St. Vincent's Remedy

It’s not the cure-all for the deficiencies of mankind but it does its best. There are island choices, whether to read a book or sit on the balcony in the sun and surrender, sublimely, to the translucent waters of Indian Bay. Beyond, aqua fading to deep blue is the channel before Bequia, the first island in the Grenadine chain. There exists no obstacle that can obstruct beauty: it’s a reminder. The view can hypnotise, there.

When inactivity becomes entirely too inactive the beach is just a few strides away, to swim or with flippers and snorkel to greet the fish, multicoloured, striped, with long snouts or googly eyes. It’s to be observed that the postcard paradise continues underwater. Lucelle, meanwhile, might be taking her husband for a dip; but there’ll be no crowds to contend with, there.

Things to think of are not absolutely absent, don’t misunderstand: it’s best not to swim out too far lest Bequia’s currents sweep you away, and don’t get caught up, irretrievably, in the dreamy pink palette of the Caribbean sunset, either.  But it’s not much to worry about. There’s a lot of goodness in St. Vincent to find you. Life won’t bother you much, there.

Lucelle doesn’t have guests. It’s one of the first things she says, that at her laid back hotel she only has friends. Even if you’re new friends, arriving at her little patch of Indian Bay fresh from the airport, just in from Grenada, you’ll understand it easily that she’s not only saying that. When she learns you have no car it’s unimportant because in her older model, brown car she takes enjoyment from showing her friends a lot of the little main island. Lucelle is proud of her West Indian nation, independent since 1979 and homeland to 120,000 people, her SVG.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines: she sees so much goodness in it.

You’ll wonder if it was Lucelle who added the final touches to island calm or if the island brought its kindly disposition to bear on her. There’s an inkling of the sound of the waves in her demeanour and the soft crunch of beach sand in her pace. Or perhaps it’s merely the sort of gentleness to be expected from a diplomat’s wife.  

By narrow road into the green hills away from the coast she took us to the gardens of Mesopotamia. We strolled and chatted among a bounty of fruit, patterned leaf and orchid flower; and the conversation flowed as simply as the stream, there.

Yet it’s no cure-all. Wherever there are humans there are problems and we can see this by the black sand beaches of the east coast. Lucelle wanted to show us the tunnel dug under the hillside by African-origin slaves, at the time when the British engaged the island in sugar production. There aren’t natural harbours on the east side so the tunnel was a convenience through which trolleys of cane could be hauled and loaded aboard small boats and anchored ships. The British ordered the landscape altered, there.

But there exists no obstacle that can obstruct beauty, according to St. Vincent, and what should have been a morbid site of slavery’s remodelling, wasn’t. A melange of colour and shade, the walls of whitish rock were covered in lichen in bright red and fluorescent green, turning a horrific history toward art. Over time St. Vincent’s remedy had done its best, making new beauty with a little weathering. We should remember people’s goodness and struggle, and not only their suffering: it’s a reminder.

She drove on, north, to colonial looking Georgetown, which seemed to be trying to be more of a town than it really was. Beyond was the light forest of tall palms among the cane fields, the banana and guava orchards. It was an inching lane of warped bitumen that raised us to the shady turnaround at the start of the volcano trail.

Above the clouds, Soufrière’s active bellybutton peak in the island’s north is out of view; it’s the skyward tip of the painted parasol of an island and it can erupt, and disrupt, again. Yet it’s true, St. Vincent would over time remodel any catastrophe, to make new beauty, with a little weathering.

Wherever there are humans there are struggles and Lucelle tells us of youth unemployment and the fear that her SVG could fall into the trap of drugs and crime that has already beset some of the neighbouring island nations. But she shows us the new schools the Vincentian government has built and the site of a proposed larger airport that could accommodate larger planes to help the tourism industry to bloom. She considers if her SVG couldn’t become the IT hub of the Windies. She sees a bright future, there.

