Remembrances of Gifft Hill - The Ghut - Part Two

We were in another world.

We were explorers going where no one had gone before. It was unlikely we'd actually get lost, but going down stream was the safest thing to do, it would lead us to the ocean. So that's what we did.

The hills rose steeply on either side of us, surrounding us, giving a sense of being very isolated and far anyway from everything. The ghut itself was wide. In some places it must have been at least 40 feet across, maybe more. It's hard for me to judge. I was so small when I was 8. I remember things being bigger than they really are. But even when I went down there as a teen and young adult, there were places where that ghut was very wide. A tremendous amount of water gets moved down it.

Most other ghuts we'd ever explored were at most 20 or so feet across, this one was way different. It was so wide there was open sky high above us, places where the overhanging trees and steep sides of the hills didn't block out the narrow band of blue.

We were amazed, awed, stunned by its hugeness and its incredible beauty. It was lush, the epitome of tropical. Huge elephant ear philodendrons (if you scroll down you can see a woman beside a large leaf) grew along the banks, clinging to rocks and trees. Their leaves were large enough that the two of us could stand under a single leaf. They made excellent umbrellas against both the sun and rain. There were anthuriums of various kinds and ferns. As we climbed our way around and over rocks, we were continually met with one spectacular thing after another. And every time we did all we could say was, "We gotta bring Mom here. She won't believe this 'til she sees it."

We had no idea where we really were. We had no idea how far we had to go to find those mysterious pools, or even if we were going in the right direction. But it didn't matter. We had found paradise.

Meanwhile, as we ogled and gasped, Happy explored ahead. He never let us out of his sight. I'm sure if he had stumbled upon a wild girl-eating animal, he would have defended us to the death. Lucky for us, there were no dangerous animals, not even poisonous snakes. The most we had to contend with was running into the web of the copper spider, a member of the orb family. Their web silk is strong and sticky and it's kind of freaky to get tangled up in it. But the spiders, fearsome as they look, are harmless. They can also be kind of big, easily spanning an adult palm.

There was also the real threat of disturbing a wasp nest.
The Monday wasps (also called Jack Spaniards) look like these guys only they're a bit bigger. This is a picture of Friday wasps. Mondays are easily angered and quick to sting first and ask questions later. Fridays are more laid back. If you disturb a nest, they'll fly around it check things out see if there's any danger and if there isn't settle back down. It's like they know the week-end is coming and they're cool. But those Mondays, they are pissed off all the time because it's the first day of the week. They like to build their nests under leaves so as we crashed and thrashed our way through the bush there was a chance we could have gotten zapped. But we didn't.

But we braved them both. Particularly me, who used to be near phobic about spiders.

Eventually we came to a place where the ghut was very wide and curved to the left. Always we'd been able to see the ghut ahead, been able to see it bending to the right or left. But when we came around that bend...we were met with open space and sunlight. We could see the sky and the hills beyond. But here was no more ghut. It had disappeared.

Stay tuned for The Ghut - Part Three.

Haiti Update

Here is a letter from Rotarian Dick McComb, Past District Governor, from February 7th, regarding the situation in Haiti. As long as my sister, Rotarian Erva Denham, passes them on to me, I will pass them on to you. These letters are small inside glimpses into what is happening, into what is needed and wanted. This letter is long. Bless each of you who takes a moment to read it.

Dear all,
I have just concluded our assessment of the situation in Haiti, and have just finished making a number of lengthy calls with the team on the ground in Haiti. Based on this I wanted to share with you the situation as I understand it today.

The position we took last week in which we said to hold off on further deliveries of medical supplies not already in route was the correct one. Currently in the Port au Prince area there is no shortage of these medical supplies. In fact the challenge is now the sorting and the distribution of these items. This is at a critical stage because of the volume of random medical inventory received and specific needs that may currently be outstanding. As far as medical supplies are concerned the advice from the team is "do not send anything else unless it is specific in terms of the location and the product". We need to be sure we coordinate this so we do not duplicate the supply chain and add to the problem.

