I met my friend Nick on the two day run up from St. Helena
to Ascension Island. Tourists don’t much visit Ascension, so this was a ferry
full of “Saints” like Nick, residents of St. Helena, on their way back to
contract work up at Ascension. Nick has a shop in the village of Two Boats.
Nick and I sat drinking beer in the open air aboard the RMS St. Helena, out on deck behind
the indoor sun lounge. We were escaping the games inside, bingo and the like, meant
to entertain passengers grown weary of no sight of land for a couple of days.
Nick spoke in quick half-sentences. He’d make a point and
give a knowing nod and a smile, like he’d just heard himself and agreed with
what he said. An altogether agreeable, upstanding presentation. And he had some
things to say:
“St.
Helena got its problems, y’know? Some people makin’ a fortune. Guy goes off to
the Falklands to work, lives almost like a slave. Livin’ in dormitories,
cleanin’ up after the Brits. He gets free travel, now, but he makes what, five
grand a year, comes home and a house gonna cost him twenty. No way to live.
And
a man ought not have to go away to earn a living anyway. Here I go to
Ascension, been there eleven years. Now the good thing: the way you can raise
kids. It really is good. I’m bringin’ my son because I have a little shop and
my wife, she teaches. No lockin’ doors, keys in the car. 900 people, maybe a thousand,
right? Somebody ever takes something, eventually you find it.
Now
they have these clubs, a man doesn’t need money, just sign and have a beer, pay
for it on payday. He don’t pay, he can’t leave the island, they take his last
paycheck or somethin’.
Sometimes
I say no at my shop. A boy come in, wants a case of beer, if he can’t pay I say
no. Otherwise I end up with no beer and no money to buy more. But my father
taught me never say no if a man is a couple a pounds short for his kid’s shoes.
Makes
him a loyal customer. I only need forty, fifty, then I can keep my family and
go on one good holiday a year. No great place, South Africa on the ship. But
too many people tryin’ to make too much, messin’ up everything. Makin’ a false
economy.
But
if you leave St. Helena and your kids behind, Grandma has to raise ‘em and she
can’t keep up and they go wild like feral cats. You come back they’re a problem
and the next generation bound to be worse.
Like
down at Donnie’s. It’s a shame they have to play that music, black American
thing, sayin’ “bitch” and all. Kids don’t have to grow up that way. Used to be
different. Used to have respect. Now a kid behaves bad and you tell him, he say
“that’s for my Mother to tell me.”
They
don’t need all those cars. They should do a park and ride. Crazy everybody
rushin’ to the middle of town. Some of them drive there in the morning leave
their car there all day. They could have just walkin’ there and tables instead
of cars and you could eat….
(Cars and trucks line the tiny main street in Jamestown, St. Helena Island.)
Can’t
make a parking lot. Can’t tear this down, can’t tear that down, cause it’s
always been there. And some businesses don’t need to be there, y’know?
Wholesalers oughta move out, quit cloggin’ everything up. But the idea is, I
bought this car and you can’t tell me where to go. Same thinkin’ everywhere.
They build an airport and you go up to the gate and whistle, your friend come
over and the bag never gets on the plane. Y’know? That’s the kind of thinkin’.
Grinds
people down. Some people make too much money, some people really poor, best thing
they want is maybe a broken down second hand car. They just never gone
anywhere, never seen anything in the world.
Now
I been eleven years on Ascension. I been lucky. Time for me to go back to my
business on St. Helena. My father died young. Not young, 62. My mother died in
her 50’s. Lucky, my Auntie keeps my business back home. Won’t say I’ll never go
back to work on Ascension. You get really big fish there, you know?”
*****
(More photos from St. Helena Island in the South Atlantic Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)