Meanwhile beyond the capital Kingstown on the west coast and another day the older model brown car drove to the little bay of the Hollywood treasure chest, where the movie Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed. Swashbuckling sets, warehouses and coffins are still, there. And in the small town of Barrouallie we stopped to meet her relatives; because although they’d never know it, you can’t simply drive on. SVG is not that sort of a country.

Sometimes Lucelle would come to us and we’d sit in lazy chairs on the balcony overlooking Indian Bay’s deep blue. She spoke of her life in easy, palm frond sentences, about her own troubles of the sort that can be found wherever there are humans.

She remembers the parties of Europe back in the diplomat days and smiles, and I won’t tell the whole of it but I did want to mention about her husband, who suffers from dementia. She helps him to the beach and back twice a day, for a swim; and he needs a lot of care, not always knowing who she is. Sometimes in the not-knowing he can act with violence.

So when Lucelle worries about his safety, when she worries he might wander off and finds it hard to speak of these things; when she says ‘He was very good to me,’ it’s really something to respect. That there’s a kind of entwining in this world that can overcome any obstacle: it’s a reminder. Sometimes we need reminders and Lucelle was an exceptional one: we saw so much goodness in her.

One day, she said, she walked into a bank in Kingstown and was shocked: there was no movement, as though time had stopped, customer and staff silent and frozen. It was the final stages of a cricket match, it turned out to be, and all those Vincentian eyes were glued to the TV set and Lucelle willingly did the same, more than willingly. For the several final minutes breaths were held, stomachs in throat until suddenly there were screams: in the bank the customers jumped about, she said, they woke up in spontaneous cheers and applause. Hurrah! The Windies had triumphed!

SVG is not the cure-all for the deficiencies of mankind but it does its best.

* I * S * L * A * N * D * S *

Cyprus 
Taiwan 
                             Malta 
                                            Hatiya 
                                                Hongdo 
West Indies 



This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: St. Vincent's Remedy

The Fish of Hongdo

It happened fast. Racing over the water, the small boat appeared suddenly, bashing against the minor waves as it crossed them, with the whirring of its motor growing louder as it unexpectedly closed in. The vessel I was on was larger but even if it tried to power away it could hardly have escaped. It was too late for that. What did they want?

I could only take my cue from the other passengers and the crew, because with everything happening in Korean I was at a minor disadvantage. The small boat sidled up to ours, its motor cut as an animated conversation across the gap of water began. The passengers were fussing; they seemed to be negotiating. It happened near the coast of Hongdo, Red Island, in the Yellow Sea.

Winter had come to South Korea. It was cold and the waters about the eight hundred islands can only have been colder.

It’s in Korea’s far southwest where the peninsula crumbles away like cake. Those islands might almost act as stepping stones for giants attempting to cross to China. They must’ve been a worthy challenge for early navigators and cartographers, charting each isle and outcrop, bay and cove. Even on the national map the torn coastline of the southwest looks like a pile of leftover puzzle pieces.

At closer quarters the islands are similarly unwilling to conform to standardised design specifics. A vast range of rock shapes, delicate, unusual and unexpected, document the drop of the island into the sea. Or at least on Hongdo they do. One of the furthest islands from the mainland, Hongdo is famous for the artistry of wind and wave, which is why tourists go there. It’s the reason I was on that boat.

It’s not difficult to reach Hongdo. There are scheduled ferry services to cover the 115 kilometres from Mokpo City on the mainland. It takes two and a half hours. Hongdo is small, about six kilometres long and two and a half kilometres wide. It has two villages, Il-gu and the I-gu, between them home to the 710 islanders; and if it’s winter when the boat docks in Il-gu harbour, there’ll likely be locals waiting on the pier to offer home-stay style accommodation; but in the summer the island is said to be crowded, mostly by Korean mainlanders. It’s a popular destination. 

It’s not difficult to organise the two-hour circumnavigation tour of the island by boat, which is the best way to appreciate the gallery of rock formations, nature’s art.