There are a number of private Hospitals in the rural areas that are in need of some specific things, but there are also others that have an excess of supplies. We are in the process of balancing this as best we can now. After that specific orders will be processed as they come in. I am told that most of the Government Hospitals are getting the supplies they need with the exception of a few specifics which we are trying to address on their behalf through the Rotary Leadership in that area. That seems to be more equipment related than medical supplies.

The food and shelter needs are still very high on the priority list. The challenge we have on the ground now is the storage and distribution logistics of the food and shelter items. In Port au Prince in particular there are numerous International Organizations that are distributing food in the quake region. For the most part their capabilities for this are better than ours so most of those efforts should be left to them. Our Rotarians on the ground are doing some food and shelter distribution as well from the supplies Rotary has sent. It is important that they continue to do this and that we continue to supply them. Not only is it helping the most needy, but it seems to be providing our Rotarians a purpose on the ground in their respective communities. Keeping the Rotarian alive in spirit is essential at this difficult time and it must be rewarding for our Rotarians to be able to help their neighbours and their communities through this. I will try to get further specifics to you on what we should continue to supply, but bulk rice, beans, flour, proteins, vegetable oil etc and Tents are a safe bet for now.

There are in excess of 10,000 Shelter Boxes in Haiti and most of them set up or in the process of being set up. The distribution is being done through a number of international organizations. Rotary has had an allocation of them for the use of Rotarians and their families in need. As of today there are about 45 in our possession still not distributed but they will be sent out in the next couple of days.

There has been a great response with Water Boxes, Purification Systems and water supply. In many instances these resources have been sent directly to Rotary in Haiti for distribution. In my discussions with the team on the ground it appears that the distribution of these assets would be best handled by the Haiti Water Commission and the selected agency it is working with for the distribution. They are better equipped to know where the camps are set and what the needs are. They also know what supplies are available to each of them from the organizations currently on the ground. My advice to Claude was to help train the group doing the distribution on the use of the equipment before they deliver these units to families and groups. And then assist by providing the assets to them for distribution.

The rural situation remains the same. The need is for shelter, food, school supplies and the support for secondary medical, education etc. The bulk food supply is still available in most areas in the country. Our best help there is to fund the purchase of the basics while it lasts. This is what we have been doing and will continue although this can be very expensive and a little more difficult to manage.

I am expecting a specific request from our leaders for their regions that will identify the exact number of Schools, families and students we are talking about. The consensus is the rural areas have each grown by in excess of 20% since the earthquake.

The response to this has varied from funding bulk shelter and feeding camps, providing international NGO's that provide food and shelter with bulk food, to each Rotary family committing to look after a specific number of displaced families.

There is the potential for hoarding and other issues with this, but we are taking all precautions practical and possible at this time. Long term we will need to be better at this if we want to continue with it.

The long term response to this disaster is going to be an enormous drain on our human and financial resources for some time to come. I believe that we should begin discussing our role in the long term recovery and rebuild effort right away. I think our response going forward should be more and more in line with what we ultimately identify as our long term sustainable strategy. To do this we will need to get a sense very soon of where we are going to fit in the grand scheme of things in Haiti. Will it be an emphasis area, will it be communities, will it be in the planning? Who knows!

I have approached a well respected international investor and business man who has developed a sustainable settlement tradition in The Bahamas. He has a concept and some ideas that I believe could well be at the core of our response to the future development of Haiti. His concept addresses the creation of a sustainable settlement that takes into account social, financial, cultural, health, and environmental elements. I believe this is an opportunity that needs to be explored as a possible Rotary solution in its long term response. I will keep you posted on the progress of this idea when I hear back from those I have sent it to.

There are some immediate needs that will come up that we must still fulfill but we must also begin to recognize that response must move from the immediate to the medium and long term.
PDG Dick

Remembrances of Gifft Hill - The Ghut - Part One

The Virgin Islands are steep and volcanic in origin. Basically the the whole Caribbean chain is a mountain range, the islands are the tops of those mountains sticking up out of the ocean. St. John rises from sea level to its highest point of 1277 feet at Bordeaux Mountain, boom, just like that. There is no gradual. The hills are all pushed together like a piece of fabric that's been casually wadded up and tossed on the floor. Roads and trails twist and turn and go up and down with very few places that are flat.

