Lost passports, HIV and sex

Monday November 29th

Last night we found two passports on the beach. It was Sunday evening and the beach had been very busy, we had gone there for our sunset swim. The people remaining on the beach were finishing off their picnics and packing to leave. The passports were in the sand under the bench where we always leave our towel when we swim. They had obviously fallen out of someone’s pocket.

We looked at them - brand new Jamaican passports of a young couple. They entered Antigua 5 days ago and had no other stamps but their boarding passes were slipped in the front covers. We looked at each other. What to do? Somehow we were reluctant to trust the police to locate the owners but we did not feel we could just leave them. After our swim we decided to ask in the small beach restaurant if they recognised the owners and amazingly they did. They had been the first customers of the day. Then unfolded a story we were not expecting to hear.

Often Jamaicans, it seems, come here “on holiday” and never intend to go home. They are trying to escape the violence on the island and see Antigua as a safe alternative. The manager in the restaurant did not want us to take the passports to the police for a very different reason to ours. If the police and immigration found that these people were here illegally it would mean that they would have to go home …”I would like to give the poor young people a chance. We have a Jamaican working here - I will see if she can trace these people first.”

Later in the day I walked past three young men clearing a building site. One was talking in a language that was not English or Caribbean English. I stopped to ask - “Spanish, he is speaking Spanish” one of them offered. “Where are you guys from?” I was feeling curious now that I had heightened awareness of the mix of people that find their way to Antigua. “the Dominican Republic”. We started to chat - I had so many questions and he shyly offered to call to my house to chat in his lunch break.

Ambe is 24 years old, a slight young man, quietly spoken and a shy manner. His hair is tightly plaited to his head and he wears a Caribbean hair-net to protect it while he is at work. He told me that the people from the Dominican Republic come here for the same reason as the Jamaicans. To get away from the violence, find a safe life. Antigua is seen as a good place because of the tourists and the yachts. He himself lives with his father who is from here, his stepmother, step brother and his Nigerian girlfriend in a big house (“it has four rooms, plenty of space for us all”) in St Johns. He has not seen his mother since he was five years old as she is still in Dominican Republic. They keep in touch by talking on the phone and sending photos to each other. The young man I met who spoke no English is a distant cousin “I am teaching him to speak English, Do you want to learn Spanish?”

One of the things Ambe and I talked about was children. We asked me about mine and I explained they were his age. He commented that I must then be about 35. I laughed and said that was not possible unless I was a really young mum, to which he answered that his people had children really young, “they do not plan”. “But you do, you have no children. And so did I”.

I am an avid reader of the Daily Observer, the very informative daily Antiguan paper. Sex, pregnancy and Aids/HIV are a constant subject of discussion. Apparently there has been an increase in the number of HIV infections (49 this year all in the age range 15-35) and an increase in teenage pregnancy this year over last showing that young people are not using condoms. Vince (our skipper on our weekend racing yacht who has a local wife) told us it is not unusual for a man here to father 80 children and that the mothers of these children are proud that the father is so virile. With this attitude it is very hard to change sexual behaviour.

Most of the people we socialise with are white, ex-pats. The island is very divided - rich white, poor black with a few notable exceptions and I am trying to understand why. The paper perhaps holds some clues. The boys drop out of education early. The girls are very studious, I quote from The Daily Observer … “Females seem to be in the driving seat in the acquisition of higher education and form the bulk of the intelligentsia, especially in the teaching profession.” Reporting on a conference on the subject of gender imbalance, and I quote again “ To some in the audience, the question that exercised their minds was, “Where have all the men gone?” The reply was an embarrassing “Perhaps to the jails?” it’s a chilling but real prospect……the inhabitants of our jails are extremely and overwhelmingly male dominated. This leads us to speculate what would have been the result if the inhabitants of our jails had opted for a life of positive intellectual contribution to the development of the Caribbean and our nation.”

But then something happens to the females … “Why have the females with their vast acquisition of superior education, not asserted themselves and more openly and positively, taken up their leadership roles in society? Have they disappeared into the inner workings of the system and are just biding their time? Or, has the society been male dominated for such a long time that they have laid low, accepting male dominance as being the natural order of things?…..”

I make no apologise for quoting the editorial of the paper, it illustrates many aspects of the society here and I am finding it very enlightening.

Of the ex-pats here the vast majority are “property developers” - this does concern me as there surely is a limit to how many new properties need to be developed. Some are already feeling the pinch, having sunk all their savings into property and now not able to sell or let. But still people speculate. As Vince said - “if it seems too good to be true - it probably is”.

Anyway, island life continues. I continue to learn about my surroundings and will continue to write about things that amuse, worry or interest me when the mood takes me. The main lesson here is that you do not need to be mad to live here but it certainly helps to be eccentric!