But before that it’s possible to follow the Il-gu-to-I-gu road, the stone and dirt pathway up the nearer hill that rises to about 200 metres. There, the camellia bushes grow large and create, in places, a tunnel. The views, over the island, over the sea and down to the villages, are deep breaths of oxygen, life-bringing. The island takes its name, Red, from the effect of each sunset on its rocks and cliffs; although in spring there is the red bloom of the camellias to be considered.

It was on the second day, near to the end of the circumnavigation tour, that the smaller boat had suddenly appeared. Aboard I could see three men, in thick jackets, two in baseball caps. They had knives.

The passengers were animated. What’s going on, I thought. It was only a matter of moments before the nature of the trouble became apparent. 

It was about fish. Fresher fish there could not be. The fishermen in the smaller boat had just caught them and wished to sell them. Meanwhile the fish flapped about in a water-filled bucket.

Although I realise it’s nearly criminal activity in Bangladesh, I confess that I don’t often eat fish. A small piece on occasion I will enjoy, especially if it’s fried. But in Hongdo the challenge was greater still.

I watched as fish were sold, the unusual part being in how they were delivered: pre-chopped and salted. With each sale the fishermen took the fish to a wooden board on the deck of their boat, scaled and gutted them on the spot, cutting them into thin strips of boneless meat. Then they were sprinkled with salt, put into a bag and handed across to the larger boat.

The even more unusual part was how they were eaten: directly. There was, I thought, a missing step in the process, in accordance with usual procedure: the cooking part. I watched as Koreans took thin strips of raw fish by hand and pushed them into their mouths.

I was fortunate, arguably, because on our boat was one Ms. Kim from Suwon, near to Seoul. She was on holidays with her family and her sister’s family. Her sister was introduced as ‘aunty’, but in her fluffy leopard-skin patterned jacket she looked too young for the title. Ms. Kim spoke some English and although we’d not said much before that, the enthusiasm of the raw fish snack somehow induced greater conversation and an offer to share.

At the same time from somewhere that rice wine, the Korean version called soju, surfaced, to accompany the fish. So I joined in: a nip of soju, then a few strips of salted raw fish gulped down the throat just as a pelican might do. It wasn’t bad, actually, although it might’ve been better not to know what it was. The mood on the boat became festive as everyone, and I was the only foreigner among them, drank and ate.

I don’t wish to imply it was the first time I’d faced raw fish during that preceding first week in South Korea. It was rather the opposite: as if raw fish sought me out, following me around the country like a hunter stalking deer. At almost every meal, in nearly every restaurant, I had suffered for not being able to make sense of the written Korean on the menu. The only thing to do was to randomly point to a listed item and cross fingers. The first time, when the waiter returned some minutes later with a large plate of raw fish, I thought to try my best at it, thinking on the next occasion there might be something that had seen a bit more of a pot or a pan. It’s a mystery how it came about, but inevitably, time after time, my random choice was a plate of raw fish.

This result was despite my deliberately having tried to increase the chances of variation, by pointing towards the top of one menu at lunch and towards the bottom of another during dinner. Somehow, I was remarkably consistent in my random choices. Yet I was sure Koreans ate other things.

But of all the raw fish that followed, chased and hunted me down, it was the fish of Hongdo that was the most special, and clearly the freshest.

These days in Dhaka it’s usual to consider the freshness of food, especially when eating from a street side stall. Food freshness is an important consideration anywhere. 

It’s just that in countries with a national cuisine that’s something like South Korea’s, a further consideration for the uninitiated might be if the food isn’t actually, on occasion, a little too fresh.

Or, probably, it’s the sort of thing one learns to enjoy.

Let the Boat Sail!