In between all the folds of hills there are ghuts (pronouced "gut".) Ghuts are dry washes or gullies. (I don't know where the word ghut comes from it's not in my big dictionary. It might be Danish.) When it rains little ghuts feed into large ghuts which feed into big ghuts that carry the water to the sea. When we have heavy rainstorms (floods) in the islands we call them ghut washes. But no matter how hard it rains, a ghut never runs for long. Once the rain is over, the flow stops within a few days and the ghut dries up within a week to ten days. My sister and I, along with various friends, explored many ghuts as it was exciting to discover either where they originated or where they ended. They were most fun to explore after a good rain because when the ghuts were running, there were small waterfalls and pools full of tadpoles. They are transformed from dry rocky stream beds into a wet magical fairyland. We could sit in pools and have water pour over us. We could pretend we were in Hawaii or the Amazon or some other equally exotic wet place.

When Heber Thomas finally showed me and Erva where the trail was that led to a ghut he said had water in it year round, we were determined to go exploring. It just didn't seem possible that anything like that could exist. Year round pools of water? No way.

One Saturday Erva and I were left at home to our devises, something that didn't happen too often. Mom and Dad were probably working at The Garage in Cruz Bay. It was the perfect opportunity. We decided to take off into the bush in search of what was to become known in our family simply as The Ghut. Erva was 12, I was 8.

Erva, being a girl scout, brought along her girl scout knife and a canteen of water. We also made a couple of sandwiches. But most importantly we took our dog, Happy. We knew he would lead us back home if we did get lost. Happy was one of those dogs, if he took it into his head that he didn't want to be left alone at home, would track us down. He'd found us several times, at The Garage, at Trunk Bay. These places weren't just down the road, they were three to five miles away. He'd just suddenly show up, all happy to see us and demanding to know, "Why didn't you let me to come too and go get me some water I'm thirsty." So Erva and I felt very confident about charging into unknown territory when we had Himself with us.

It's difficult to describe what we saw, what we experienced, as we pushed our way down the steep trail that was partially overgrown mostly with wild pineapples and catch-n-keep. The wild pineapple, locally known as ping wing, is a bromelliad. It's two and three foot long leaves have spines all along the edges. The tip of the leaf is needle sharp. The whole plant can grow to three and four feet across and that tall as well. From their centers, like regular pineapples, a flower stalk will form, but instead of producing a single fruit, these plants produce a large cluster of almond-shaped fruits about the size of a kiwi. They turn yellow when they're ripe and are edible but extremely astringent. They cause your mouth to dry up and tingle. These plants grow in big massed clusters and are just about impossible to get through. I wish a had a picture to show you.

Catch-n-keep, an Acacia, is a viny bush. It drapes itself over anything that gets in its way and is a predominate plant in the bush. From a distance it is quite pretty with its feathery emerald green leaves. And when it blooms, as in the picture below, the hillsides are covered with large patches of white. It can look for all the world as if there has been a dusting of snow.

But every inch of it is covered in tiny hooked barbs.

It ain't called catch-n-keep for nothin'. The thin, flexible, vine-like branches catch hold of whatever brushes against it and the more you tug in an effort to pull away, the more those little hooks dig in. There are only two ways to become untangled. One is to cut off the offending branches and gently pull them off or to carefully go forward into the bush so the hooks are loosened and gently extricate yourself. It is rather like those Chinese finger cuffs where the harder you pull to release your fingers, the tighter it becomes. You have to push the ends together to get free. It's the same sort of principle with the catch-n-keep. The only thing is, no matter how careful you are, you are bound to get scratches.

Erva and I, being either stupid or brazen bush-babies wore shorts and sneakers and probably sleeveless shirts. Suffice it to say Erva did battle with the ping wing and the catch-n-keep using her knife to cut away the spiked leaves and clawed branches but neither of us was spared a few sharp pokes or long scratches.

