It's another Blog Off: where's your slice of heaven?
If it's the seventh of September, it must be another Blog Off day. A Blog off is an event when bloggers from all areas of interest write about the same thing on the same day. I'll have a list of participating bloggers at the end of this post but I won't have it complete until the end of the day. In the meantime, everybody who's participating is already listed on the Blog Off website.
The topic today is Where's your slice of heaven?
My slice of heaven isn't always a place, greater something that befell on the island of Grenada within the 12 months 2000. Although Grenada more than qualifies as a slice of heaven, I occurred upon the ones shorelines at the exact second I had to be there and I deliver what I discovered on that island with me all the time.
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If you do not know, Grenada's an independent nation inside the Eastern Caribbean. It sits off the coast of Venezuela and its closets neighbors are Trinidad and Tobago to the south and St. Vincent and the Grenadines to the north.
Grenada rings a faint bell for many Americans because the United States invaded it in October, 1983. Grenada had gained independence from Great Britain in 1974 and it remained a member of the British Commonwealth. Grenada's transition to independence was a rocky one and Sir Eric Gairy, the man who led Grenada to independence in the first place was behaving more dictatorially as time went on. In March, 1979, Maurice Bishop led a bloodless coup and took control of the country from Gairy. Gairy received asylum in the US. Maurice Bishop was a wildly popular socialist who was determined to bring his country into the 20th Century. Bernard Coard, a Bishop former colleague and friend turned political adversary, had other ideas. Coard was a Stalinist and raised his own army and on October 19th, 1983 he held a coup of his own. Coard executed Bishop and his cabinet.
Amid a lost of bluster and a media blackout, the United States invaded Grenada on October 25th, 1983. I was a freshman in college at the time and in a pre-CNN, pre-internet world, news came from three networks and the daily papers. I remember thinking that the whole thing was a Reagan Administration publicity stunt. Reagan made a great deal of political hay from it and despite the fact that it was a clear violation of International Law, the invasion was hailed in the US as a more or less painless victory.
According to what we were told at the time, the invasion was a cakewalk and a rollicking success. I remember the invasion being called Operation Urgent Fury and I remember being glad that no one died. People don't die in painless, bloodless cakewalks, do they? I knew that there had to be more to the story than we were being told in 1983 but at the same time, I thought I'd never know what the real story was.
Fast forward 17 years and some pals and I chartered a sailboat in the Country of Grenada. Grenada is a sailor's paradise. The waters surrounding it range from secluded calm spots among small islands and full fury of the open Atlantic. Besides, I'd in no way been to the developing world before and I idea it would be an exciting get away.
We sailed out of Mount Hartman Bay and rounded the southern end of the island on the primary day. We pulled into The Port of St. George's to address customs and inventory in extra provisions.
It become Palm Sunday weekend and the hills surrounding St. George's Harbor were echoing with a loud humming, whirring sound and for the life of me I couldn't discern out what mas making the sound. It changed into a super day and as we sailed into the harbor I felt like I'd been dropped in some type of a promised land. Grenada seems like no in which else I'd ever been. Though the island's notably small at a hundred thirty five rectangular miles, it has mountains tall enough to generate their own weather patterns. St. George's itself is incredible. It became mounted through the French in 1650 and the buildings along the harbor have the pink-tiled roofs of Nice.
We stopped in to see the dockmaster and upon seeing our white faces he asked, "Are you British or French?" I'd never been improper for anything but an American in my lifestyles and I chalked it as much as there being so few Americans on this a part of the arena. We filed out paperwork and paid our dock expenses. He advised us he'd be around later for a go to.
Going to the market in St. George's method going to the a actual market. As within the open-air type. I'd by no means been in some thing like it. It turned into packed to the gills with loud, giggling human beings and from anywhere came the sounds of ska and the fragrance of cinnamon.
We made our way lower back to the quay and set approximately making dinner.
After dinner, we were sitting on the deck and the dockmaster made his way over to us. He came aboard and we offered him a beer. He sat and we talked about general stuff mostly. He had all kinds of pointers for what to avoid and what to see during our adventure. He made no indication that he had to go anywhere and so we offered him another beer. I started asking him about his life, his family and his country. The other guys excused themselves one by one, they were lured by the sounds of a "Jump Up" that was taking place on the other side of the harbor. After an hour, it was just the dockmaster and me.