Arctic Ocean

Caribbean Sea

Indian Ocean

Kattegat

Luzon Strait

Mediterranean Sea

Persian Gulf

Red Sea

South Pacific Ocean

This article also published in Star Magazine, here: The Fish of Hongdo

A Reflection of Stone

At the temples of Mnajdra and Ħaġar Qim the Mediterranean sun is intense.  Its glare on the dark blue sea and on the nearer rocky hillside blinds and makes one squint.  To the south is Libya and Sicily is to the north.  Front and centre is the very distant past.

Tapping away, tapping away, rock on rock.  There must’ve been a meditative quality in working each dimple, forming each spiral and spot.  With certainty it’s a recipe for quiet reflection even to consider those workings, to look over those simple temple designs, and it brings wonder at the efforts of their creator, wonder in the minor glimpse given into the thoughts of prehistory.

More than a thousand years before work began on the Great Pyramid at Giza; more than five hundred years before the first Egyptian dynasty and the writing of the first hieroglyphs; about four hundred and eighty six years before the start of the Mayan calendar in Mesoamerica; and a century before the wheel was first used in Mesopotamia, the people of megalithic Malta first got about moving stones.

The first inhabitants had reached the Maltese islands as early as 5000 BCE and they didn’t set to building the temples straight away; but by 3600 BCE construction had begun on the eleven megalithic temples that became part of the small Mediterranean nation’s inheritance.  The stone temples of Malta are the oldest freestanding structures on Earth.

Our lives are a kind of rocky arrangement also, with each day inevitably there comes about a little tapping, tapping of our own miniscule histories and designs, and as sure as we’re human there are moments of pause, of deliberating those ever-present unanswerable questions and determining now and then to rearrange.  Sometimes we also wish to chisel or to move about a few stones. 

The temples are mysterious.  Little is known.  Maltese folklore says they were built by a race of giants, why one of the sites is called Ġgantija, the ‘Giant’s Tower.’  There’s evidence that would support such a theory, since the largest stone at Ħaġar Qim is more than 5 metres high and weighs nearly 60 tons.  Without modern machinery someone put it in that place, to their liking.  Somehow someone did that.

But if not giants, then who completed that work?  The identity of the temple builders is unclear because, around 2500 BCE and quite abruptly, the Maltese stone moving stopped and the temple building society vanished.  The Maltese islands were left for later resettlement by others.

Tapping away, tapping away, rock on rock.  There must’ve been dedication in it, with each temple added to, enhanced and rearranged over the course of many generations.  In the Mnajdra complex at the time of the equinox in Autumn and in Spring the sun’s rays shine through the main doorway with astronomical precision.  Is Mnajdra of calendars and clocks?  Is it a time piece?  We have our ways still for remembering and counting.

There are stone tables and benches, the world’s oldest furniture, and rope holes, flint knives and animal bones have been uncovered in the arrangement of circular rooms.  Archaeologists have suggested animal sacrifices took place and that the temples may have been dedicated to fertility or healing illness.  There are deity statues that have been found, unflatteringly referred to as Maltese ‘fat lady’ statues due to their appearance.

Counting on change and continuity; counting on blessings from sacrifice; counting on the days and seasons; and counting on reward for labour.  Counting on a better future; counting on a protector and saviour; counting on the constellations; and counting on daylight to follow on from the night.  We have our ways still for hoping and for faith.

But what was it exactly that prompted the megalithic Maltese to first get about moving stones?  Was there a malady, a natural catastrophe like a storm or a drought, or alternatively no singular event to give rise to their architecture?  Of the details there can be no knowing, but of course it was the big questions that must’ve been involved.

What we may know something of is the human: that inexhaustible curiosity. What’s it all about? Why are we here? Where are we going?  Indeed the essence of humanity may not even be in the answers primarily, as much as in the wondering.  To visit the megalithic Maltese temples is not only to look into the past but to see our human condition reflected and it becomes us.

There are temples of other types too.  There's a modern Bollywood temple of an Indian cinema hall, something more Confucian-Buddhist-Daoist in Taiwan or a temple of sorts to the brilliant blue Bolivian sky.

This article also published in Star Magazine, here: A Reflection of Stone