After we broke through the needles and thorns the trail opened up a bit. Now it was lined with maran bush (a wild sage) with its dusty silvery somewhat itchy leaves that were used for scrubbing pots. Down and down and down the hillside we went. The farther down we went the more open and the less tangled with bush the trail became, the more trees appeared. The trail was probably kept open by cows and goats foraging for food. Eventually we came to place where the trail crossed a small wash. We could see where it picked up on the other side but debated about whether to follow the wash to the left, or continue on the trail which sort of went to the right, but more straight ahead. We chose to follow the path. Since this was a fork in the "road" Erva made marks in the trees with her trusty knife.

We were now in a different environment. We were under a canopy of trees, genips mostly, but also mompoos and towering gre-gre trees. (Couldn't find a link.) There was also lots of wild tamarind and crumberries. I believe crumberries and guavaberries are the same thing. The crumberry trees produce dark blue-purple berries that look like a blue berry. They are delicious too. Wild tamarind is a member of the Mimosa family. It is very prevalent and can be kind of obnoxcious but at least it doesn't have thorns.

So there we were at the bottom, in a deep narrow valley between the hills. We had survived the claws of the dragon, the itching powder of witches, and had been rewarded for our bravery with cool shade. It was quiet down there, peaceful. The trail wound among the trees for a little way and then emptied itself into...the biggest, widest, most rock and bolder-strewn ghut either of us had ever seen.

Stay tuned for The Ghut - Part Two.

Haiti Update

My sister Erva, a member of Rotary St. Thomas II, District 7020, sent me the following letter from Past District Governor Dick McCombe, an update as of January 31st. It sheds some light on what is happening in Haiti, and the difficulties Rotary is experiencing.

Dear all,

Sorry about the delayed update but we are working on a number of issues and none of them seem easy right now. As you know we are re-evaluating the situation with an emphasis on our Haitien Family of Rotary and where we need to go from here. We obviously have many of the supplies and assistance that was originally called for still coming in and are processing it through onto the ground daily. The status reports by region and for our Quake Zone clubs should be in by later tomorrow so a clearer update will be posted then. We have Dr. Greg Hoeksema, a fellow Rotarian from Cayman on the ground doing a medical evaluation of supplies and equipment. He is done in the Pignon area and is going to Cap Haitien tomorrow and onto Port de Paix Tuesday (Feb. 2nd) evening.

President Shaun Ingraham, and Tyson from the Eluthera Rotary Club are on the ground and on their way into Port au Prince tomorrow morning with the Director of Habitat for Humanity. He is going to be texting out information to us, so that should help with our insight. I just spoke to him and he will be providing me with his sense of the situation later on today.

The entire education system in the country has been shut down. Not one child anywhere going to school. There is slow movement now to begin to reopen Missionary and Private Schools although the Education Ministry has not officially permitted that yet and they have no clear strategy to do so. The transient population with children arriving in their respective new communities may well never get back to school unless we do something. I have a call out for BIG Tents, Circus or MASH type tents. There were in excess of 300 schools destroyed in the PaP area alone so this challenge is a big one. The children, orphaned or not, need a place to get together and play and socialize at the very least soon, so keep that in mind as you search for the tents.

Food and Shelter is still a core need. For food be sure its more in the way of beans, rice, protein supplements, baby formula etc. Tents, sleeping matts, blankets, clean clothing etc. We have our Florida Rotary Friends setting up 10 40ft containers throughout the State to collect food and shelter items. We are hoping to ship 8 containers from Nassau as well this week. We are still at the point where we can buy supplies in Haiti so money still works. Certainly for the long term and for the bigger longer term projects, money will be the most necessary.

Through the high tech capability of our District I was able to go live on REACH radio in the BVI's yesterday thanks to Don. Good job Don.

Transportation into and on the ground is a difficult and an ever-changing process. The last flight we sent in was met by a road block and an unruly crowd with sticks. The UN, police, and Dr. Guy put down the unrest but it is getting more complicated and difficult there as you can imagine. The people are getting more and more desperate as the population numbers in these rural communities increases and supplies dwindle. There are also Political factions now using the opportunity to try to build a constituency and some control by having the goods in their possession. More to come on this as I better understand it.

We had some issues with some of our supplies being taken yesterday by force by the French Army. It's a clear sign that the coordination of all the relief in Haiti is and will continue to be a BIG challenge as we go forward. On a good note, 40,000 lbs of supplies from the Sint Maarten / St. Marten area clubs got through to Rotary's storage in PaP after a very complex transportation route, so we can get it done.

