St.Thomas Tourist Information, St.Thomas Vacation, St.Thomas Business, St.Thomas Tourist Guide, Beaches, Water sports, travel

St.Thomas Tourist Information, St.Thomas Vacation, St.Thomas Business, St.Thomas Tourist Guide, Beaches, Water sports, travel

Beaches

These days, I wish I could lighten my load…I am just as overwhelmed as everybody in the class and I need to release some of the stress and pressure of it all. Usually, when I feel this way I go to the beach. I swim day or night it make no difference, as long as someone else is there swimming too. The sea is cathartic, it cleanses me, it heals my wounds, it rejuvenates me. I haven’t been able to swim lately, I go to the beach but I sit and read and everybody, especially Kayla gets to swim, but not me. And we have great beaches in St. Thomas and better ones on St. John.

There is Magens, the most famous of them all, Coki the more rugged swimmer’s beach, Lindquist the controversial beach, and another seven or so that I can think of on St. Thomas. On St. John there is Maho, Trunk, Cinnamon, Lameshur, Hawknest and so many more beaches. In fact, when ever I go beach hopping I don’t do it on St. Thomas I do it on St. John because beautiful beaches are more in abundance over there. I can’t wait to swim again, I must make the time on my birthday which is next Saturday, the 7^th of July. If I do, I’ll ‘blog’ about it. Culture mom, signing out.

Back Then…

I was in St. Croix a few years ago when I was invited to sit-in on the monthly Ancestry Discovery meeting. That day Winthrop Hector and Cyril Barnes, born in 1915 and 1910 respectively were the guest speakers. Unbeknownst to me Richard Schrader, Sr., a very prolific oral tradition writer, was present and included the presentations by these men in his most recent book, Otto Tranberg of Mt. Washington and Nicolas and Other Stories.

We are fortunate to have Mr. Schrader and others like him to document the oral history of the Virgin Islands: Ms. Ruth Moolenaar, Mr Dimitri Copeman and Mr. Olasee Davis continue to interview and record the culture bearers and practitioners before it’s too late. They write social histories, c&h articles, and oral histories of some of the most fascinating Virgin Islanders you will ever meet. They weave a tapestry rich in detailed folklore and adventure that reveals the life of all, many years ago.

Mrs. Ruth Moolenaar - a retired education administrator - directed the publishing of Project Introspection, which was cultural education materials for public schools in the territory. In her golden years she wrote We From UpStreet, a social history of the UpStreet area, which is of great significance to the Virgin Islands. Dimitri Copeman is an artist and musical culture bearer considered to be the authority on Cariso and the history of Quelbe (our official music) in the Virgin Islands. Olasee Davis is an Ecologist and writes (almost) weekly articles on some aspect of our environment that links to our V.I. culture.

I am proud to know the Virgin Islanders mentioned here and I only hope that after all is said and done with this UPitt MLIS program, I can contribute half of what they have to the community of the Virgin Islands. Culturemom…

Pictures: Baobabs

Pictures: Baobabs

Neatorama » Blog Archive » 10 Most Magnificent Trees in the World.

Neatorama » Blog Archive » 10 Most Magnificent Trees in the World.

Baobab: My Favorite Tree

At one point in our history, the larger local hardwood and waterproof timbers were logged almost to extinction because they were used for boat-making. Others were smuggled in or introduced to these islands. Bamboo and several varieties of cane were imported from Asia for their resilience in hot climates and the baobab from Africa for its many nutritional uses. I think every kind of tree has its niche in the world; the trees of the Virgin Islands are no different.

The Baobab tree, named Adansonia Digitata for the French explorer Michel Adanson, is my favorite tree. It is rumored to have been smuggled to the West Indies by the enslaved Africans who used its succulent fruit and seeds to survive. The fruit pods hang down two feet from its branches, can weight as much as 12 pounds and contain as much as 400 seeds.

The baobab trees are considered one of the spirit or “Jumbie” trees; you may find alters built at the base of these trees and I even read that on another island the village elder places a pot and a spoon at the trunk of the tree so that when it got bored, it would have something to do. An interesting feature of baobab tree is how large and old they tend to be.

The largest and quite possible the oldest baobab tree in the Virgin Islands is in Grove Place, on the western end of St. Croix. It is three hundred years old, measures 55 feet - tree trunk diameter, and it happens to be hollow, which is not a bad thing for a tree that can grow to one hundred feet in diameter. The hollow centers of these trees have been used as wells, hurricane shelters , bars and prison cells. The Grove Place Baobab is a historical site and has witness the gathering of Queen Mary and the other women of the St. Croix Fireburn, as well as the gathering of David Hamilton Jackson and the first labor union meetings and strike.

There are other notable baobabs predominantly on St. Croix and in particular at Butler Bay. There are six gargantuan baobabs but originally there were more lining the entrance way to the estate. The sheer mass of these slow-but-sure growing trees will bear witness to many more years of life in the Virgin Islands. Culturemom, signing out.

The Fifth Virgin Islands Constitutional Convention

On June 12^th there will be a special election of delegates to the Virgin Islands’ fifth constitutional convention. What does this really mean for Virgin Island residents? It means that we will have an opportunity to elect members of our community to create a document of governance for and by the people. You see, we are currently being governed under the Revised Organic Act of 1954, which at this stage, has been amended too many times for the average person to keep count. The Revised Organic Act of 1954 was a modification to the Organic Act of 1936 and it was an adoption of the Colonial Laws of 1906. The latter was a document drafted by the Danish government to rule the Danish West Indian Colonies or the Virgin Islands as we are now called.

All this is really saying that we need a governance document that reflects the needs of the territory because it was written by the citizens of the territory. Now, as a United States Unincorporated Territory, Virgin Island residents still have American rights and privileges, but not all of them. This fifth constitutional convention will address some of those issues as well as one of the more controversial ones – who is a Virgin Islander. In previous conventions, this issue created the most disagreement among delegates and residence. Hopefully, this time they will come to some definition that befits the many and varied people of the Virgin Islands. Needless to say, I’ll be voting on the 12^th. Culturemom, signing out.