Eleuthera Diaries

NO NEWS -- The world’s troubles are playing themselves out in several notable ways here on Eleuthera. The sun may be shining, but there are dark clouds here as well.

The Nassau Guardian daily newspaper has cut off delivery of the daily paper to Eleuthera, and presumably other of the Out Islands. In announcing the change, the paper acknowledged that the cost of ferrying small batches of papers to these not-so-remote outposts had become prohibitive. The news is available online, they said, repeating an all-to-common alternative.

This raises a number of troubling issues. For any of the Out Islands, they are now yet one more step removed from the parliamentary processes that govern them. With limited television and radio news as well, the daily paper was a way for locals to stay on top of the news of their nation that could impact their lives and livelihoods.

On a much more local scale, the demise of the newspaper amounts to a further isolation for one elderly Eleutheran woman who’s “job” it was to deliver the papers to her friends and neighbors. At age 80+, you’d think perhaps she would have easier things to do than drive around with the paper. But it connected her and, by extension, others in the community who relied upon her arrival each day. Certainly the word-of-mouth news system will remain intact, as it has been for generations. But that’s no substitute for the real thing.

What alternative do the locals have for information. Well, radio and TV will provide some of that – though most people get their TV by satellite, which means they don’t necessarily get Nassau TV. As for a local newspaper, there is the Eleutheran, the local monthly newspaper… though it is spotty. Word at The Market grocery story is the February edition has yet to be published and the month is half gone.

As for the Internet – well, yes, the Guardian and the Eleutheran are available online. But online is off limits to many people on this island. And so they rely on word of mouth – or they remain not-necessarily blissfully ignorant.


LOCAL OPPORTUNITY – One bit of silver lining in the dark clouds of the world’s economic meltdown that is touching this island is there is suddenly an opportunity to strike a new balance between natives and foreigners.

While Eleuthera has been here for centuries, it didn’t arrive on the modern map until the 1950s and ‘60s, when American capitalists like Juan Tripp of TWA, Arthur Vining Davis (Alcoa Aluminum), several Boston financiers, and others “discovered” it and planted the flag of development in the pursuit of luxury living. These men built a resort, golf course, and airstrip on the southern end of the island, and then invited their rich friend to come on down. That spurred a bit of a boom that, despite ups and down, has proceeded fairly smoothly for years. Club Med came (and was later washed out by a hurricane). British royals including Lord Mountbatten and Princess Diana parked their beach umbrellas on Windemere Island, the same beach I am overlooking as I write this. Then came Lucy Baines Johnson… and more recently, Mariah Carey. The story is the same in other parts of this island, notably Harbour Island at the far northern tip of Eleuthera, which is like the Hamptons of the Bahamas. Basically, wealth brought the wealthy, and that paved the way for more average types who could afford the million-dollar price of home ownership or the more reasonable rates at various small resorts.

This set up the familiar push/pull of prime real estate that once was the native environment of locals who, on their own, hadn’t the means to do more than eke out a living from the sea or the land, but who were graced with easy access to the natural resources and considered them available for all to share. But as developers bought up oceanside parcels, sliced them into houselots, and put up fences and gates, slowly the locals have been losing their access to the water. Pristine stretches of beach that once were gathering spots for family Sunday picnics or Friday-night fish fries have been taken off the local map. And where once a small cinderblock house at waters edge meant an easy place to put in your skiff to catch some fresh fish or dive for lobster, today that location is impossible to find, and the locals are being forced inland and out of sight.

But as the world credit markets have ground to a halt, so has nearly all development on this island. Talk with a local and the list of developments that are stalled slips easily off their tongue – Cotton Bay, Sky Beach, a Kerry-Heinz condotel here on Windemere (yes, apparently THAT Kerry-Heinz).

That means two things for the locals. Most critical is the obvious loss of income. No new houses means no construction jobs. And what work there is now pays a lot less. Carpenters and masons who, a year ago, earned $150 a day, now have to settle for $90, if they can get work at all.

But the upside here is that land values are falling too and so, for anyone with some money to invest, it is a good time to buy.

How does that help the locals? Beyond the obvious wishful thinking of “when this crisis turns around” there is another opportunity at hand. A local consortium is pulling together investors to purchase land and build affordable, good-quality homes for locals in an entrepreneurial-cum-economic-development model. Because the price of construction will be lower (by 30 or 40 percent), people who have solid jobs and good credit will have a chance to get out of the rental market and make an investment in a more stable future for themselves. The construction jobs will put food on local tables and money into local stores. And, along the way, some of the land being targeted for this project could end up reestablishing locals’ connection and access to the beach.

ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT – Shaun Ingraham is a man of many hats and abilities. Member of a long-upstanding Eleutheran family, Shaun is like so many others who live in rural or isolated locales – in a word, he’s industrious. Success for him is measured in a variety of ways. In more or less equal parts, Shaun is a carpenter, construction foreman, property manager, social entrepreneur, civic activist, fundraiser… A natural networker and an actual minister, he is the sort of fellow that inspires others to help out in whatever way they can because they believe in him as much as they believe in his cause(s).

Shaun has his hands on many projects. He is overseeing the comings and goings of tourists at a few rental villas. He is managing the construction of a new vacation home. He is nearing completion on a year-plus community project to fund, build, equip, and man a new fire and rescue station for South Eleuthera, complete with modern fire truck, ambulance, and all the latest disaster equipment, for which he has done fund raising both on and off island. (Through a typical networking connection, he was paired up with New York City firefighters, who have helped provide equipment and training.) He is the linchpin in a program to bring nursing students and faculty from his alma mater, Emery University, to the island to run medical clinics and to provide on-site certification training for local nurses so they don’t have to leave the island to advance their careers. He is spearheading the aforementioned low-cost home building project. And when duty calls, he does disaster relief work in several third-world countries through the World Council of Churches and Habitat for Humanity and continues to work on fund raising activities for these efforts.

He’s a pretty well-rounded guy, who in conversation can switch from his appreciation for smart TV shows like Boston Legal and Big Love, his appreciation for Facebook, to his insights on his current reading matter – Team of Rivals, the book about Lincoln’s cabinet choices that Barack Obama credits with part of his political strategy. He can go from amusing exchanges about the weather (usually the benefits of his versus yours) to savvy views on the global business and cultural impact of Diageo, the international beverage conglomerate, or Chinese labor policies. He is a unique combination of local and worldly – his love for his home island is genuine, he views of it far beyond parochial, his horizon somewhat infinite.

BEACH READING – Having left John Adams at home (too heavy to lug on the plane) and having ripped through a Stone Barrington detective novel, I’ve picked up Herman Wouk’s classic Don’t Stop the Carnival for a second read. It’s an entertaining story, and in these uncertain times, gives one a good reason to think about career and life trajectories. There could be worse things than packing up, moving to a tropical island, and running a beach hotel and bar…