine stitches. It should have been a warning to me, an omen of sorts. A slit wrist. I still have the scar.

We arrived in Belize and took an egg beater airplane over to the Island. I was not comfortable on that small plane, it did not help that one of the fifteen passengers on the plane was a man who talked loudly and had great knowledge about the way little planes operate and the likely chance we would all die.

 The Island was beautiful and the water was clear and an exotic green. There were pineapples and coconuts all ready for picking. It was just like the brochures depicted... except when when I walked around the corner to the street  behind the resort. It was then I discovered it was more like a set from a Western Movie, not a modern set, a set made in  the 50's.  The water front hotels were painted beautifully, but behind the façade the rest of the town consisted of  things propped up and in shambles.

We stayed in one of the best resorts on the island and decided not to complain about the fact that there was no hot water ,after we mentioned it one time and realized the maid did not speak English. Then the power kept cutting off, sometimes for hours. I watched the news and discovered it was not the approaching Typhoon that caused the power to go off, it was that the Island had not paid their part of the  power bill. Belize was mad at that little island. That was okay. The Island was stunning and charming. The little village behind the resort had some nice little vendors and we were amazed to discover there were no flies. None. You could eat outside and never see one. I asked the locals  why there were no flies and they said... ( okay, this is the truth- I kid you not) ....that the flies would be in on Thursday. I pondered that greatly in my heart, and also wondered if I missed something in the translation.

My husband and son gleefully charted their scuba course and took off on the boat early the first morning while the clouds gathered over the horizon and the news reports mentioned that hurricane/tropical storm Arthur was heading for shore. We, the maids and I, listened to the wind whistle and battened down the hatches. I nodded my head at them a lot and tried to communicate "Are we going to die?" They cheerfully nodded back. Yes, Yes, we are all going to die.


 We had experienced three days with flickering lights, cold showers, winds and threats of  rain, yet the guys managed to get in two days of Scuba before the resort took on the look of Gilligan's Island. Both days I wandered the island during the day and in the afternoon I stood on this dock, the one that is depicted in this painting, and watched the ominous evening clouds roll in, wondering if the guys would make it back to land. They came back glowing with joy. Apparently you can not tell there is a hurricane when you are under water. Keep that in mind the next time you are under water, you never know what is happening in the sky.

On Thursday, the heavy rain bands came through and during a moment of eerie calm we ambled back over to the little "one street town" to get a bite to eat. The flies were everywhere. Everywhere. I was amazed that they actually did come in on Thursday, - like- "It's Thursday, time to go onto town for the Blue Plate special!" My amazement at the uniqueness of each of God's creatures, and the knowledge of the natives concerning such things was profound.  I found out later that flies come in with the first rain, not on Thursdays.

                        * I felt like the flies deserved a paragraph all of their own.




The worst of Arthur lasted 24 hours, when he had finished ripping every coconut and banana off of the trees on the Grand Cayman Islands the flickering TV news report said that tropical storm Alma  was brewing in the emerald green waters off the shores of the island. In  Southern terms she was "over yonder close by" and chasing Arthur like a hussy; since I did not  know what dysfunctional relationship they had I decided not to hang around to meet her. I was concerned that in "Act Number Three"  Arthur and Alma would spawn a little demon storm named Alvin. At that time I did not have a smart phone so we walked in the rain to a little sketchy internet cafe and looked at our emails to contact our airlines and cut the trip short. As I typed all my personal information into a twenty year old dirty computer, on a keyboard with half the letters worn off, all my usual fears of internet hacking or someone stealing my credit card numbers were miraculously non existent.  The next morning I got back on the little egg beater plane in the pelting rain with high winds and low visibility and I was not afraid. I was heading home.


I will refrain from telling you the details of our flight home. Suffice it to know it was a rough plane trip and the lady beside me had to use the little bitty barf bag. We landed in Texas to take a connecting flight home. I came really close to kissing the Texas tarmac.  That tarmac was melting hot and nasty- but really -yeah, I was ready to bow down to the earth and French kiss it, I loved that Texas Tarmac and still think fondly of it.

I got my stitches removed the following week. 

So enjoy the painting. I will not go back for more photos.


1 comment:

  1. I have been to the Cayman Islands. They are beautiful as is the entire Caribbean. I loved your story and the painting is awesome.

    ReplyDelete

Leave your thoughts here!