We are setting up a more permanent and defined response committee for the ongoing relief. Our 1st meeting is 4:00PM tomorrow and I will share the structure of it with you after the meeting.

Have a good day
PDG Dick

Remembrances of Gifft Hill - Herber Thomas

We were the first white people to live up at Gifft Hill, a rather isolated place, three miles from Cruz Bay. The road to Gifft Hill was a mile long dirt track with deep ruts and places that were more like a rocky stream-bed than a road. We had to use four-wheel drive, low transfer the whole way.

Our nearest neighbors were the Thomases who lived about a quarter of a mile away.

Old Man Heber Thomas was a tall lanky man. He talked very fast and as if he had small pebbles in his mouth. It was often difficult to understand him. It may surprise many to learn that on an island only nine miles long and five miles wide we could tell where a person was from by the way he or she spoke. People from Coral Bay sounded different from those who were from Bethany or Cruz Bay or Gifft Hill.

Heber Thomas lived in a two room shack with his wife Victoria, and Erla a girl who lived with them and helped with chores. They had a glorious view of St. Thomas and Pillsbury Sound. Victoria was bed-ridden. I think it was due to arthritis. Sometimes she was placed in a chair in the doorway to catch the sun, but most of the time she was propped up in bed. Hers was the first "old lady" smell I remember smelling. There was something musky about it, something sour and something sharp. She must have been, in her youth, a pretty woman because I remember her as having traces of pretty still lingering in her round face, peeking out from behind the wrinkles of her smile, and hiding in the tight braids of her thick white hair.

The Thomases shack, like most every one's (for most of the population, including us, lived in tiny wooden homes. We called our shack The Castle) was spotlessly clean. And their clothes, though worn and well patched, were also clean and ironed with a "goose," an iron into which you put charcoal embers.

Old Man Herber ran goats on his property along with a few cows and chickens. He also had a mule. One time either his dogs or someone elses killed one of his pregnant nannies. For some reason I was there a short time after he'd started butchering the goat, which he'd strung up in a tree. I remember seeing the pair of nearly ready to be born kids, still in their watery sacs lying on the ground. It was a sad sight, and Herber Thomas was obviously (even to me at 8 or 9 years old) very upset.

Because we had a kerosene refrigerator we had ice, a luxury back then. Almost every day Erla would walk the quarter mile to our shack with a rum bottle full of cow's milk in exchange for a tray of ice cubes. Sometimes we exchanged ice for eggs.

The Thomases didn't have a cistern, like we did, for catching rain water. What they had were four or five 55 gallon drums covered with cheese cloth and/or lids to keep the mosquitoes from laying their eggs in the water. Another of Erla's jobs was to go down to the "Monte reservoir" or catchment once a week to bring back water if there hadn't been enough rain to keep their barrels full. It was only about 1/2 or 3/4 of a mile away, but the road was very steep and rocky. Going down was easy, but coming back up...it was tough. Once we got our donkey, Erasmus, Erva and I helped Erla with the water hauling. Herber's mule and Erasmus were loaded with dumb boxes each of which carried four, five gallon tins. The tins were lidless. To keep from losing water on the return trip we put branches of genip leaves on top of the water. The leaves acted like a shock absorber and kept the water from sloshing over the sides of the tins. If memory serves me right, we set out fairly early in the morning and got back by noon.

Water was a precious commodity. Conserving it was something everyone did, not because it was the cool thing to do, but because we had to. Rain was our only source. There were no wells or springs, and if it didn't rain for a while, if there was a drought, everyone suffered.

So, when Old Man Herber Thomas told my sister and me that before the catchment had been build there was a place, a ghut with pools, where people had gone year round to get water, we were incredulous. He said slaves had hidden out there when they went maroon and that there were trails to it off of the Gifft Hill road.

Erva and I wanted to know where those trails were, but Heber Thomas kept the secret to himself for sometime. Maybe he was testing us. Maybe he was making sure we were worthy of knowing the secret. But finally, after a certain amount of pestering, he showed us where the trail head was, hidden by spiky wild pineapples and barbed catch-n-keep. As soon as we knew where the trail began, Erva and I vowed that one day we would go exploring. The idea of a ghut with year-round pools of water was hard to believe.

