Sno-kone

When asked, I have found it hard to describe this island of St. Kitts -- a recently independent tropical island that is diligently trying to become a tourist destination. Its deep water port allows even the largest cruise ships to stop and pour tourists into downtown Basseterre, and temporarily fill the local beaches with sunbathing tourists. It is interesting to watch the dynamic of tourists mixing with Kittitians in an old island port city -- a symbiotic, but perhaps not altogether welcome relationship. It is also a bit disappointing to stroll through the a new shopping area built at the port, which is filled with typical tourist-trap stores carrying duty-free liquor and trinkets made in other parts of the world.

Yet, away from the docks, St. Kitts is alive with island culture mixed with traditions from its British-occupied past. The sugar cane fields, once some of the most productive in the West Indies, go un-harvested as of a few years ago. The sugar mill, a descendant of those that helped filled British coffers in the 1700s on the backs of slave labor, sits idle -- already slowly being reclaimed by island vegetation.

What happened to African slaves in mills like this one causes me to wonder what the old native cab driver thought as I took pictures of the mill. Now, more educated about the history of these islands by the movie Amazing Grace, I want to explore what people thought about the closing of something that represented such a history of repression, while generating needed income for a small island dependent on importing everything but water.
And then there are the beaches -- beautiful light-brown coral sand that melts under your feet, leading down to water of every shade of blue. It is easy to appreciate God's creation here -- a short walk into the volcanic rocks provides solitude with only the sound of rolling waves meeting the shore at your feet.