My first real question become about the whirring and buzzing I kept listening to even though the sun had long considering the fact that set. The sound become coming from the kites Grenadians fly for Easter. There's a reed whistle of some kind affixed to the kites after which the kites are tied to some thing immobile and left aloft.
As we sailed into St. George's in advance, we handed below the bombed out shell of a building. I knew it become a leftover from the US invasion and I become loss of life to invite the dockmaster for his tale about what had befell in the spot where we were sitting 17 years earlier.
After dancing across the topic for any other hour I requested. It's curious, curious factor to sit on my own with a person and ask him "What took place whilst my u . S . Invaded yours?" It's a good extra curious thing while a person who has each proper inside the international to hate you, doesn't.
He proceeded to tell me his story of the invasion. He loved Maurice Bishop and hated Bernard Coard. When he and his family realized that the US was invading them, they were at first relieved. Their relief was short-lived. The US Navy shelled the hills surrounding St. George's and what got hit got hit. Most of Grenada's civilian casualties came from a mental hospital that ended up in the cross hairs of the Navy I pay taxes to support.
To him, this was the story of his life and times. He was there. He lived it. He lived through the fight for independence, then two coups and a political assassination. But to me it was news. It was the version of the story I never knew about in 1983. The US invasion of Grenada wasn't some casualty-free cake walk. 69 Grenadians and 19 Americans were killed during that campaign. The names and faces of those dead never occur to the war mongers and Reagan's jokes of the time are even less funny now than they were then.
I failed to visit Grenada to get a political training, I just picked one up along the manner. We went directly to have an idyllic sail. The Coast of Grenada defies description. We had dinner in a own family restaurant in Carriacou. Family eating place in Carriacou approach we ate in a own family's domestic for $20 a head. We dived the Tobago Cays, bought lobster and lambi from boatboys on Union Island, experienced some of the roughest seas I've ever sailed in and I discovered that 8 days in a sailboat is ready six days too many.
Since the assignment was to discuss my slice of heaven, I picked Grenada because I don't think I've ever written about it before. As wonderful and amazing as Grenada and the rest of the Eastern Caribbean are, I'm not calling them slices of heaven per se. But Grenada, and my deck side conversation with the dockmaster marked a real change in how I see the rest of the world and ignited in me a pressing need to know how other people live. That sail was the first time I'd been somewhere and just let where I was reveal itself to me. Whether it's in the developed or the developing world, it doesn't matter. My goal when I leave the US is always the same, to sit still long enough to listen to the stories of unfamiliar places. The world's full of slices of heaven, you just need to get out of the way and notice that they're there.
If you're interested in reading more about the US's invasion of Grenada, please read The US Invasion of Grenada by Stephen Zunes . The photos I used for this post aren't mine. My trip there took place before the advent of consumer-grade digital photography. As a result, the only photos I have of my Eastern Caribbean adventure are 35mm prints. The photos shown here are from a kind Flickr member named shaggyshoo .
As of 8pm these days, the collaborating bloggers on this week's Blog Off are as follows:
| Veronika Miller | @modenus | Modenus Community |
| Paul Anater | @paul_anater | Kitchen and Residential Design |
| Rufus Dogg | @dogwalkblog | DogWalkBlog |
| Becky Shankle | @ecomod | Eco-Modernism |
| Bob Borson | @bobborson | Life of an Architect |
| Bonnie Harris | @waxgirl333 | Wax Marketing |
| Tamara Dalton | @tammyjdalton | Tamara Dalton Design Studios |
| Sean Lintow, Sr. | @SLSconstruction | SLS-Construction.com |
| Richard Holschuh | @concretedetail | Concrete Detail |
| Tim Bogan | @TimBogan | Windbag International |
| Hollie Holcombe | @GreenRascal | Green Rascal Design |
| Cindy FrewenWuellner | @Urbanverse | Urbanverse's Posterous |
| Steve Mouzon | @stevemouzon | the Original Green |
| Kevin Lee Allen | @klad2688 | KLAD Design |
| Jody Brown | @INFILLnc | Coffee with an Architect |
| Madame Sunday | @ModernSauce | Modern Sauce |
| Saxon Henry | @RoamingByDesign | Roaming By Design |
| Barbara Segal | @beachhousefinds | Beach House Finds |
| Jane Frederick | @JaneFredArch | Low Country Architect |
| Carrie Leber | @bloomacious | Carrie Leber PR Blog |
| Brian Meeks | @ExtremelyAvg | Extremely Average |
| Andrea Wolper | @AndreaWolper | Spin the Wheel |