Stay tuned for The Ghut.

Crime and Punishment

Times were quiet on St. John in '50s and early '60s. There was very little drama. People lived their lives, took care of their families, and enjoyed their friendships. We were a village where everyone knew everyone.

When something did happen it was a big deal. Years before we moved to St. John there had actually been a double murder. The murderer was released from jail not long after we arrived and as children, when we saw him pass, we would hide, afraid of being seen by him. Then there was the time a house burned down and the occupant was killed in the fire. And there was a man who killed himself. These were huge tragedies because all of us knew the people involved, knew their families. These kinds of things were personal and the incident would be talked about for months.

But mostly, St. John was a sleepy place where we kids were free to roam, our parents' only concern being that we might get hurt while scrambling over the rocks like goats or falling out of trees.

We had a collection of characters like Old Mr. Penn, who, no matter how drunk he got could dance with a beer bottle balanced on his head. Or the Russian tenor, John (Ivan) Jadan, or the mystery writer, Richard "Duke" Ellington, or Miss Agnes who had to give you something to eat if you passed by her house, or Trumps the humpback who swept the park.

Then there was Leroy Smalls. He was our resident thief.

Everyone knew Leroy was a thief. Mostly he stole fruit like mangoes, guavas or limes off of Neptune Richard's fruit trees. Then he would try to sell them. When he came around with, say, a bag of limes the question would be, "And where did you get these limes, Leroy?" To which he would adamantly reply he had gotten them off his own tree. But everyone knew he had no lime tree of his own. His thieving was harmless and for the most part tolerated.

But one time he stole a suitcase. Why he would steel a suitcase is beyond me. I doubt seriously he needed it to go somewhere. If he had ever been farther than St. Thomas or Tortola I'd be surprised. But none the less he stole a suitcase, was caught, put in jail, and had a trial.

At the end of the trial Leroy was given a sentence of a few more days in jail where he would be well taken care of and fed three meals a day. But Leroy had other plans. He got up, went to the front of the courtroom, picked up the suitcase (which had been used as evidence) and started to walk out with it.

Our fine and wonderful policeman, Captain Jurgen, said, "Leroy, where you tink you goin' wid dat suitcase?"

And Leroy said, "Well, tis mine. I teef it."

That was the extent of crime and punishment on St. John.

Haiti: Rotary's Unsung Relief Effort

My sister Erva is a member of Rotary. Her club is part of a district that includes Haiti. No where on the news has Rotary, and what they have done, been mentioned. They were the first ones on the ground after the quake, the first ones to begin bringing in supplies. And, as a side note, little Tortola one of the British Virgin Islands, an island smaller than St. Thomas, with a population of about 23,000, raised in one day, $100,000. They are aiming for $200,000. GO ROTARY! Below is an email I got from Erva describing some of what Rotary has been doing. Pleases go to the link and read about Rotary's efforts to relieve the suffering.

There are a lot of unsung heroes - including the Rotary Clubs in District 7020 (and Haiti has 17 Clubs and is a member of this District). As of yesterday, we have been responsible for 57 flights filled with medical personnel and (55,000 pounds of) medical supplies, plus we have, through the Clubs in Haiti, coordinated the ground efforts to get the stuff distributed where it needs to go.

Red Cross makes the news. Rotary doesn't. If you'd like to know more about what we've already done - and we're going to be doing a lot more, check out www.clubrunner.ca/7020. This site serves as a link to all of the Clubs in the District and to Rotary International as well. Through this site, you can see what's been happening internationally, too. However, since the Haiti Clubs are literally our sisters, District 7020 has really jumped on this one...and NO ONE knows about it!

We'll probably do more for the re-building of Haiti than just about anyone. We need to watch and see. Rotary has just about wiped out Polio.

Yeah - I'm a bit passionate about this one. Am doing my thing to make sure that our efforts are part of my Club's weekly radio program.

Want to make a donation? Send it to our Rotary District and we'll see to it that another plane lands where there are no airstrips!