As some of you may
know but if you don’t, I’m from the British Virgin Islands which is a group of Islands located in the Caribbean neighbouring the United Sates Virgin
Islands and Puerto Rico. Some people think that Jamaica is the only island
located in the Caribbean but I’m here to tell you different and that there are
over more than 7,000 individual islands in the Caribbean.
I remembered one
morning in college rushing to my 8:30 English class and on the way I was
stopped by one of my classmates asking if I had completed my graded portfolio
and I replied yes and continued our conversation. He cut me off and told me
that I had a nice accent and proceeded to ask me where I’m from so I proudly told him
I’m from the Virgin Islands. Then he asked me which part of
Jamaica is that, so as I did in the paragraph above I had to explain to him
that the Virgin Islands is a separate set of islands in the Caribbean. After
thinking that the conversation was over I was then asked if Island people wore
bikinis everyday and chilled on the beach, if we had to hunt for our food to
eat, and if we lived in beach huts. To myself I was thinking is he really serious, but I answered his questions anyway.
We do not go to the beach everyday
From living in the U.K. to living in the United States I'm frequently asked if island people would go to the beach everyday and drink out of coconuts and to give you the honest sad truth, no we don't. During the day we either go to school or work our asses off to make a living and by the end of the day we're either home with our loved ones, out for couple drinks or even out exercising either in the gym or running long side of the road. Sometimes we even take our beaches for granted because we know it'll always be there and therefore don't make the effort to visit the beaches regularly as we should. Most times we would go to the beach on public holidays or when it is extremely hot. In 2018 I think I've been to the beach less than 10 times. To keep it real with you tourists and visitors take advantage of our beautiful islands more than us locals.
The Weather is Not Always Sunny and Beautiful
Watching commercials and advertisements on the internet and television can sometimes be misleading. I'm not saying that we don't have beautiful sunny days because most times we do and other times the weather is terrible. The weather can be very unpredictable, sometimes you'll wake up to a bright sunny day and then by mid day we will be under a flash-flood warning, for this reason we rarely study the weather app on our IPhones. Even with the rainy weather though we would still rejoice because our cisterns will be getting filled to have running water at home. I'm not going to lie, we as island people sometimes do have a love hate relationship for the hot sunny days because it can be so hot that all we want to do is turn the air conditioning up on the highest because of the heat wave. Sometimes it can be so hot that you'll see the heat haze from a far distance shimmering from the ground's surface.
We Do Not Ride Donkeys as Transportation
Long ago the old folks did ride donkeys to wherever they desired but we've came a long way from those days. We drive vehicles guys! But when we do ride donkeys its for our cultural celebration which is in November (British Virgin Islands), this is where cultural officials would visit different schools in the territory and would teach kids about our history and almost each child would have the opportunity to ride the donkey or pet it. But on the other note we drive actual vehicles lol.
We Do Not Live In Huts
"Do you guys live in beach huts?" is by far one of the most asked question I've ever gotten from people who know completely nothing about the island life. I can totally understand that questions like this is constantly asked from seeing pictures of resorts like Bora Bora and the Maldives but to be honest, well at least for the British Virgin Islands we live in well constructed concrete houses. Our houses are built from concrete to withstand natural disasters like Hurricanes where the winds can be very dangerous.
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