Photographed my Brenda L. McCartney
At eleven o’clock the moon gleamed over the sea, silver slivers of coiled moonlight in Long Bay Beach, San Salvador. My tent was pitched and I decided to soak in the once in a life time experience as I bonded with the earth. Like Christopher Columbus in 1492 who camped on the same beach where he spent two days trading with the island’s inhabitants, I too camped for two days, swam and delighted my self with food from the ‘natives.’ During the day and early in the night the sea was “smooth as a pond with the placid expanse of water.”
As I lay on the shore in the wee hours of the morning as the tide rose, the large lake interior became turbulent. In Columbus’ journal he claimed that he saw islands in many directions from San Salvador. Rum cay is twenty miles south west of San Salvador and Long Island is immediately nearby. After observing the topography and having a peak of the map it gave the exact co-ordinates and location that he outlined. Yes there were rolling hills on the islands. Do you remember the post in which I highlighted that some residents of Cat Island claimed that Cat Island was the place Christopher Columbus first landed in The Bahamas? Well, after visiting Cat Island and San Salvador I too concur with Michael Craton in his book “History of the Bahamas” that San Salvador (Watling islands) was the place that Christopher Columbus uttered those “momentous words Tierra Tierra.”
On the ground I lay
Silver slivers of coiled moonlight
My body embraces the earth
History hardens as it settles
The sea shimmers from the romance of the moon
The sand ignites with white thoughts
Presence of the past assembles
Appropriate thoughts roars from the sea
Lured his affirmations on over- stuffed pillows
As his landfall monuments towers
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Poem Written by Brenda L. McCartney
Image taken from Blog Skins
There are certain terms, inflections, idioms, colloquialism, slang, buzz words, expressions specific to islands or countries. At this moment I am thinking about the colloquial words that abound in our native island’s speech. Sometimes it maybe difficult to decode and these expressions are literally and hardly ever found in the dictionary. Yet we know our own particular slang patterns very well.
I remember one Christmas Enrique and I went to Montserrat and he ran to me and said that the girl sitting on the stools at the bar is from The Bahamas. I told him no way, I asked why did he think so. He said her accent, what she said. He also noticed the distinct design of her jewelry, which looked to him to be Bahamian bought, particularly the design of her wedding band. At that very minute my brother who came in on a flight with her told Enrique that the girl at the bar was a Bahamian. Yes, Enrique gave me the look; how dare I do not believe that he did not know his own people.
Okay, so I called my Aunt late one night hoping she would be up, she said she just finished washing her dishes and “lock off de light” and why am I calling her this ‘odd hour of night’ I recalled for years I could not stop using the term when I was going to turn off the light.
The other day, my friend was saying to me she will never forget when she visited Cat Island and she asked a lady how may children she had. She said “I been behind that door five times” which means she had five children. I have heard the term “coat suit” which is a sometime used Bahamian expression for a “three piece suit” several times and each time it brings the same chuckle as it did the first time. Often it is used as an outright joke when someone is dressed up as in “Why you so dress up in your coat suit?”
I hope that you can share a light moment with your friends or co-workers the slang terms, colloquialisms even idioms that you may find of interest. Enjoy your day or what is left of it my friends!
Recently I have been thinking about the accumulation of wealth (possessions, experience, and relationships). These are the things that are very precious to people. We protect them, ponder them and hold them tightly in mind and the mere thought of it may give delight and pleasure. A few months ago I visited Cat Island for the third time but this time my experience was none like I have encountered before. I climbed the highest Point of Cat Island with six others. There were two choices a more gradual path and there was a steeper path. I took the steeper path and each step was an experience within itself. On the way upward were Stations of the Cross. As I passed the Stations of the Cross; I noticed that they were carved out of stone, all the way up to the summit. Just being up there for a while was an emotional recovery and an experience of solitude; in a dramatic way. The atmosphere was very tranquil and calm. There were others with me but at times it seemed that I was all alone.
This takes me back to Jerome Hawes, a British man who constructed the Stations of the Cross on the side of the hill. He died about 54 years ago but those structures still stand strong. It does strike me that he came from an affluent family and gave it all up to live in such simplicity. He purchased the highest hill in Cat Island which is also the highest point in the Bahamas where he built (due to his diminutive size) a model of a miniature abbey. He was ordained as an Anglican Priest but converted to Roman Catholicism and built a few churches in the process (from Long Island to Cat Island and beyond.)
He is entombed at the hermitage; which is a living testimony to the values which altered and governed in his life. He did not seek reputation or fame but he came to be recognized as a world renown architect, a philosopher, a poet, and sculptor. Father Jerome Hawes gave up all his treasures and came to Cat Island in The Bahamas to seek solitude and to live in poverty.
It is ironic that if it were not for his vast wealth he would be unable to buy the hill on which he built the monastery and he would not been able to build the churches that he built (using his own funds) and he more than likely would not be able to afford the education which gave him the architectural “know how.” Yet he chose to live in utter destitution while spending his money in doing “God’s work.” This tells me that having wealth is not bad in and of itself but we should be very prudent in how we choose to use what we are given.
The Washington Post article of Fr. Jerome.
Photographed by Brenda L. McCartney
According to the Oxford dictionary history is defined as a continuous, usually chronological record of important or public events.
I visited Cat Island a few weeks ago and am still drawn back to the recent experience I had. Cat Island is one of the island of Bahamas 700 islands and Cays. The highest hill in the Commonwealth of The Bahamas of 206 feet can be found on this island. History records Columbus landfall in the Bahamas was in San Salvador. I learned that the island now called Cat Island was so named in the twenty first century; Cat island was called Guanima, Columba or San Salvador
We spent the day with a group of teenagers. A teenage girl who travelled with us was born in Cat Island recounted her grandmother’s stories who is now 96 and has never left Cat Island. She said that her Grandmother’s birth certificate states she was born in the district of San Salvador. The Cat Islanders further highlighted that the description of San Salvador that Columbus gave was characteristically that of Cat Island. I have never been to the island that is now called San Salvador but I plan to visit the island to get a firsthand glimpse of its geographical layout of the rolling hills.
I smiled hearing the natives claim but can it be that history sometimes can be defined as someone’s view point verified by others documented for posterity.
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